~~~I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! I DON'T OWN ANYTHING!~~~

Hello world! I'm not dead yet! I guess I'm just in a sad fan fic making mood, huh? This one-shot is inspired by Yoyo Ma playing the prelude to Bach's Cello Concerto. This one-shot is also like an experiment to see how good I am at writing these kind of fan fics, so see this as…a Sonic version of Wisps of Gold(if you read my synopsis you'll see what I mean), mkay? Anyway without further ado I give you…

A Swift Stroke of the Bow

*Chapter 1*

The shocking Allegro flows…

He was at it again, just like he always was. Sonic ran into the Egg shaped doctor's base again, with a cocky grin on his face. He knew that he would be able to stop the doctor again, just like he always did. And with one of his cocky smirks on his face as well. This time he had decided to bring, Amy, Tails, Shadow and Knuckles along with him, just so they could see Eggman's famous embarrassed and flustered face that he always made, when his base was going into self-destruct mode.

"Hey Tails, hurry it up! I can't wait to see Robuttnik's face when he see's all of us! He won't know what hit him!" Sonic shouted as he spin dashed the already battered red robots, worn out from Knuckle's punches, Amy's hammers and Tails' bullets, from his walker the Cyclone. Shadow was ahead of him, shooting the robots who were no match for his mighty chaos spear.

"I'm coming Sonic! I just have to put in the password to this door…and…we're through!" Tails chirped as the others rushed ahead of him. True to what Sonic said previously Eggman was indeed waiting for them and was shocked when he saw all of them rush into the room.

"Oh! Its, you!" Eggman seethed, as he saw Sonic and his friends run through the opened door, "I didn't expect all of you, but this is perfect! I have all of you, where I want you! Mwhahahaha!" Eggman chortled,

"What do you mean 'I have you where I want you' Eggman?" Amy asked cautiously, Eggman was cocky…and that normally was a bad sign. Shadow turned to Knuckles.

"Is anyone else besides myself getting a bad vibe from this situation?" Knuckles nodded his head in agreement,

"Something doesn't seem right…" Sonic however walked up to Eggman, pride beaming off of his sapphire blue coat,

"So what's your plan this time Egghead? No one blows up an entire city for no reason!" Eggman mearly, glared at Sonic,

"Or do they Sonic?" Sonic was taken aback by this answer, and narrowed his eyes, as the doctor continued to speak,

"People do things, drastic things, to get noticed. A distraction if you must call it. And I was noticed, when you saw me blow up the entire city. You and your pesky friends, noticed me. And I was grateful for that." Eggman said as his glasses gleamed in the non-existent sun light.

Knuckles however was getting really angry one he realized that Eggman was insulting them,

"Hey, you-" Suddenly Knuckles' face drained off all color, as his hand went through the Egg shaped doctor's body.

"Tisk, tisk Knuckles, I was getting to that part." Eggman said cockily, a new low for him. Tails backed away from Eggman,

"I-it's a hologram, w-w-which means…" Tails stuttered, tears starting to form in his eyes, he knew how this was all going to end,

"Ooh, you got it too, Foxy? I want to explain it!" Eggman shouted, he had ruined the suspense. Sonic was now getting nervous,

"Tails, tell us! What's going to happen!" Sonic already had an idea about what was going to happen but he hoped that his little buddy, had a different answer than he,

"No, I'll do the honors!" Eggman butted in, "As that pesky fox said, this is a hologram, which means that I am not here right now, which means that something bad is going to happen to this base. You get my drift? I am also broadcasting this historical event around the entire world as we speak, so that everyone might know of the day that the Eggman Empire finally began!" Eggman said triumphantly as he smirked. Now all of the color drained from Sonic's face. He had just confirmed his idea. Eggman took this as a sign to continue as he directed his thoughts to the ebony hedgehog that was standing silently seething at the doctor,

"Well, well, Shadow, I'm surprised to see that you don't have a chaos emerald on you, since that would be really helpful right about…now!" Eggman laughed as he pressed a big red button. Suddenly three chilling words were sent over the speakers, shocking the Sonic heroes to the bone.

"Self-Destruct mode activated." Once Sonic heard those words he instantly dashed for the door that led him into the base only to see that it was locked. As he spin dashed the wall, and Knuckles punched it, and Tails shot at it, and Amy bashed it, and Shadow threw chaos spears at it, the wall didn't even make a dent, more or less make a hole.

"Well, I would love to stay and chat, but I have a world to start taking over so tootle loo!" Eggman cackled before turning off the hologram for the final time. Knuckles took this opportunity to punch Sonic in the face,

"You idiot! If you weren't so cocky all of the time, then we wouldn't be in this mess! Now we're all going to die, and someone is going to steal the Master Emerald-" Knuckles was suddenly slapped in the face by Amy, who had tears streaming down her face,

"How can you think about your stupid rock at a time like this! We're all going to die! There's no way out and I'm too young to die!" Amy wailed, as she collapsed on the floor in a pile of sobs, Tails soon following after.

