Chapter 39:

Underground Moonlight

Valkyria Squadron


Moscow, Russia
7 years before the end of the war

It was a cold night, I was resting near one of the subway exits, waiting for the evening to go out to look for food in the city, but when I opened my eyes the dragon that had been accompanying me for the last few months was nowhere to be found. In her place, there was a naked girl hugging me, but she was not human because you could see how a pair of horns protruded from her forehead, in addition to a large tail and a tip that could be used as a weapon. Not long after the girl woke up and looked at my face. She tried to speak but she didn't say anything understandable, but in just a matter of minutes of practice she managed to speak, her first words were to call me Daddy. Trying to understand what had happened while I was asleep, I thought it might have happened, but nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But the girl's behavior and that several of her features resembled those of the dragon that had accompanied me until the previous day, I began to suspect that maybe they were the same

The girl seemed to realize what I was thinking, weighing in on who she was. According to her, it was the same dragon that I had been taking care of all this time, and of which she was grateful. She also explained to me a bit about what she knew about dragons. Apparently, as if it were a video game, dragons could achieve more power by killing living beings, and when they had enough, dragons could evolve to something different. In her case, it seemed that when she saw how I took care of her so much of her but I was completely alone, she decided to focus on her evolution to make her form the most similar to human and keep me company. She also told me that she was always a female but apparently, the two sexes are similar, so humans can't tell what sex they are.

She also did not waste time and gave me more advice that she always wanted to tell me but that she could not until now, like that the flashlight that I used was a danger and that I should stop using it if I wanted to pass more unnoticed between the tunnels. They could tell the difference in lighting from much more distance than I thought. For my part, taking the opportunity to talk with her and get more information, I asked her about the dragons, her goals, and why she decided to stay with me. But she answered me that having been raised by me she simply did not know her species as much as I did, because all she knew was about her instinct. She also told me that she decided to stay with me even though her instinct told her that I was food for her because she had been taking care of her like a father all this time and how if it had not been for my help, a weak and small dragon-like her very it probably would have just been eaten by another stronger dragon. So she stays with me for being her father, And because the other dragons of the subway were also her enemies.

That night while we were talking now that she was more human there was a full moon, it was so big and bright that we even left the tunnel to better see the landscape on the surface. The moon reminded me that there was still something that I knew in that horrible world, the only other source of light that existed in the life I had. The only one seeing me gave me happiness and that I could enjoy. Thinking about that, I decided to give a name to the dragon girl who accompanied me, because I could not call her dragon, she did not deserve it and seeing that her company was also the only other pleasant thing I had, I decided to call her Luna, moon in Spanish.

Determined to follow Luna's advice that using the flashlight might sooner or later attract more dragons, he decided to find a pair of night-vision goggles. But those things weren't easy to find in an abandoned city guarded by dragons. So I take a good couple of nights just finding something. But I could never find anything that was intact, so later I picked up several broken pieces and started trying to create some with the pieces I had. This also took time, but in the end, I managed to get a pair that works, so I stopped using the flashlight just wearing my glasses.

As time continued, things began to get even more aggressive, as the winter only increased in intensity. It was so cold and with no signs of stopping that even me being from a tropical country no longer remembered what a warm day was. The dragons also hated it because as the temperature dropped even more they stopped going to the surface and preferred to stay in the tunnel instead. Which meant it was more dangerous for us. Luna, who at first did not get used to the idea of wearing her clothes, also began to like her when she saw that she helped her stay warm.

As the temperatures continued to drop, rising to the surface became unfeasible because the cold and the large amounts of snow that there was, made finding something impossible. So our food began to be scarce and as two people made the situation more difficult, but even if Luna said that she was fine with eating anything or that she left it behind, I did not think if she wanted that possibility. because at that point I really saw her as my own daughter. Our food also began to decrease at the same time as that of the dragons, but the solution they had was much more direct. the dragons began to eat each other to eat. Which at the same time led some dragons to evolve and be more dangerous than others, but none resembled a human-like Luna in the least.

Thanks to the map I also came to notice that the dragons were more organized than I thought. I thought they were uncontrolled beasts, but the more time I spent in the subway making the map I noticed how various types of dragons made vigilance routes through the same tunnels, as in certain points there were always guards, as the smaller and faster dragons were the ones. that were further from the nests, making them the explorers. Almost that for each task there was a specific type of dragon race, and these, in turn, had routines and behaviors. And with it a weakness, because if he could know how they acted he could set traps and kill them.

The moment of truth arrived when we were about to run out of food that spoke clearly with Luna. It all came down to us hunting a dragon to eat it or starve to death in a couple of days. The response of the two was the same, so we started trying to kill the little ones with traps. I made myself a spear with an iron rod, while Luna, who had superhuman strength and resistance, could turn her hands into clawing and kill them with them. The plan was a success and although dragon meat was not tasty, hunger was the best seasoning for the food.

As time passed, Luna became overwhelmingly strong, fast, and fierce. As we were more confident we began to hunt bigger dragons, so that Luna became stronger and stronger. It even got to the point where she even killed one of the biggest dragons we know with her bare hands. But despite the fact that she no longer needed me to survive and that now it was rather me who was in the way, Luna never changed her way of treating me, she kept calling me dad and did everything she did to the letter without complaining. Although she was less than a year old, Luna's appearance was that of a 15-year-old girl. Although as she explained to me that was due to the fact that dragons grew differently from humans and that her appearance reflected her power and level more than her age.

On the fourteenth of February, the day one year had passed since the attack of the dragons on Petra, and the day before Luna's birthday, something surprising happened because strangely, it was a fairly sunny day and it was even hot enough to go out. . From what I thought about Luna's birthday, I thought about taking advantage and going to the surface despite the risk so that she could enjoy the day because we had spent so much time in the subway that I realized that she was never on the surface while she was on the sun up. She was amazed to see the clear sky and the sun, the size of the world, and to see for a moment a world free of dragons for the first time. For my part, I felt guilty for taking so long to show her something like that, so I apologized to her. The dragon girl responded by saying that she has always been aware of how difficult my situation is and that it is not my fault, because it has simply been out of my reach. Also seeing the world she told me that despite being a dragon, she also believed that dragons were responsible for destroying a beautiful world like the one I told her about how it was before. Luna told me that her dream would love to kill dragons and live with other humans. But who knew that she is a dragon that was impossible. I for my part replied that for me she was also another human and that other people would accept her without a doubt, Luna excitedly embraced me and asked if something like that would be possible, so I promised her that when all this would end and the war against the dragons will end I will take her on a trip around the world and show her how everyone would accept her as a human and not as a dragon, that even I would take her to my house and present her to my family

But unfortunately, that was a promise that I could not keep because that same day was the last time I saw her alive. During our trip back to the subway, we decided to go through a new tunnel that I still did not know about. But I quickly discovered this was in much better condition than the others that I had seen before, and consulting the map I saw that we were in the northern part of the city, so I thought that maybe that was finally the tunnel that came out of this place. Luna's joy and mine were such that we didn't pay much attention to where we were walking until suddenly I felt something that clicked with my leg like a floor, it was an antipersonnel mine, but with a superhuman reaction, Luna loomed over me and her He protected me with his body. We both managed to escape the exploration unscathed. But while we were still recovering from that, we heard how thousands of screams and grunts were heard throughout the tunnels around us. There were more dragons coming en masse to our location