Chapter 11
Tails smiled and turned off his laser drill as the final piece of the enlarged hole fell away. "There we go! I should be able to fit now. Shit, I hope nothing bad has happened to Cream..." He said, putting the tool back into his bag. "Please, Cream...please, for the love of God, be safe..." He lamented, before flying into the base.
Cream gasped for breath, tears rolling down from behind her blindfold. Her gag had been removed by Knuckles, presumably so he could enjoy her begs and pleas for him to stop as he did whatever he was doing with her. "P-please, Knuckles...No more. I-I've had enough...Please...Just let me go..." She sputtered, in between gasps for breath and stifled sobs. Knuckles laughed.
"You seriously think I'm going to let you go, you little slut? No way. In fact, I'm half considering keeping you for myself and just leaving Robotnik with nothing." He began to stroke Cream's leg again, smiling as he did so. Cream whimpered, then furiously shook her head.
"N-no...please, let me go. I...I just wanna go home to...to Tails..." She broke into a full-on sob, not even attempting to evade Knuckles' advances on her.
"Aww, so now you wanna go home to your little boyfriend. Isn't that sweet? Seriously, though, that's not happening. And even if it did, he wouldn't want you back anyway. You've lost your innocence to somebody that isn't him. Your value has gone through the floor at this point." Knuckles took a step back and crossed his arms.
"No...that's not true...that's not...true...he loves me for who I am..." Cream whimpered, uncertain, almost like she was trying to convince herself and not Knuckles.
"Don't you think he would have rescued you by now of that were the case? You're useless. He sent you in to accomplish a mission and you couldn't even do it. Why would he waste his time with someone like you? He only wanted you for your body, and now that's worth less to him than before. You're welcome." He began to pace around the rabbit bound in the middle of the floor.
"W-why me, Knuckles? Why are you doing this to me…? I-I thought we were friends…" She cried, weakly struggling against her bonds. "You didn't have to do this…"
Knuckles kissed the back of Cream's head. "To be honest, it wasn't going to be you at first. I was hoping for it to be Amy instead. Buuuuuut since I ended up capturing you instead, I didn't really have a choice in the matter."
"Y-you...We trusted you..." Cream whined as Knuckles stepped away from her. "And you betray us like this...you betray ME like this..." Knuckles sighed and grabbed the roll of duct tape off of the nearby table.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, bitch, I really don't care how you feel about me. All I know is that you talk too much." He ripped several pieces of tape off the roll.
"N-no, waimmmmm!" Knuckles ignored the girl's pleas and resealed Cream's mouth.
"I'll be back later." He said. "Don't go escaping while I'm gone, okay, bitch? We can continue our fun when I'm back." Then, all Cream heard was the sound of receding footprints and the slamming of the door.
Cream whimpered, lost in the silence and fear of being alone, not just now, but forever. Was Knuckles right? Was she worthless to Tails now that she had lost her innocence like that? It was all her fault, after all. If she hadn't gone in alone to try to rescue Sonic and Amy, she wouldn't be in this situation right now. Instead, here she was, locked in a dark room with no way out, completely at the mercy of some freak that wanted to do this to her again and again. He hadn't called her by her name once. It was as if he saw her as nothing more than an object, as if he didn't need to treat her as a living being. Maybe that's all she was good for. She had screwed up everything else she had tried to do up to this point. She was going to die here. Nobody would bother trying to save her, and she would be at the mercy of this nutjob until she died. She only hoped that would happen sooner, rather than later.
Sonic stopped dead in his tracks. "Ames...I hear something again. Do you think it's Knuckles?" He asked, cautiously looking around for any possible attacks. "Ames? Ames, where'd you go?" He turned around and immediately froze when he saw Knuckles standing there with a gun to Amy's head. "Oh, shit...Hey there, Knuckles." Sonic took a step backwards.
"Hello, Sonic. Thanks for attracting the rabbit here and letting me capture her. I've really gotten to know her on a more...personal level." Knuckles smirked and began to run his free hand up into Amy's dress. "And I'm really looking forward to doing the same thing to Amy here. Wouldn't you agree, 'Ames?' " Amy groaned.
"Nnghh...Get your hands off of me, you freak!" She tried to pull away from Knuckles, only for him to pull her back towards him again and press the gun against her head.
