Sonic.EXE: Darkest Struggles is a fan work of Sonic.exe written by GuardianMobius. This serves as an early rewrite of the original creepypasta to fix any flaws that it had in the past, as well as incorporating a bit of Adaptation Expansion here and there.
The story can be read here
, while its recent remake can be read here. The official sequel, Sonic.EXE: The Dark World, itself written by Hazard-the-Pargoyle, can be read here.
A game based on this story, developed by FlexicodeDev, is under development, and its demo depicting the entirety of Tails's route can be played here.
This story/game contains the following examples:
Tropes for Sonic.EXE: Darkest Struggles
- Adaptational Badass: Outside of the story, it's shown by GuardianMobius himself that Big the Cat is more than a match for Exault, as depicted with this art depicting Big throwing a large flaming spike ball at a clearly shocked Exault... with his fishing rod!
- Art-Style Clash: As the characters are killed off, their appearances in the screen are not 2D sprites, but rather images of 3D models depicting their agony, as shown with Tails.
- Blackout Basement: The second section of "You Can't Run" is in near complete darkness, with only the glow of Scrap Brain's interior lighting Knuckles's way.
- Downer Ending: Tom's soul is claimed by Exault and erased shortly after, his possessed body being used to murder and delude his family.
- Fighting from the Inside: At at least two points throughout the story, Sonic breaks free from Exault's control in a desperate bid to save his friends. Sadly, this doesn't last long.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: So much so for the fight between Knuckles and Exault that it's mentioned to have gone on for at least half-an-hour, way more than the default time limit for Sonic games.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Considering the reveal of Kyle's distress letter is shown a lot later than normal this time, Tom is guilt-wracked for not heeding his best friend's warning before, knowing it's too late to stop playing Exault's twisted game.
- Named by the Adaptation: Sonic.EXE in this work goes under the name "Exault" instead of "X".
- Optional Boss: Hitting a hidden switch in "Hill Act 2" will allow Tails to access a hidden level that contains a short boss fight against Tails Doll. Beating the doll will allow him to progress to "Hide and Seek" as per normal.
- Shout-Out: The entirely of Sonic's "Labyrinth Zone Act 3" level is a big one towards An Ordinary Sonic ROM Hack, with the original game credited at the beginning of both written stories.
- Wham Line: During the Kyle segment of the written story, Tom rings up Kyle to check on him, and things seem to genuinely be okay. At least, until Kyle mentions that he won't have much trouble in the Robotnik section, causing Tom to start questioning things.
Tropes for Sonic.EXE: The Dark World
- The Dog Bites Back: Tom AND Sonic, after everything they suffered through in the prior story, get every opportunity possible to get payback on Exault for everything he did.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: By the story's end, Bonnie actually survives Exault's terrors, returning to the real world and promptly destroying the dreaded disc, therefore cutting the monster's connection off from Earth and sparing her from further torment.
- Trapped in TV Land: Donnie is like this right from the start of the story, imprisoned in Exault's world.
