Notes:

This first "chapter" was inspired by a piece of art named Sonic Origins: Nicole's Fate. (Most of the rest came after, so in a way it might have inspired the whole series.) It is also inspired by the Post-Super Genesis Wave continuity of Archie Sonic, mix and matching the two.

As far as Princess Alicia "Sally" Acorn was concerned, it had started as an ordinary day. An old mobian lab was discovered, one that was surprisingly left untouched by the megalomaniac Ivo Julian Robotnik, more known as Dr. Eggman, as he prefer to be called. It was decided to have Bunny, Sonic, Tails and, naturally, Sally herself come do some recon there, and said princess would never go anywhere without the pocket computer containing her A.I friend.

Said A.I., known to her friends as N.I.C.O.L.E., couldn't help but feel like the coordinates should mean something to her, but try as she might she couldn't find a match in her vast data-banks. And once in the complex itself, it felt very familiar to her, like her onboard camera had already seen it. It's only once in a particular room, faced with the rusted remains of a roboticized mobian, that she understood why it was extremely familiar. The mobian was trapped in an airtight glass case and clearly missing some parts.

Everyone was in shock, especially Sally who couldn't help but think she knew the girl in the case, who seemed to be as young as she had been when Robotnik had forced her to flee Mobotropolis for the security of the hidden town of Knothole.

The first to recover was Bunny, followed a nanosecond later by Sonic, both ready to break the glass trapping the probably unrescuable former-mobian, when N.I.C.O.L.E. screamed "DON'T!" All the freedom fighters looked at themselves incredulously. Was that desperation they heard in the usually monotone voice of the A.I.?

Said computer didn't seem to notice the surprise and worry on her companions' faces, when she added "Listen, if you really want to know that poor lynx's story, I can tell it to you. But you have to promise me you won't open the airtight glass-cube serving as her coffin," pleaded the electronic voice, sounding sad and resigned this time. "Because if you do, all metal in the world will rust to death, causing roboticized peoples to die, even partially roboticized ones like miss Marilyn."

"GOSH DARN IT, NICOLE! A KEEP SAYING Y'A SHOULD CALL ME BUNNY, LIKE EVERYONE! BU-NNY! IT'S NOT THAT HARD, IS IT?!" Screamed said rabbit for what felt like the billionth time, before grumbling "Not even my step-mom call me Marilyn…"

"Sorry miss Bunny, but it's so generic a nickname, especially for a Rabbit, that I can't help but think you would find it insulting, even with my amount of memories proving otherwise. One of the drawback of being a computer, I suppose… I shall endeavor to correct that and call you by your favored nickname, especially if even lady Vanilla do it."

Deciding to change the subject, N.I.C.O.L.E. said "Sally, you should find a compatible port near the computer on your right, can you put me in there? It will help me in telling the story of that lost mobian."

A projector slipped out of the ceiling, projecting a video on the only empty wall in the room.

The video started from the point of view of a sick kid in an hospital bed, looking at an older lynx asking her "Are you sure you're willing to go through the experiment sweety?"

A voice sounding like a younger and less electronic version of N.I.C.O.L.E.'s voice came from the kid saying "You said it yourself dad, if we don't try I'll die in a mater of day. We have to try." The older lynx smiled at the girl, his left hand going offscreen, clearly to scratch the top of his daughter's head.

The viewpoint changed, now clearly coming from one of the lab's security camera, as the sick lynx was rolled in, still lying down in what looked like a cross between a stretcher and an hospital bed. Said bed got placed in what looked like a giant roboticizer, something conspicuously absent from the lab in the present.

"Last chance to renounce, young lady!"

"Dad, you're Professor Elias Ellidy, successor of Professor Charles Bluestreak as the minister of science! If there is one person able to correctly assemble one of his inventions, it's you!"

"Maybe, but the roboticizer was never tested…"

"But by the time all tests will be done, I will have died. So all we can do is try and hope. Don't worry dad, I'm sure it will work!"

Sonic was about to comment, saying he thought it was his uncle Chuck, A.K.A. Charles the Hedgehog, that had created the roboticizer, not whoever that Bluestreak poser was, but got stopped by sally who forcefully made him clamp his mouth shut, causing the two of them to miss the girl making a wink at her father after her reassurance.

"Okay, I will lance the procedure. According to Chuck's notes, on top of converting your flesh into metal and wires, it should give you an auto-diagnostic software, to help determine if the problem survived your conversion and how repair it. After which we need to switch the thing into mobianizer mode and return you to flesh." On those words, Professor Ellidy did just that.

Soon after, the familiar monotone of N.I.C.O.L.E. came from the roboticized lynx on screen. "Critical failure on the main Fuel Pump. Critical failure on the Coolant Pump. Shutting down for self-preservation."

After that, it was a montage of the professor meticulously disassembling his daughter, taking care to note precisely what piece go where and how so he would be able to reassemble her, N.I.C.O.L.E. displaying the date and time of each part at the top of the video. At one point a despairing Elias Ellidy was sown speaking into a microphone. "It seems Nicole's illness had progressed too much to be cured even through roboticization, at least with my meager knowledge in mechanics. The two failing pumps are no more than big block of rust, chipping particles of themselves into the fluids of her robotic body. My specialties being electronics and programming. I wish, more than ever that our fool of a king hadn't banned Chuck, he might have been able to made her a new body. For my part, all I can do is preserve her memories and her personality, by turning her brain into a handheld computer."

