Chapter Text
It was a peaceful day in Hedgehog Village. No Eggman battles, no invasion by subterranean frogs, no colorful character shenanigans of any kind to ruin a perfectly peaceful day. Not yet, at least; you read the summary, you know why you're here.
For now, though, a certain super-genius town hero was spending this rare moment of peace in the Hedgehog Village main plaza, sharing a milkshake and a plate of chili fries with his favorite person in the world. Well, his favorite non-hedgehog person, anyways.
"... and so then, I tried recalibrating the infusion matrix, but that just made it light even MORE on fire, if you can believe it!" Tails laughed, waving his hands for dramatic effect as he recounted his latest technological blunder.
Across the table from him, his girlfriend Zooey the Fox sat, enraptured by her boyfriend's story. "I can't," she said with a chuckle. "I've never heard of your technology failing so often, Tails. You're not losing your touch, are you?"
Tails blushed at Zooey's sarcastic comment. "Of course not," he said, puffing out his chest with false bravado, "it's a sign of true genius to have one's inventions surpass expectations!... Blegh, I sound like Eggman!" Shaking his head, the two-tailed fox continued his story. "So, anyways, after that, I realized I had the whole problem upside-down! The real issue was the emitters, not the power. With that in mind, I went back to my bin of trashed Eggbots to find a suitable material dense enough to-"
"Um, excuse me," Zooey interrupted politely, "but we're still talking about a microwave, right? Doesn't all this seem like a bit much?"
"Trust me, sweetie," Tails replied with a smirk, "it'll be worth it when you can microwave a burrito without having to worry about that spot in the middle that always stays cold."
Zooey smiled. "Hard to argue with that! So, what happened next?"
Tails continued his story, the two lovebirds completely tuning out the world around them. Namely, their two friends, Sticks and Amy, who happened to be sitting at a table not far away. Because they just happened to want to eavesdrop on their friends' date. Because they just happened to have started following them when they spotted them on the way into town. And just happened to be incredibly bored.
Amy sat with her chin resting in her hands, watching the conversation with a big, infatuated smile on her face. She could barely hear the conversation, and barely understood any of Tails's techno-babble that she could make out, but watching Tails speaking so enthusiastically, with Zooey hanging off his every word? It was enough to make her heart flutter. She didn't even take her eyes off the couple as she reached for her iced tea, but was promptly brought back down to earth when she accidentally poked herself in the eye with the straw.
Rubbing her face, she let out a disgruntled sigh. "It's not fair, Sticks," Amy vented to her friend. "I've been dreaming of finding my soul-mate since I was a little kid, but Tails just has his wander into his life! I can't not be happy for them, but..." She sighed again, gesturing towards Tails and Zooey's table with her hand. "Do you think we'll ever find that, Sticks?"
Sticks just stared at Amy quizzically. "Whaddya talkin' about? You've known Sonic for years! And unlike Zooey, he ain't a secret government spy or somethin'. I checked!"
Amy balked for a moment. "Okay, there's a lot to unpack, there. First, I'm not in love with Sonic," she ignored Sticks's disbelieving look, "and second, what do you mean about Zooey being a spy?"
"Well..." Sticks took on a thoughtful expression, pausing to take a sip of her water that she brought from home. "I haven't quite narrowed it down to government spy or alien body-swapper, but she's definitely one of the two. Already ruled out a Froglodite in disguise, though. Cleared it with Og; she smells too nice." Amy just stared. "To be clear, Og didn't already know what Zooey smelled like; he ain't a creep. I had to bribe him to take a whiff."
Amy pinched her brow, grumbling under her breath. "One thing at a time... Sticks, you've known Zooey for seven months, already. I know you're paranoid of everyone you meet, but I thought you would've gotten past the 'crackpot conspiracy' point, by now. That's how long it took you to finally believe my hammer wasn't sucking out my soul while I slept."
"I thought it was eating your dreams," Sticks corrected. "There's a difference! And I only ever trust people if my gut tells me they could possibly be good people. And Zooey ain't good people." The mere mention of her name seemed laced with venom.
"I can't believe you," Amy said in disbelief (wait, is that redundant?). "Zooey is one of the nicest, sweetest girls in town! How can you possibly say something like that about her?"
"Uh, hello?! Listen to yourself, Amy! That's exactly why! She's too nice! She's too sweet! She's too... Perfect! Even perfect people aren't that perfect! I mean just look at her!"
She thrust her hands out towards Tails and Zooey, the couple having taken a break from chatting to sip out of each of their straws that were both sticking out of the same strawberry milkshake. Zooey suddenly stopped, making an odd face as she raised her straw out of the beverage, revealing a maraschino cherry had clogged her straw. Tails giggled, causing bubbles to form in the milkshake that popped and splashed onto Zooey. After a brief pause, both foxes started laughing uncontrollably.
