im a serious writer that writers serious stories

no ppl get stabbed just sonc

"Anyone have any ideas for this scene?"

"Oh oh oh! I do!"

"Okay, shoot."

"So..."

—

There's a fight, and it's on a battlefield. Not really a battlefield, but it's destroyed, smoky and violent enough to count as one, even if it's only two fighters away from empty. Though, as far as Sonic's concerned, he's the only one there.

I mean, it's not like he's really alone. He just can't find the masked guy, aka his only opponent.

So, smoke and mirrors: they're used a lot as figurative language for illusions, fake outs, Sonic doesn't really know or care. Here it's literal smoke and mirrors, which kinda sucks on Sonic's part. Look, his ears are superb. Nose? Smells those smells from miles away. He'd be lying, though, if he discredited his eyes in the slightest. They're his scopes into the world around him, little probes into the vast ocean of his surroundings (actually, the ocean's a terrible analogy, let's just forget oceans, right now, immediately. They're terrible for Sonic's stress management.)

Anyways, smoke, mirrors, all that jazz. Yeah, there's lot's of smoke, and glass is ridiculously reflective when there's a lot of fire around, apparently. The light's stabbing Sonic's eyes. Stings, burns, whatever verbs suit the fancy. It mondo sucks. Oh, and there's the added bonus of not seeing things.

Also, don't forget, fire is loud, and smoke has the smell of a dead corpse when its from goodies like plastic and metal.

So, to tally: His eyes are useless, his nose is useless, and his ears are useless.

Yeah, Sonic's having a bad day.

Sonic's best bet, and really his only bet, is to look for any splits or whooshy-patterns in the smoke. It's still a terrible bet because of, well, stabby light beams of death in his eyes. Really, whoever decided glass should reflect things kinda sucks.

He's doing that now, actually, the looking for splits and whooshy-patterns. There's a hand, flat, glued to his forehead as a futile attempt to shield light from his (screaming in terrible, terrible agony) eyes. He's also squinting. Doesn't help much either but, whatever, it works well enough, because there's a moment where he sees it, a flash in the corner of his eye, and it's all he needs.

Scoping: Done.

Attacking: Commence. Hopefully.

So Sonic spindashes, all of that curling up, spinning, revving, then the whoosh, as he does best. It's the usual business, uneventful up until he hits absolutely nothing.

What?!

Sonic uncurls, and he's on his feet. There's that. But he's also staring at nothing, and now, in addition to staring at nothing, he has a face full of smoke and his lungs are giving those warning twitches, the ones that usually come right before he starts hacking and coughing the life out of his body, which he does not need right now, at all.

The bad part isn't really the imminent coughing spree. He can avoid that by, well, literally moving anywhere else. There's this one itty bitty problem. He's distracted. The threat of an aching chest and a raw throat distract him just long enough for the masked rubik's cube he's been searching for to pop up.

Well, actually, not pop up, more like slide in.

Well, they pop up, sort of, but a knife slides in...

...to his stomach.

—

"Whoa, okay, he gets stabbed?"

"Shh. Lemme finish. There's a reason for that."

—

There's a sequence of events here. The stab already happened, so let's skip that. Now Sonic's really coughing and hacking, all starting with a hurk! and then just—

—

"Dude."

"What?"

"Is there a point or are you just trying to creep out the boardroom?"

—

Alright, this is getting a little explicit, so let's skip to the (not-gut-or-blood-or-the-like related) juicy bits. Mask, from a respectable distance away, watches Sonic expectantly. This is the climax. The big event. This is the culmination of every event leading up to this moment.

And Sonic, looking like he needs a five-thousand hour nap and probably is about to take one, shoots Mask a grin and asks, sheepishly,

"Are you gonna want this back or can I keep it?"

—

"Um."

"Yeah?"

"We're not using this for the cutscene."

k done you can go now