After that sad admission by Nicole's father, it was back to the montage sequence, with him making a new circuit board for the chips composing her roboticized brain, delicately unsoldering each chip to resolder them to their new board, to which he added several supplementary memory chips. Then he rigorously cleaned some part of her old body before melting them into a familiar casing, to which he added a rudimentary keyboard, some miniaturized optics, a screen capable of holographic projection, the main board, connecting everything to it, before adding a rechargeable battery.

Finally, after adding all the drivers needed for Nicole to properly work as the sentient computer she had become into her free memory space, he booted her for the first time. As soon as Nicole had fully started, her dad begged her to pardon him for his inability to rescue her body, but the Nicole in the video said "The important thing is that you did everything in your power to save me, and the final result is that I still exist, still think and still have emotions. I'm still me dad, that's the only thing that really count."

They all expected the video to end there, especially since the date displayed was two weeks before Eggman's coup against the Kingdom of Acorn, but the black screen persisted. Soon a voice was heard, accompanied by nothing else than a sound curve, while the date had changed for the day of the coup. It was a voice very familiar to Sally, the voice of her father, King Maximilian Acorn himself, pestering about how everything was going wrong lately. "… now Julian who loose his marbles and decide to turn all my subject into robots! Let's hope Ellidy's super-computer will be good for something!"

King Max then ordered said computer to copy the entire Acorn Archives, even the top secret parts. When Nicole pointed out the archives were too big for her memory, the enraged King shouted "FIND A WAY OR BE DESTROYED, YOU PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY!" At which point the present Nicole, not knowing any other way to make the other understand what she was forced to do to herself to survive, decided to write it on the screen.

NOT ENOUGH MEMORY TO COPY ALL FILES sudo apt -purge remove mot-func-cons DELETE DRIVERS FOR CONSCIOUS MOTOR FUNCTIONS? y/n
y

NOT ENOUGH MEMORY TO COPY ALL FILES sudo apt -purge remove mot-func-sub mot-func DELETE DRIVERS FOR ALL MOTOR FUNCTIONS (include breathing)? y/n
y

NOT ENOUGH MEMORY TO COPY ALL FILES sudo mem-trim PURGING MEMORIES FILES FROM ALL DATA THE SYSTEM CAN'T CURENTLY UNDERSTAND? y/n
y

BEGINNING COPY EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS OVERLOAD. SHUTDOWN OF THE EMOTIONAL MATRIX TO PRESERVE SYSTEM.

It caused the appropriate expression of horror on everyone's faces.

The black screen was then replaced by the picture of a female lynx looking like a grown up Nicole, in a purple dress that seemed to be made a single but very long fabric strip. That lynx didn't have any legs, and her dress ended in floating purple pixels. "It took me years before I could safely let myself feel emotions without any risk, but by then you were all so used to me motionlessly stating facts, I feared how you would react if I suddenly displayed emotions, let alone revealed I used to be mobian…" The virtual representation of Nicole Ellidy on the screen openly displayed sadness as she said that last bit with a matching tone in her voice.

All the freedom fighters shared her sadness, but not as much as Sally herself did. The childhood friend she had believed forever lost had been at her side almost since the beginning, proving time and again what an invaluable ally she was, even if they had all believed her to just be an invaluable tool back then. The princess took her computerized friend out of the socket she was currently plugged-in, and hugged her casing against her chest.

To every one surprise, Nicole manifested herself. "I appreciate the hug Sally, but if you keep me longer against your fur, my processors might start to overheat."

Notes:

First, I know, the commands and their result look like a unholy mix between GNU/Linux (or any modern Unix, really) and Dos. Let's just say Nicole run on a mobian O.S., probably even one unique to herself. Second, for those who wonder how she knew Sally was giving her a hug, the metal of her frame/casing is came from her roboticized body. In my personal head cannon for this new universe it let her conserve a sense of touch. (Same apply to Bunny's roboticized limbs.) Speaking of Bunny, the name Marilyn came from the French dub. (Similarly, Antoine Depardieu became Antoine De La Renardière in the same dub, making him a fox instead of a coyote.) And yes, I made her Cream's half-sister. I didn't make Rotor come for this story because being technically savvy is usually something attributed to Tails in modern Sonic medias (and even old Japanese Sonic medias), making him redundant. He might still be present in other stories, but if it is the case I will probably recast him as a medic instead. That's a role I feel was missing in the original series. Finally, Professor Ellidy's first name is a nod to Sally brother from pre-Super Genesis Wave Archie Sonic. As a rule, I consider all Archie characters from pre-Genesis that weren't also present in the original SatAM cartoon to be off-limits. (The designs of that era are fair games, as long as they apply to pe-existing characters.) Anything coming from Post-Super Genesis Wave, IDW Sonic or, naturally, the games, might appear here. (Unless if it's Black-Arms or Zeti related.)