Girda was a black pegasus that had a pair of bat wings. She had five black chains stained in blood around her wings. "Y-you're a winged horse with bat wings!" Rosita cried out. "I thought pegasi had feathered wings."
"There are different species of pegasi." the horse said. "I'm Girda, former advisor of Emperor Arvette. Who are you and why are you here?"
"I'm a shineling and Stanley brought me hear. I don't know my spectroit abilities." Rosita said. "Is there some kind of test to show what I can do?"
Girda pulled a syringe with a needle from a hidden crack in the wall. "I'll need to take some blood and apply it to that crystal." Girda nodded towards a quarts crystal by the window.
"No, no, I'll do it my way." Rosita said. She pulled a sewing needle from her pocket and poaked her left pointer finger. Girda gripped the quartz crystal in her mouth and held it to Rosita. She pressed her finger against it and the crystal glowed red.
Stanley nodded, "Nice, you have a red spectroit. You have the power to change the amount of any fluid contained in a vacuum or container of any sort."
Nellie, in her werewolf form, entered the barn. She held a half-full plastic bottle of water in her furry, padded hand. "How's it going you three?"
"We are helping Rosita with her spectroit abilities." Girda said. "She'll need them when she follows us to Guardaria."
"Hang on, are you recruiting me to go to Guardaria?" Rosita asked. "I thought you didn't want Trisha to come along. Why do you want to invite me on your quest?"
"Because, Trisha works with a patrol unit, sort of like a police force. If she comes, she could mess up our plans. Emperor Arvette will notice her and send his soldiers after us." Stanley explained.
"And you are a shineling, something that the emperor might not even take notice of because he doesn't know that shinelings exist because he think all of his experiments are failures. So far, you are the only shineling we know of."
"There is also Mr. Schnell" Nellie said.
"Are you talking about the health insurance employer my dad works for?" Rosita asked.
"Yes, his father was an experiment and so Mr. Schnell is a shineling. His father had griffon DNA added to him but Gallen Schnell has a complete human appearance. His spectroit is an infrared which is quite rare, even for a shineling. He can create portals with it. He even has the power to open tesseracts to Guardaria if he wanted to."
"Well, he might be to Guardaria by now if he plans on going." Rosita said.
"Oh, no he doesn't. The emperor has alarm systems set up all over the planet that immediately alerts him if an intruder is coming and he does not want to foolishly expose himself like that. That is why he sent that stooge of his, Glenda, to steal the portal." Girda explained.
"Why does Schnell want to go to Guardaria?" Rosita asked.
"Because he is a Machiavellianist who dreams of ruling a world of his own." Girda said. "We are trying to beat him and his army of circus freaks to the punch."
"He owns a circus?" Rosita asked.
"More like a carnival." Nellie clarified. "And actually we don't know why he wants to rule Guardaria. Stanley tried to spy on him but none of his strategies worked so far."
"Well, why don't you tell me why you want to overthrow the emperor." Rosita asked. "If you really want me to join, you should give me an explanation."
"Fine, I'll tell you." Girda said. "I used to be the emperor's advisor. You see the emperor was a human that was turned into a vampire by a group of bellethrites he was persecuting. The emperor was chased away by angry villagers and ended up accidentally stumbling on the distant planet of Guardaria. He took over the empty world and made it his own. I left my planet and went to Guardaria, looking for a good job. He liked my resourcefulness and hired me to be his advisor. One day, however, I got pregnant and had two foals. The emperor snatched both of my foals away and had them train to be his soldiers. I asked him to give my babies back to me but he told me that any child born on Guardarian soil belongs to him. I was furious. I tried to fight back but he called it treason against him. He and his four younger brothers created five black chains to stop me from flying. The emperor told me that the only way to remove the chains is by breaking them but if anyone breaks them, that person will die so for me to be free five people will have to die." Girda said. "I am going to have my revenge on Arvette and take over the throne and rule the planet for fantasy creature alike. I will also find my missing children too."
"What about your chains?" Rosita asked.
"Oh, I plan on getting five people to break them, I just haven't found anyone yet qualified to break them." Girda said.
"Yeah, we are also going to deal with the scientists who created the phronxlings in the first place." Nellie said. "I want to win the respect of my wolf pack by taking on the emperor's men and winning my place as an alpha female." Nellie said.
"You were kicked out of your pack and are trying to restore your honor." Stanley said.
Nellie said, "Well, tell why you want to go to Guardaria."
"Okay, there is one person that I want revenge on, his name is Dr. Shackles. He is the one who gave me my bee eyes. He destroyed my life when he took my human-ness away from me and my parents are both dead because of him. Farmer Drills adopted me and took good care of me." Stanley said.
"Drills is coming with us not because he has a personal reason to go but because he is handy to have around. He has no spectroit and normally we don't invite pure humans on quests to Guardaria but we made an exception just for him." Girda answered.
"Okay, well, I don't have a reason to go so I can return home now." Rosita said.
"Hold on, you need to come with us. Don't you want to save your father?" Stanley asked.
"My dad is away on a business trip to Tokyo, Japan." Rosita replied.
"No, that was made up by the emperor's agents. He is currently being held hostage in Guardaria. He is being forced to serve the emperor as an experiment. He is one of the closest successful experiments so they are going to try again with him." Girda said.
Rosita looked shocked. "He has been gone for a while and my mom called him over the phone and he told her he had a lot of work to do."
"You and your mother were both being lied to." Nellie said. "If you join us, you can rescue your father with our help. What do you say?"
Rosita replied, "Yes, I'll come with you, I'll just let my mom know that I am staying with Stanley for the next few days. Then I will go with you but I will not help get revenge with you on the people you are mad at. I believe vengeance isn't right."
"Okay, I'm good with that." Stanley said.
"Alright, let's get supplies ready for our trip to Guardaria." Girda said. "We have until midnight tonight."

End of Chapter