Lauren McNeigh

Lauren had faced some deadly enemies that suited where Anastasia was in. They were practically robotic in a sense.

There were Nightmare Spiders with four legs made from curling iron and connected to a white doll face. Its face was really chubby and had Queen Faust’s symbol on its forehead. They would bite Lauren and make her vision blurry for a bit.

There were also Automatons. They looked like robotic fillies and colts and out of metal and brass. Their outer shells were extremely decayed and constantly released steam through their head and torso. When that happened, it would signal an attack. They would run forward and stab anyone with their spiked armor or spurt lava.

Lauren walked into room, watching where the machine was taking the insane foal. The poor thing was beating itself up repeatedly. She then watched as a machine grabbed it by the neck and dropped it onto a platform. It was just meowing like crazy, unaware it could escape now. She could only look on as the thing was brought into the machine it was led to. She saw several parts used to make the Automatons fall into the crate with the foal, followed by several mechanical sounds. She knew that meant only one thing: Anastasia was turning them into Automatons for her patrols in Wonderland.

Behind her, she heard a faint groan. “Sunny! Wake up! Someone’s come to release us!” she recognized Clementine’s voice anywhere.

There was a soft, sleepy voice with him. “It’s Lauren…I hope…she knows…what to do…”

“Please free us! Undo us from these contraptions!”

“Or you could give us tea if you prefer…”

Lauren knew that sometimes Anastasia would often do some ‘punishment’ if either of her tea party friends misbehaved at the table. She assumed it was just that, and nothing serious was going on. She was still watching out to see what was happening to the foal, so she didn’t see how they were doing.

“Were you impolite at table? Or slurp your tea? Or talk while chewing? Confess your crimes” she spoke.

“We’ve done nothing of the kind! It’s my sister! She’s gone mad, if I do say so myself. Speaking of which, how is Queen Faust not like a typhoon?” yep, good old Clementine Jr. with the riddles.

“Both are powerful, destructive, and infinitely cruel…” Lauren then thought and found the only thing that separated the two. “…but the typhoon doesn’t mean to be”

“Good answer, good!”

She then turned around saw why they were so afraid. It was more horrific than what she saw back with those foals and the torture. Clementine was cut open, with several mechanical parts put onto his body. Half of his head was exposed a bit. He lost one hind leg. His eyes were forced open. He was also missing his left front hoof. He was tied to an experimental table that regularly dunked him into a pool of green liquid below and then shocked repeatedly by two Tesla volts.

Sunny Shores was not faring better. She was strapped to a dissection table, her gastrointestinal tract exposed. Both her hind legs were gone and replaced with robotic parts. She was shocked repeatedly in order to be kept awake.

“Oh my goodness!” she fretted over to them as she ran over to Sunny. “You’re both in real danger! Who did this to you? Where is Anastasia?”

Sunny was barely able to stay up. “Real danger…are we really? Tine, I want to go home”

Well, atleast she could ignore the pain a little. Lauren then walked over the Clementine, who was just brought out of being dunked and shocked. “Ana will be here at six on the dot!” he yelled before he got dunked down again.

“Misses no opportunity to deny us of our tea, most cruel! And her medicines make me tried…” Sunny yawned before being shocked again.

Lauren assured them that she would get them both out as soon as possible. She spotted a lever nearby and pulled on it, changing the time of the clock in the room. Before, it was just 4:00, now it was 6:00.

Hazel and Hester appeared again when she went into the hallway. “She’s quick as the Corruption, and mad from it, among other things here” Hester spoke.

“She is obsessed with time” Hazel commented while looking at her normal-timed watch. “Find her or your own time will be short”

Lauren sighed after she saw Snowdrop. The Pegasus was still the same as she first met, but she was now in a brown coat similar to her debut. She had a crown on her head that slightly resembled the Alicorn Amulet, but it was blue on the gemstone and not very frightened. Under her coat was some battle armor. She was whole and alright, but trapped in a cage.

“Clementine Jr. and Anastasia seem to barely comprehend their situation” she spoke to the Pegasus.

“They’re being pressured and tortured by Anastasia” Snowdrop explained. “But they are right about how she comes at 6:00 on the dot”

“For her tea?”

“No, to check on her cruel experiments. This Corruption made her use the mechanicals as her way to control her part of Wonderland. She always hated any Twidash, FlutterMac, Flutterdash, Flashlight Verse Child. She began to use several ways of torture on them to vent out her hate towards them. Should they survive, she turns them into Automatons. And with each Flashlight Child dying, Flash Sentry himself also suffers by feeling their death due to a spell she had put there”

“That’s awful!”

“Meh, a lot of people hated Flash anyway so they wouldn’t mind if he died permanently”

Lauren held the urge to puke from the thought of all the deaths being felt. “Six on the dot, you say?”

“Yes, six precisely, by that clock”

Lauren looked down at it. She had a grin on her face that rivaled the one Hester always gave her when she went cryptic. She had a plan for it. If Ana only came out at one appointed time punctually, then she knew how to ambush her.

“Perhaps six shall come early today”