"I wouldn't do that, Sonic. I'm the one with the gun here. You don't want something horrible to happen, do you?" Amy gasped when Knuckles said this, and tried to escape him once again.
"Knuckles, if you hurt her…" Sonic growled, his fists clenched.
"Why does it matter to you? She's not important to you in the slightest. No more than any of your other friends, anyway. Hell, I'm doing you a favor here. I'll just drag her off and treat her the same way I treat the other bitch I captured. Nobody will ever see either of them again. Isn't that just good for everybody involved? Well, except them, of course." Knuckles laughed.
"No! You don't have to do this, Knuckles! Whatever Robotnik said to you, he is LYING, Knuckles!" Sonic took a step forward and outstretched his hand. "Don't do it, Knuckles! She doesn't deserve this!"
Knuckles sighed. "Well, since you feel that way, I guess I have no choice. Do you have anything else you wanna say to your boyfriend here before I end you? Maybe you wanna ask him to marry you again?"
Amy whimpered, tears streaming down her face. "Knuckles…Please…" She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, not wanting her last memory to be of her hero helpless to do anything to save her, just waiting for the inevitable-
CLICK.
"What the fuck? Why isn't it working?!" Knuckles exclaimed, pulling the trigger several more times. Each one produced the same ineffective click, and with each one he got more and more desperate. "It was working just fine earlier! How the hell did this happen?!" He snarled, throwing the gun down to the ground.
"If you're gonna use a gun, maybe make sure that nothing can jam it before you go threatening people with it." Knuckles whipped around and saw Tails standing there with some kind of remote in his hand. "Now let Amy go before Sonic and I have to beat the shit out of you!" As Tails said this, Sonic had already grabbed Amy's hammer off of the floor and was preparing to strike.
"Oh, so now you're challenging me to a fight, huh? Heh. I knew you would do that. You've made a huge mistake." Knuckles shook his head. "Chaos…Con-!" Before he could finish his sentence, Sonic swung the hammer down on the back of his head, causing him to drop Amy and crash to the floor, unconscious. Amy jumped up and threw her arms around Sonic, tears still streaming down her face.
"Oh my god, Sonic…I thought I was gonna die…if Tails weren't here, you would have…you would have been helpless to do anything…" She sobbed, burying her head in Sonic's chest.
Sonic returned her embrace and slowly stroked the back of her head. "Ames, you weren't gonna die. I said I wasn't gonna let anything happen to anybody, didn't I? I would've found a way to save you. I always do."
Tails stepped forward. "Uh, sorry to interrupt, but…do either of you know where Cream went? I sent her in here to find you guys, and she still hasn't come back. I'm a little bit worried about her." Amy released Sonic from her grasp, regained her composure, and then turned to Tails, her face damp with tears.
"Uh, yeah…she-she got captured by Knuckles. We were going to go find her when all this happened. And from the way that he was talking, I think that…well, she might not be the same as she was when she came here…" Amy responded, wiping her eyes one final time.
Tails' eyes widened. "Oh, fuck…Do you guys know where he took her? I gotta get to her and make sure she's okay." Sonic and Amy both pointed backwards, towards the end of the hallway.
"We think that he took her somewhere in that direction. I would come with you to help you out, but…I think Ames has had enough of this fuckin' place for one day. You go ahead and save Cream, I gotta make sure Ames gets out of here alright. How do we get outta here?"
Tails turned around and gestured towards the branch in the path at the other end of the hall. "Take the right path there. I opened a big door in one of the rooms there that leads out. Just look for a big hole in the wall and you'll see it." He began to walk past the two. "I'll meet you two outside, alright?" And before they knew it, he was heading towards the suspected location of Cream.
Author's Note: Here's the update for today. What is going on with Knuckles, anyway? The only person that knows the truth is me...and maybe you if you've been paying attention. Anyway, we're almost done with this base segment! I promise you, by the end of next chapter these guys will all have escaped and moved on to the next sufficient threatening obstacle I throw at them! Next chapter also contains the start of what is possibly one of my favorite pairings of all time, and ALSO the one mentioned in the summary, so don't be surprised if you get double updates this week. It's not a guarantee, but it's pretty damn likely!
