A/N: This was uploaded at the same time as Chapter 22, which has some very important information. You'll want to go back and read that if you haven't already.

Virigosa delivered her report to Taelastrasza without incident. While it was upsetting that the night elves had lied to them, it hadn't compromised anything except for the dragons' trust, and the fact that the Twilight's Hammer was breeding nether dragons was valuable information. It wasn't worth going to Shandris Feathermoon over, and it wasn't worth straining the relationship with the Wetlands sentinels any further. Besides, the elves had already lost a group of their best sentinels. That was punishment enough.

In the few days that had passed, Virigosa and her drakes hadn't see much action. They had been sent out to hunt crocolisks and boars for food, but otherwise had spent their time lounging around Taelastrasza's camp. Quiet moments like that weren't so uncommon in the Wetlands, with most of the fighting being in the Twilight Highlands proper. Wetlands dragons were mostly reserves, responsible for clearing twilight outposts and for reinforcing the bulk of the red dragon forces whenever necessary.

Taelastrasza's forces were small enough that she preferred to give orders personally, and so it was not a surprise when she, in her high elven form, awoke Virigosa from a nap. The red dragon general shook the drake's shoulder gently, and she opened her eyes, stretching and rolling onto her side.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything important," Taelastrasza teased.

"Sometimes it's difficult to sleep around here," Virigosa admitted. "I'm from Coldarra. It's far too hot for me."

"I see," Taelastrasza said.

Virigosa sat up, shaking the dirt and plant matter from her scales. "What do you need?"

"Our scouts found a small twilight camp, but this one has complex runes around the border, which my dragons didn't know what to make of," she explained. "You're one of our only mages here. I was thinking you could disable them, then you and your drakes can clean it out."

"Sure," Virigosa said. "Do you know where my drakes are?"

"I already gathered them for you, they're near the gates," she said, gesturing in that direction. "The cultists are to the east. I briefed Erastrasza on the location."

Virigosa rose into sky and spiraled down near the gates, landing in front of Erastrasza, Torystrasz, and Zeistrasz. "Did Taelastrasza explain what we're doing?"

Torystrasz nodded. Satisfied with the answer, Virigosa lifted herself into the sky again, flicking her tail for the red drakes to follow. Erastrasza took the lead not long after they began to fly, and they took a long route along the Wetlands, using the mountains that divided the Wetlands and the Twilight Highlands in order to hide their approach. Zeistrasz flew off to the side, vigilant for any signs of twilight activity beneath the tree cover. For most of the flight, Virigosa looked out to her left, observing the Twilight Highlands from afar. There were no ongoing battles that she could see from this distance, but the fact that there had been fighting was obvious. Long stretches of the highlands had been ripped apart by twilight corruption, and the mortal settlements she could see were burning or in ruins.

It was Erastrasza who finally located the twilight camp that they were after. She signaled with her wings for the others to quiet themselves, and they hovered far above the camp, out of sight. Virigosa briefly broke from the group to circle the area, and returned with a satisfied look on her face.

"It's a small camp. It looks like they've hardly even set it up," she said.

"What about the runes that Taelastrasza mentioned?" Zeistrasz asked.

"I didn't see any from here," Virigosa said. "We'll have to go in lower, and then I can take a look."

The four drakes spiraled down towards the camp, hovering just above the ground and a short distance away from the twilight tents. Virigosa signaled for them to stay, and took a low pass near the camp. Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be any cultists outside performing tasks, as there often were. She allowed herself to get a bit closer, and was able to get an even more detailed look at the camp. While there were tents, the centerpiece of the camp seemed to be a shallow cave that went a short distance into the mountainside. At the borders of the camp, like Taelastrasza had said, there were glowing, light pink runes. Virigosa didn't dare get too close to them yet.

She returned to the reds, more puzzled than ever. "It doesn't look like there's anyone there."

"No one there?" Torystrasz echoed. "What about the runes?"

"I did see some," Virigosa said. "Come with me. I'll get to work disabling them, but I want you there to watch my back. Something's not right."

The camp was as quiet as it had been when the drakes approached. Virigosa landed on the grass next to one of the faintly glowing runes, and leaned her head down to study it. The three drakes spread out, but didn't dare cross the perimeter. Suddenly, Virigosa lifted her head as if she was looking for something.

"This is meant to resemble what we call a shock trap rune, but it's... it's fake," Virigosa said.

"What?" Erastrasza said. "How do you make a fake rune?"

"Make a mistake when drawing it, cross a few lines you shouldn't," she said. "Normally, it's a sloppy mistake. But this had to be intentional, not even a whelp would make mistakes like this. It's blue dragon work, I can tell that much- my flight has a very distinct system of runes unique to us, and I can see them used this."

"Well, what do they say?" Torystrasz asked.

"Just a moment."

