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3 snakes basked atop a partially submerged broken piece of skyscraper, enjoying the sun's rays. Each of them were at least 3 meters in length and seemed to be a hybrid of a boa constrictor and king cobra.[break][break]

One of them slowly awoke, hissing irritability at the sudden wind chill that swept in as it glanced toward the sky.[break][break]

It was confused when it saw no change in the weather and was about to Hiss at its companions when a blast of cold wind slammed into all three of them, startling the other two awake as ice began to creep up their scales.[break][break]

The attack was quickly followed up by a gale of electrified wind, severely shocking and killing 2 of the snakes. The last one was barely clinging to life when a beak made of ice slammed into its head, killing it.[break][break]

"You guys can have that one. I'll be taking the other two" Aliyah stated as she alighted atop the building, framed by her summons.[break][break]

The two didn't spar a glance back as they dove onto the crushed snake corpse and began to tear at it, greedily gluping down the meat.

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"Is there perhaps a way that we can avoid the monsters?" The merchant asked, his tone coming across a bit hesitant as he made his request.[break][break]

Aliyah turned back to Orion, the pair cawing as she questioned him if such a thing was possible. The 4 men stared at the conversation, bewildered, as they had never heard anything like it before; Luis going as far as to make a joke before bring quieted by the his companions.

"We can't but there is a possible solution. I could lure them away from you all, leaving the path free." she offered which was quickly drowned out by their protests.[break][break]

"We couldn't possibly"[break][break]

"You're just a kid, there's no way"[break][break]

"What kind of people do you take us for?"[break][break]

Aliyah merely patiently waited for them have their say. Once they all quieted down, she spoke up.[break][break]

"1. None of you are able to fly. 2. Most of you are close-range fighters which limits your options. 3. I don't plan to get into a fight, just lure them away. 4. I'm faster than you all." she said with an air of finality as she activated her raven cloak and flew off, Orion accompanying her.

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The merchant looked somewhat skeptically at Aliyah, no doubt mentally dismissing her because of her young age. "...I'm sure we'll be fine." he said, glancing away before climbing into his boat alongside his supplies. The other 3 men quickly joined him and Aliyah climbed inside as Orion took off from her shoulder, electing to scout ahead before they took off down the flooded streets of NYC[break][break]

"So if you don't mind me asking. What can you do? I'm Takashi btw and I'm a mage." the Japanese man spoke up from beside her. "That's Pierre, he's a warrior and Luis can make barriers," he said, pointing at the other two men who waves at their introduction.[break][break]

"I can befriend birds or anything bird-like. And of course, you saw the ice spike that I could make," the witch stated in a straightforward manner. Of course, that wasn't all that she was capable of but that would be all that she would be revealing to them at the moment.[break][break]

"Seen way too books and movies about post-apocalyptic worlds for me to be too trusting of everyone I met." Aliyah thought, sparing a glance at the 3 men around her. She knew just how dangerous it was for a girl her age to be traveling around unaccompanied and that fear had played a part in her deciding to funnel her stats into willpower and magic. She didn't want to live the rest of her life in fear and needed to be able to defend herself.

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"Should any monsters happen to attack the convoy, we'll be using them as training for you and Aquila Orion." Aliyah stated, sparing a glance over at the raven.[break][break]

"Of course. It's only natural that we would need to learn about my capabilities as well as work on teamwork with Aquila in a somewhat safe environment quoth I" Orion ended with a strange verbal tick.[break][break]

"...was that Shakespeare? Why are you quoting Shakespeare all of a sudden?" she asked, bewildered at this sudden change in personality from her long-time companion. "Is this a result of his supposed evolution into a tengu raven?" she pondered worry in her eyes. "Should I be wary of any more personality changes as he progresses in levels?"[break][break]

She hoped that this was just a result of Orion becoming more intelligent and not some sort of extreme shift in personality. She was in an unknown territory with the changes made to the world and Orion had been her one constant through the beginning months, even saving her life during the tutorial. "If it wasn't for him, I'd be dead...please don't change Orion. You're all the family that I have left."