Shadow, however closed his eyes,

"Maria I'm going to finally see you, and after 50 years as well…" Knuckles, stopped punching Sonic and started to punch the wall in agony. They only had 10 minutes left to live, and even worst, it was all broadcasted across the entire world.

Only Sonic was still silent, as he looked around the otherwise bare room, suddenly a light bulb appeared over his head.

"I have an idea!"

"What now, you idiot, you got us into this mess and now you think that we're going to listen to you?" Shadow asked angrily, as he pushed the blue hedgehog up against the wall, "Rose here is going to die, along with Fox boy and Knuckles, and you're just going to stand here, declaring I have a plan!" Shadow said in a mocking voice as he slowly cut off his main airway passage.

"Air…vents…" Sonic managed to gasp, before blacking out from lack of air. Amy gasped, and wiped her tears away quickly before running to the fallen hedgehog,

"Shadow, you monster! H-how could you do that to Sonic! He said that he had a plan, and now we can't ever hear it since he's unconscious!" Amy wailed before cradling the blue hedgehog in her arms and planting kisses on his forehead.

Tails however had stopped his tears,

"Air vents…That's it! Why didn't I think of it sooner! We can climb out of the base through the air vents, come on lets hurry! We only have seven minutes left!" Tails shouted, as he flew up to the air vent and quickly ripped off the cover, exposing a long duct that led to outside.

Knuckles wasted no time, as he hoisted Tails into the vent, along with Shadow, and Amy. Finally he himself was going into the air duct when Amy cried out,

"Sonic! We can't just leave him here! Knuckles get Sonic!"

Knuckles tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy and Knuckles was starting to get tired. Amy stretched out her hands as far as she could, as she tried to grab the unconscious hedgehog's arms to try and pull him into the vent.

Tails and Shadow were already outside of the base waiting for Amy, Knuckles and Sonic.

"I-I can't get him up Amy!" Knuckles said as he grit his teeth.

"NO!" Amy screamed as tears blurred her vision, "WE CAN'T JUST LEAVE HIM HERE! SOOOONIC!" Amy screamed as Knuckles climbed up the air vent and ran outside,

"Amy, you have to get out of there, the base is going to self-destruct in three minutes!" Knuckles shouted, Tails was sobbing on the ground, a safe distance away from the base. "He's not going to make it, he's not going to make it." He muttered. Then realization smacked him in the face. It was Shadow's fault that Sonic was unconscious and wasn't going to make it out of the base. He then turned to Shadow and punched him in the face. Shadow didn't flinch, but a steady stream of blood was flowing freely from his nose,

"I-it's your fault! He's going to die and it's all your fault!" Tails screamed as he lashed out at Shadow some more. Shadow taking every blow. He had just set up his rival's death, and he felt terrible about it.

Finally back inside the base Sonic groaned,

"A-Amy…"

"Sonic! You're okay! Can you move? You have to get into the air duct so we can leave!" Amy shouted, as even more tears exploded from her eyes. Tears of joy. He was going to make it, he was!

"Amy…I can't feel my arms and legs…I don't think that I'm going to make it…" Sonic coughed, as Amy gasped,

"S-Sonic don't think like that! There's still a chance just climb up the air vent, I'll help you-" Amy started to say before he love shushed her,

"Ames…you're going to die with me if you stay here…tell Tails, that he should strive for his dreams…tell Knucklehead, to watch out for his Emerald, and to never lose that Bat, I know that he likes her…" Sonic said with a small cough, "T-tell Cream, to stay innocent as always, and tell Shadow that I'll m-m-make sure to say hi to Maria for him."

"S-S-Sonic don't talk like that…" Amy muttered, as hot tears cascaded down her cheeks, she couldn't believe that this was happening to her…

"And Ames, always remember that…I love you…" Sonic said before he blacked out once more.

"Sonic! No! Don't go unconscious again! I need you! I love you! If I live without you by my side, I'll die inside!" Amy wailed, as she pounded her fists against the metal air duct.

Shadow on the other hand, raced back inside the base through the air ducts and grabbed Amy by her waist,

"Rose we have to go, the base is going to explode in a minute, and Sonic wouldn't want you to die along with him because of his own careless mistake!" Shadow growled as he picked her up and ran outside with her in his arms,

"NO! LET ME GO! SONIC! NO! Sonic…"she cried as she broke down and sobbed. Tails joining her as he saw the base go up in flames, his blue brother, and best friend go up with it.