“Oh, man, Amy, your cooking is normally so good, but this is even better than normal! All your practice is really paying off. Yum!!”

Amy grimaced, though she was glad Tails was too distracted by the food to notice.

It turns out that having near perfect recall, precise control of one’s body, the ability to accurately determine the temperature and state of all your ingredients, and an extensive culinary database (which, considering the doctor hadn’t also included the ability to even enjoy the meal she’d made in anything other than appearance, probably said something about him) gave a considerable boost to one’s cooking skills.

Again, it would seem that last hurdle would be larger than it was (the whole not actually being able to taste what she made thing) but with the ability to recall exactly what she’d done to produce meals that tasted great in the past and the ‘benefit’ of all her new capabilities, knowledge, and predictive software, it seemed like it wouldn’t be difficult to compete with even professional chefs….Though, the ability to tell, at least directly, whether what she’d prepared was something that tasted sublime…or like garbage…was something that now seemed forever out of her reach.

That instead she’d apparently produced something fantastic…better even…than anything she’d managed before, when she was a living, breathing hedgehog, when she was just ‘Amy’….Well, let’s just say the processing ‘box’ she’d been maintaining got a not so little bit fuller….

“...Thanks, Tails. I’m really happy you’re enjoying it….”

Again, she was quite glad that Tails was distracted enough by the food that he didn’t notice anything about her strained tone or look as she’d said that.

“I really am…happy…that he’s having a good meal….Without my help, I’m sure he wouldn’t get nearly enough of them, or Sonic as well….But, I really just can’t take this anymore….I need to do something…but not…here….I just can’t risk that Sonic or anyone else will overhear…or that they might misunderstand if Tails initially ‘overreacts’….”

As much as she’d wanted to put this off (or maybe not even do it at all), the last night and the events of the morning had pushed her to her limit. She needed to talk to Tails about what had happened to her and to see if he could do something, anything, to ‘fix’ her. But, again, she wanted to make sure she could do it in a way that no one else would find out…at least not yet. There was also the concern that Tails might not initially believe her and she would need some time to convince him before anyone intervened.

“Hey, Tails…”

The fox looked up from his mostly finished breakfast with a smile.

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“Yeah, Amy, something up?”

Amy felt something in her shrink and die at the look of happiness and trust her young friend, her ‘little brother’, was now giving her.

“..uhm…uhm….” She needed to do this. “....So, uhm, you know, ah, as a result of, well, everything that happened recently….” She saw his look of happiness fade a little and hurriedly firmed her resolve to continue. “Yeah, uhm, anyways, because of all that, I learned of a really cool site that’s not actually that far from here. And, maybe, if you’re up for it, we could go check it out together.”

Tails’ expression brightened.

“Really, that sounds like it could be fun! What kind of site is it?”

For a moment, Amy was really glad that her current appearance was just an illusion that she could control because she didn’t want her friend to see anything about how she actually felt right now.

(...I’M A MONSTER, AN ACTUAL MONSTER. I ACTUALLY DESERVE THIS HAVING HAPPENED TO ME AND SO MUCH MORE…)

“Uhm, it’s an abandoned site of Eggman’s….Due to…everything that happened…I was able to get ahold of data related to his bases, and, from what I learned, he’s probably forgotten about this one. It’s actually quite a bit on the older side but should still have a good amount of his stuff lying around that you could probably make use of.”

Amy could see that her friend was really beginning to look excited now.

“Wow, that’s so cool and really lucky that you were able to steal that data before you could escape. Yeah, I’d definitely like to check it out!! Do you think we should ask Sonic to come along too? I mean he’s always up for an adventure and checking out an old Eggman base definitely sounds like one!”

Amy couldn’t help it, she suddenly stood in alarm and shouted a denial at Tails’ innocent and entirely reasonable suggestion.

“NO!!!”

Realizing what she’d done and that Tails was now staring at her in shock, she quickly sat back down and tried to appear more calm (and rational).

“I mean…no…I don’t think that will be necessary. I mean Sonic probably will still be asleep for a bit and we can take care of ourselves…right?”

Tails looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, you’re right, Amy. Besides, as long as you’re there with me, I know I’ll be fine.”

(............MONSTER.)

Seeing the innocent and trusting expression her little fox friend was giving her once more, Amy seriously considered flying back to Dr. Eggman’s base. She was clearly an evil robot now and deserved to be in the presence of similar (though perhaps they were actually less evil) company.

“...Uhm, yeah…thanks…thanks, Tails….But, anyways, if you’re up for it then…maybe can we leave as soon as you’re done with breakfast…if that’s alright?....”

If she was actually going to do this thing, she just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Still, she didn’t know if she was relieved or not when Tails just gave her a quick nod and began shoveling the remainder of his breakfast into his mouth.