Virigosa took one of her talons and traced a part of the rune into the ground, before sweeping her foreleg across the ground and dispelling the magic that made it glow. She leaned down and carefully inspected the part of the rune she had traced into the dirt.

"I can't tell what it says," she said. "The writing's too messy."

"Convenient," Torystrasz commented. "What about the other ones?"

Virigosa stepped around the perimeter, looking over every rune as she went. "They're all fake," she said. "Every one of them."

"But why?" Erastrasza chimed in. "Why would the Twilight's Hammer have blue dragon runes around their camp?"

"Let's find out," Virigosa said. She stepped over the runes and into the perimeter.

"This is an obvious trap," Zeistrasz said. "Empty camp, fake blue dragon runes. It has to be a setup."

Virigosa paused mid-step. "You're right," she said. "It's not right. Something's off here, and that make sense. But we can't just leave it here and go back to camp with that explanation."

"Then we need to figure out what they planned to do with this trap," Zeistrasz said.

"Then we can figure out how to stop it," Erastrasza added.

"Maybe I could cave in the-"

Virigosa was cut off by an awful, raspy gasp coming from the cave in the center of the camp. A drake emerged from the darkness. Judging from his features, Virigosa could tell he was a blue drake, but his scales were odd and looked to be more of a turquoise color than anything.

"You're not twilight," His voice sounded shaky. "Oh, thank the Spellweaver, you're not twilight. I'm Tealgos. Thank the Titans you came."

So it was a trap, but not for us. They set it for him. "Tealgos, I'm Virigosa," she said. "Do you know what happened here?"

"The twilights," he said. "They were here, they- it was an illusion, there was-"

"He doesn't look injured," Erastrasza noted, taking a few steps closer to the two blues. "I wonder how long he's been here."

"Not very long," The blue-green drake shook his head. "I stopped for... for rest. They had some sort of an illusion. I thought I saw a deer carcass. I've been flying for days- trying to get to Coldarra for the Embrace, you know- and I was so hungry. I don't usually do carrion, but you can't imagine, I was so hungry. So I stopped. And then, I felt a shock all around me, and they were surrounding me, the twilights. Sweet Spellweaver, they look like shadows, they're monsters, they... You can't imagine."

"I've seen them," Virigosa said. "Erastrasza, go see if you can find something for him to eat. I doubt the twilights fed him."

"On it, Virigosa," the red drake said, lifting herself into the sky.

"Where are you from?" Virigosa asked.

"I've been helping the mortals near the Dark Portal," he explained. "A few of us like to stay there, monitor what passes between Azeroth and Outland."

Virigosa hadn't seen one of her own flight since she had stopped in Wyrmrest before joining the reds. Taelastrasza had agreed to grant her leave to attend the Embrace in Coldarra in a month, and she had heard rumors of how large the gathering of blues was, but it was heartening to hear in person that dragons from such far reaches of Azeroth were going to attend something so important to the future of their flight.

"I'm surprised the Blue Dragonflight is still able to even handle operations like that, without an Aspect," Torystrasz commented.

"It's not really a formal operation," Tealgos explained. "A lot of blue dragons, for the last ten thousand years, have sort of been doing our own thing with Malygos gone. And I didn't participate in the Nexus War, so I didn't see any reason to stop."

That gave Virigosa pause. "You didn't participate in the Nexus War?" she asked, with some amount of incredulousness. His story wasn't making sense, somehow.

Tealgos idly flicked his tail. "Not- oh, sweet Spellweaver..."

"Virigosa, watch out!" Zeistrasz called. "I knew we couldn't trust him."

Before she knew what was happening, a twilight drake was right beside her. Virigosa moved herself into a combat stance and took a few steps back, but the twilight drake was too close and was already turning to meet her. Behind the one twilight, Virigosa could see two more materializing in the air from whatever realm they had come from.

"What the fuck?" That was one of the twilight drakes shouting, and Virigosa couldn't immediately tell why.

Before she knew what was happening, Virigosa felt herself rolling across the grass, with a green-blue shape on top of her. She was caught by surprise and tried to fight back as soon as she realized that he had tackled her, but suddenly her body was no longer listening to her. She couldn't move. Tealgos, on top of her, turned his head back to the two remaining red drakes. He had not hesitated in anything he had done- he seemed confident, somehow, unlike he had been moments before. "Get out of here!" he yelled to the reds. "Go!"

"What do you think you're doing?" Another of the twilight drakes was speaking now.

"Good luck explaining this to your masters!" Tealgos taunted, as he leaned his face down to Virigosa's.

He whispered something to her, except Virigosa couldn't hear it. Everything was fuzzy now, her hearing was gone, and the whole world looked like it was spinning. She felt distant and her whole body felt numb, like she was no longer apart of the world. Her vision flashed green and then began to fade to black, and within moments she could no longer wonder about what was happening to her at all.