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Just as Aliyah was getting ready to go speak with the organizer to see if she could just do this mission solo, people started coming in one after another. The first to come in was a blond-haired woman who made a beeline toward the witch. "I am. And what is your name?" she asked, giving a polite bow to the older woman.[break][break]

Before Aliyah could talk further to the other woman, the next person arrived and introduced himself, giving off a light smell of booze and strawberries. "Yes I am. I'm Aliyah, a pleasure to meet you." she stated before adopting a confused look on her face as he flipped the rainbow coin in his hand. "Good thing I don't have Orion summoned. He'd probably try to steal it."[break][break]

"Sheesh, why couldn't you have all come earlier? Maybe then I wouldn't have been so bored." the witch mentally complained as a third person soon arrived and introduced himself. Blinking and setting aside her curiosity at his statement, Aliyah once again bowed for the third time in the past 5 minutes and introduced herself before the group organizer strolled through the door, tailed by a timid girl in her early 20s. [break][break]

He was dressed in US Army fatigues his face betraying his lack of sleep. Speaking in a rough, no-nonsense tone, he glanced over at the group of 4 and continued his walk, not breaking stride as he moved toward an adjacent room. "Good, you've all arrived. Let's get the orientation out of the way so we can send you out. We have lives to save." he walked straight to a side room; the girl gave them an apologetic look as she followed after him.[break][break]

Aliyah glanced back at the others, momentarily stunned at the briskness of the exchange before deciding it would be better to just do as he says. "He is right though he could have said it better. Especially since I've been here for 2 hours." she thought sourly as she moved into one of the chairs around a table, on top of which was a map of NYC[break][break]

"So we're going to be sending you all into the lower east side of Manhattan," he stated, indicating on the map where they would be going. "This part of the city is about half flooded with some parts reaching up to 5 feet while the other half seems to have been taken over by an overgrown central park." he indicated on the map for them to see.[break][break]

"Alana will be going with you for any emergency triage anyone might need and she had a device that sends out a signal to any nearby transport team to come pick up any survivors. Now if there aren't any questions, I need you guys out there searching."

[attr="class","landtag2"]Val Rowan Rory Perkins[TAGGED]

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Immediately Aliyah felt a pressure slamming into her mind; one full of anger, rage and had a static feel to it. "3 guesses as to who that is." she thought while gritting her teeth. "If you think you'll out stubborn me, then you've got another thing coming!"[break][break]

Locked in a mental battle with the hawk for what felt like minutes, Aliyah eventually pulled out ahead, succeeding in subjugating the hawk and adding it to her roost. Ignoring the congratulations screen, she instead turned to Orion and check on him before turning back to the hawk. "Have you calmed down now? And what is your name?"[break][break]

"...yeah. Sorry about that. Thought you were trying to steal my meal. I tend to get a bit hotheaded" the hawk stated, rubbing the back of his head with his wing before tilting its head. "What's a name?"[break][break]

"A name is sort of like a title that you are given that sets you as an individual amongst your species. My name is Aliyah and this is Orion." she said, pointing a thumb at the tengu man looming over her shoulder, glaring at the hawk.[break][break]

"Say do you happen to know where the oasis is in this place? It's basically a big amount of water." she decided to ask, figuring it wouldn't hurt. "Huh? Oh yeah, I know where that is. I can take you there." the hawk stated, flying over to the dead cat and picking it up in his talons before flying off to the west.[break][break]

Thankfully they didn't run into any more creatures as they made their way to the oasis and over the few hours it took to get there, Aliyah managed to come up with a name that the hawk agreed to; that being Aquila for the eagle that had carried Jupiter's thunderbolts in mythology. She had even got him to agree to come with her, based on the promise of free food.[break][break]

"Congratulations on completing your tutorial!"

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"Ahh, lucky you. My partner ended up abandoning me partway through my tutorial and I ended up having to fight some kind of lightning using hawk in the desert. I was lucky to survive mine." Aliyah said, pouting at Rowan's luck before looking back at Nell as the brunette spoke.[break][break]

"Oh wow. You must be really strong or have been given a strong ability if you're going around hunting monsters. Aliyah said, surprise and awe tinging her voice. "All I can really do is understand and speak to birds." she finished up, sounding slightly embarrassed.[break][break]

She was about to inquire about their abilities when Hana positioned herself and began to play, music filling the rooftop. Letting the sound fill her, Aliyah closed her eyes and began to sway to the music, letting herself get lost in the feelings.[break][break]

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