Team META (RWBY Fan Team)

Prologue Part 3: Breaking from the Past

(POV Tara)

Oh looks like it's my turn. Hello everyone my name is Tara and I am a fox faunus. I too have ears and a tail. I was born in Menagerie to a low class family of faunuses. It was just me, my father, and my mother. My father was a blacksmith and my mother was a teacher. I grew up listening to the stories my father told me about hunters and huntresses and the thrills and dangers that come with it. I knew from that point on I had to be one. I grew up learning how to fight with numerous weapons, but in the end settled on a bow. My dad and I worked on my own special bow which we called Skyfire. I would practice with others on my skills, and my dad would make sure my skills were at 100%; however, that would all turn come to an end, when "they" showed up. Everything after that turns dark.

I remember it all like a nightmare. I was thirteen years old when the four faunuses show up at my dad's shop and request him to return to the White Fang. My father refused as he had left for me and my mother's safety, not to mention he was disgusted about how they acted now. Suddenly though one of the faunuses lashes out at him. He fights back and soon I'm in the fray but one grabs my mother and holds his weapon to her neck. After that I'm knocked out and everything goes blurry for me. I remember wake up to find out that I'm alone. All I have with me is Skyfire. I find my way back to Menagerie and I run to my father's shop and it's deserted and torn up. My father and mother...gone. All I do is cry and cry and cry, but crying turns into screaming, and screaming turns into animosity. Fire circles my body and everything around me begins to burn. I realize it is my semblance and I call it Inferno. It activates when I'm extremely angry, sad, or scared. I engulf myself in flames, so I burn anything I touch or that touches me. With all though here I am.

As I stood at the front of the boat heading to Vale I shivered. All the thoughts that had been buzzing through my head.

"Excuse me." I turn around drawing my weapon to the person coming up to me... it was the captain.

"Oh I'm so sorry captain." I said as I retracted my bow and placed the arrow back in the quiver.

"Very interesting weapon you have there, Ms... ." Realizing his question, "Oh, Bloom. Tara Bloom."

He extends his hand. "May I see it?" Cautiously I gave him Skyfire. He looked at it as he also took the bow apart revealing it to turn into two swords. (Imagine Pit's bow. You know Kid Icarus.)

"Very nice craftsmanship. Did you make it yourself?" He asks as he hands me back in it's bow form.

"Actually I did, but I had help with my father. He has taught me almost all I know about making and using it." I switch my bow to it's inactive mode and place it on my hip.

The captain simply nodded his head at me. "So I assume your heading to Beacon Academy then, to become a huntress."

I nodded. "Yes when I got the letter from Professor Ozpin I fainted from excitement." We both started to laugh a little. Laughter, a sound I have forgotten for years.

"So are you nervous?" He asked me as he leaned on the boat's rail.

"I am a little about being a huntress. I feel like for some reason I will get kicked out."

He shook his head. "Not just that, but the tail and ears." Stunned, I turned around to see some people whispering and a couple pointing at me.

"To tell you the truth, I could care less." I lean on the rail next to him. "I've lived in Menagerie all my life and the humans I usually met were travelers or traders. I was fine with most of them, some... not so much." I pulled my top a little to show him the scar that went up my side. I pulled my top down and looked out to the open water.

"Well with that you'll just have to prove them all wrong." He started.

"Just stop right there. They're right to judge me. I'm not actually what you call a good girl." I sigh, "I've done terrible things, for selfish reasons."

He nodded again. "I understand where your coming from."

I turned to him. "How could you understand anything about me?"

He chuckled, "Because I had a friend who was just like you. She was kind, generous, and a faunus... but her past caught up to her." He too looked down at the water. Here I was, with a man I never met before, but we were talking to each other like we've known both for years.

"Captain," one of the sailors approaching us. "We are about to reach our destination sir." He turned with a simple smile.

"Thank you Michael, I'll be their in a minute." He nodded and walked away. "With that Ms. Bloom, I bid you farewell." With a tip of his hat he too walked away. Sure enough in a couple of minutes there it was.

"Look out, Vale, because this is my time." I say to myself walking up to the front of the boat as I begin the new chapter in my life.