"See?! What about that was funny?!" Sticks hunkered down into a brooding pose that could've made Shadow jealous. "It's like she's trying way too hard to play the role of 'perfect girlfriend.' Tails's perfect girlfriend. I'm tellin' ya, she wants something from him, but it ain't what Tails thinks she wants from him. She's been tryin' to pick his brain from minute one!"
"No, she hasn't, Sticks," Amy flatly reminded her. "Tails was the one to ask her out, remember? We had that whole episode about Tails trying to get her to notice him?"
"Classic hard-to-get routine!"
"I don't think you know what that means."
"What I know is that it's suspicious how perfect she is for Tails! Her looks, her perfume, her personality, even her hobbies! Tails just goes gaga over every little thing about her! It's like she was designed to get as close as possible to Tails so that she could lower his guard and steal all his smart-guy secrets! Wait... 'designed'..." she let out a sharp gasp. "A bio-droid! How did I never consider that?" Suddenly, Sticks felt Amy's hand grasp her shoulder.
"Okay, okay, Sticks. Look," the pink hedgehog said, sternly looking her friend in the eye. "I think I see what's really going on, here."
"You do?!" Sticks's eyes grew wide with intrigue. "I knew you were holding out on me, Ames! Lemme see your corkboard!"
"Sticks." Amy took a deep breath. "You're jealous."
A very loud silence followed. It took a solid five seconds before Sticks spoke, again.
"Lemme see your corkboard."
"Sticks, I'm serious." Amy's expression grew warmer as she began to talk more softly to her friend. "Tails is spending less and less time with us because he's spending more and more time with his girlfriend. It's making you feel less important in his life, like Zooey's taking him away from you, and you feel hostile towards her for it. It's only natural, especially considering how hard it is for you to make friends, in the first place."
"Pfft!" Sticks spat out a laugh. "Me? Hard to make friends? I mean, sure, I still live in a hut in the jungle, and instinctively think everyone's out to get me, but what sensible person wouldn't? I'm sure my social skills are fine!"
As Sticks finished that thought, a nearby villager seemed to overhear. The horned sheep woman approached their table and asked Sticks in a friendly tone, "you live in a hut in the jungle? That sounds so cool! I'm Lanoline, would you maybe like to hang out someti-"
"WE'RE HAVING A PRIVATE CONVERSATION HERE!" was the last thing the poor ewe heard before she was promptly shoulder-tossed across the plaza, crashing into a trash can several yards away. Sticks shrugged. "Some people, right?"
Amy winced with empathy, waiting to hear the unfortunate bystander's weak affirmation of "I'm okay" before turning her attention back to Sticks. "The point is, Sticks, that Zooey is a big part of Tails's life, now, and you need to accept that Tails is going to have to set aside more time for his girlfriend. It doesn't make you or the rest of us any less significant in his life, and wanting Tails's attention doesn't make Zooey a bad person."
Sticks was quiet for a moment, appearing to take Amy's words to heart. "I see what you're getting at, Amy."
Under normal circumstances, Amy would've been ecstatic at someone finally heeding her advice. Unfortunately, this was Sticks, and she had a very "I haven't quite learned my lesson, yet" tone to her voice. So, all Amy could muster was a dread-laced "ugh boy..."
"You're right, wanting to hang out with Tails doesn't make Zooey evil-"
"I didn't say 'evil,' Sticks."
"so I'm just going to have to find the evidence I need to prove that she's evil! She can't keep up the act forever, and when she cracks, I'll be there to tell you all 'I told you so!'"
Amy just glowered at her friend for a moment before responding. "Y'know what, Sticks? I actually think you have the right idea."
"You do?" Sticks said with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, it's good to finally be on the same page about somethin', but you're not usually this sensible. What gives?"
"If you really think Zooey's hiding something, than try to spend time with her," Amy suggested with a forced smile. "Get to know her, understand her the way Tails and the rest of us do, make an active effort to understand her. There's only two outcomes:" Amy raised two fingers for emphasis. "Either you're right, and get to rub it in all our faces, or you realize you were overreacting all along, and make a new friend."
Sticks put a finger to her chin, genuinely thinking over Amy's words. "I do like the sound of that first bit..." Amy smiled, glad to see her paranoid friend was finally coming around. "I'm gonna make that 'Plan B.'" Then Amy's expression fell when she realized she may as well have asked for a unicorn for Christmas. "Thanks for the gal talk, Ames! I gotta go get my spying kit, ready! Can't wait to dust off that bad boy, again!" With that, Sticks grabbed her water and ran off back to her burrow, off to do things that only made sense to her, that would no doubt cause undue chaos for everyone involved.
Amy just sat at the table in disgruntled silence for a moment, glaring at nothing. "I need more girl friends," she stated to no one.
"Yeah," said Lanolin, who had returned the table with a banana peel on her head and nursing a sore shoulder, "me too. Wanna hang out some time?"