"Idiots," Forte scoffed. "Why don't they just get Cut Man to chop up the nuts and bolts?"

"It's karaoke night," Ice Man pointed out.

"Oh, right. Hey, how come you aren't off with the rest of the first rebellion robots doing that?" Forte asked.

The smaller robot shrugged. "If you're small, it's easier to get overlooked."

"Easier to sneak off, you mean?"

"Well, you could put it that way. This seems like kind of an odd recipe. I mean, nuts? I thought humans couldn't eat metal."

"I dunno. It's not my problem if they can't." Forte leaned against the wall, settling in for what looked like a very entertaining evening.

-o-o-o-

Star Man hummed as he pulled out bowls, cookie sheets, measuring cups and spoons. This was definitely the best idea he'd had in ages. True, there had been that slight setback when Crash had exploded the flour bag, but nothing else could possibly go wrong, could it? He felt a tapping on his shoulder and turned around.

"Um, Star, uh, isn't this recipe kinda violent?" asked Top Man.

"Violent?"

Top Man looked down at the recipe he was holding. "Well, yeah. I mean, 'beat butter,' 'beat well after each addition,' 'beat in flour. . .'"

He suddenly found himself holding nothing but air. "You mean we get to beat stuff? Cool!" Burst Man exclaimed, examining the recipe. An approving murmur rose from the assembled robot masters. "We can totally do that! Star Man, this cooking thing is awesome."

Should I tell them? Star Man thought, wondering how to break the news to the robot masters that, no, they wouldn't be beating things in the way they thought. "Uh, guys? It's not like that."

"Not like what?" Snake Man asked. "Beating up stuff is pretty straightforward."

"No," came the exasperated reply. "I mean, ë'at' is just another way of saying 'mix.' You're mixing in the flour mixture, not pummeling it.

"Oh. Well, that sucks," Burst Man said. "I'm outta here." A few other grumbling robots followed him out.

Star Man shook his head as he watched them leave. "Morons," he muttered. Then he set to work assigning tasks to the other robot masters of mixing, measuring, and finding a hacksaw to cut up the nuts and bolts, as the recipe called for "chopped nuts," and the kitchen knives just didn't seem up to the task.

Aside from Gyro Man lifting the electric mixer out of the bowl without turning it off and splattering cookie dough everywhere, the cookies went together without a hitch. The last part of the directions was causing some confusion, though. "Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets." They didn't have any rounded tablespoons. They all seemed to come to a sort of point or were oval-shaped.

Gemini Man was digging through the silverware drawers in search of a rounded tablespoon when Top Man, self-appointed recipe master, cried out, "We missed the first step! We didn't preheat the oven!" Panic ensued. Would they have to start over?

Heat Man had an easy solution, however. "We don't need to preheat it. I'll heat it right now." With that, he headed over to the oven, and there was a sudden blast of heat that left the plastic oven dials slightly melted.

"Great, good thinking," Star Man enthused. "Now we just need to wait for it to cool down."

Ice Man winced at the approach that they were taking. He turned to Forte. "You know that saying they have about how if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't stand the heat. I'm getting out of the kitchen. See ya."

"Later," Forte said. "Wimp," he added after Ice Man had left.

The first sheets of cookies went into the oven, and Quick Man almost immediately started to hound Top Man. "They have to be in there how long?"

"Nine to eleven minutes it says here."

"Can't we speed it up? That's forever. Hey, Star, can we turn up the oven temperature so the cookies bake faster?"

"I don't think we're supposed to do that," Star Man said.

"But, look, it just says to preheat the oven to that temperature. It doesn't say anything about keeping it there," Quick Man said, pointing at the recipe. "As soon as they're golden brown we can take them out."

"What's 'golden brown,' anyway?" Gemini Man asked. "Isn't gold a shade of yellow?"

"Yeah, these directions are really badly written," his twin said.

Gyro Man thought for a moment. "Hey, when we did the cake, we were supposed to stick a toothpick in the middle to see if it was done. Let's try that."

"We don't have any toothpicks," Heat Man pointed out.

"How about the spoon handle? That's made out of wood, right? And it's sort of long and skinny like a toothpick," Gyro Man said.

They opened the oven and stuck the spoon handle into the center of a cookie.

"Did it come out clean?" Star Man asked. "If it did, they're done."

"There's some chocolate on it," Gyro Man said, examining the handle.

"Well, then, put them back in for another few minutes."

A few minutes later, a repeat of the spoon handle test had a chocolate-free result, although, as Wave Man pointed out, the cookies looked more black than gold. Despite the color discrepancy, Star Man declared the results satisfactory, and the second batch of cookies went in. Quick Man persuaded Heat Man to give the oven a little boost, and in a matter of seconds, the cookies managed to reach a stage of charred blackness where the spoon handle came out clean, but only because it refused to go in at all.

Congratulations went all around on a most successful baking session, and the robot masters started to make plans on what to try next. After a little while of this, Forte started to get bored and left to find something else to do. As he was heading away from the kitchen, he saw Dr. Wily coming down the hall, heading towards the kitchen.

Better them than me, Forte thought, picking up the pace so as to be as far from the kitchen as possible when Wily got there.

-o-o-o-

"What on earth is going on in here!" yelled a voice from the doorway. Nine pairs of eyes swung over to look at the very irate Dr. Wily. "What do you morons think you're doing!"

Silence. Then, Star Man, gesturing towards the cookie sheets, spoke up. "We baked you some cookies. Would you like to try one?"

Dr. Wily looked askance at the misshapen, blackened lumps which seemed to have charred themselves onto the cookie sheets. Some of them had rather disturbingly silvery bits gleaming out of the carbonized blackness. He looked around the kitchen, at the dough-spattered ceiling, the robotic footprints in the layer of flour that covered the floor, and the lightly toasted look of anything within a two meter radius of the oven. Lastly, he looked at the robots, who were grinning hopefully at him.

"No. No cookies. And you idiots will clean this up, and you will fix the door, and you will not enter this room. Ever. Again. Or I will take you apart and give your pieces to Gospel to play with. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sure thing, Dr. Wily, sir!" Star Man said brightly.

"Good." Dr. Wily walked over to the refrigerator, grabbed a can of soda pop, and left.

"So," Star Man said, as soon as he was sure that Wily was too far away to hear, "I've found this really neat-looking recipe for muffins. . . ."

-owari-

Author's Notes: Well, that only took two years. Eep. Huge apologies to anyone who actually has been waiting that long for me to get my rear in gear and get this written and posted. And to anyone who's just seen this fic for the first time, hi! I hope you liked it.

Please leave a review on your way out. Constructive criticism is especially welcome.