Before we begin, I'd just like to warn you that the contents of this story are incredibly weird. Side effects of reading this story include insanity, developing a mad love for me or for Dr. Steel, a bizarre compulsion to bake and consume cupcakes, or abject horror. Women (and men...) who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant should totally read this story, due to the fact that they will find it incredibly entertaining. Do not read this story if you have no sense of humor or have a history of not getting jokes. It is impossible to predict how this story will affect you, so before you read this story you should visit DoctorSteel.com and watch a few episodes of the Dr. Steel Show to see if this story is right for you.

I'd also like to brag about the fact that Dr. Steel himself read the story below, and had this to say:

As you can imagine, I was deeply honored myself to receive such kind words from someone as fantastic as him!

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you, my “Cupcake Prose.”

Finally. The new addition to his chemical arsenal: a serum that would do...um...

...Well, it was going to do something.

Ahh, yes. He remembered now. It was supposed to make even the most overdone cupcakes taste fantastic.

Now, Dr. Steel may have been insane. But he wasn't a fool. There was no way on earth he was testing this serum on himself.

Not before trying it on Hamster 1,629.3, of course!

He watched in utter delight as the hamster voraciously devoured every last crumb laid before him. Surely, this was going to be successful. He made quick work of decorating the cupcakes with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles (because as we all know, that is the only way to properly decorate a cupcake) and took a tentative first bite...

A wave of overwhelmingly wonderful sugary ecstasy flooded his taste buds. Without even taking a second glance to see if there were any more unpleasant side effects for the hamster, he wolfed down every last one at an alarming rate and sighed contentedly.

"Well, Hamster 1,629.3, we've made a real breakthrough!" He said cheerfully as he hung up his labcoat and headed upstairs.

Over the next few months he noticed very bizarre things happening to Hamster 1,629.3...In fact, one morning, he walked into the lab to discover that there were not one, but nine hamsters in the cage.

He shook his head. Surely, he thought, he must be dreaming. After all, mere moments ago he was being mentally tormented by Baby LuLu. He counted the Hamsters again.

Still nine.

That's nine times more than one. And that's horrible.

"My goodness," he muttered. "Hamster 1,629.3, you've proliferated!"

The hamster squeaked weakly in reply.

Dr. Steel paused to ponder the implications of this discovery, until the timer on the oven went off.

These cupcakes were becoming addicting...

A few more weeks later, after many of the 9 hamsters disappeared, (Hamster 1,629.3 included, sadly), certain changes had started happening. Very unpleasant ones:

Every morning, instead of waking up in his comfortable bed after a good night's sleep, donning his goggles and going down to breakfast, he would find himself curled up on the bathroom floor, on the verge of puking. Cartoons had become irritating, of all things. The robots...well, the robots weren't exactly the most functional things in the first place, but now Dr. Steel was losing his patience with them much more quickly.

He couldn't continue his existence like this. His priority this morning (after the new and unpleasant morning ritual, of course) was to do research on these symptoms and put the finishing touches on the speech programming of the newest robot.

"No, no..." he muttered, flipping through the pages. "It's not the flu..." He twisted a wire as he read the symptoms on the new page. "This seems to fi..." His grip on the wrench loosened and he stepped away from the robot as he stared intently at the page, seemingly horrified.

"My God..." he breathed. "I think I'm...pregnant."

The robot sparked suddenly.

"Daadaaaaaaaaaaa..."

He looked up from the book to the robot and glared for a second...

And then gave the robot a hard kick in its metal shins, toppling it over and knocking out part of the speech circuits.

"The robots don't need to talk, anyway..." he muttered as he walked back out of the lab.

Back up in his room, he was pacing, practically on the verge of an existential crisis. He was contributing to the overpopulation problem if he went through with this...but he couldn't very well waste his time running off to the mainland to...do away with it. And he certainly couldn't waste his time feeling all this stress over the matter. His stomach wouldn't stop churning. There was no way that was healthy.

He stopped. The churning sensation didn't go away.

Perhaps that wasn't his internal organs doing flip-flops...

"My gosh," he delicately rested a gloved hand on his uneasy stomach and cast an awkward glance at his bedroom mirror, as if he felt like it was watching him, despite the fact that he was the only one in his room, ever. "I think it's...kicking."

These were going to be a very, very long next two-hundred and twenty-two months...

This decision...there was no way it was as good as he thought it was at the time. Having a "toy surprise inside" was inconvenient...This was...this was counterproductive! How could he focus with this thing thrashing around every few seconds while he was trying to move things delicately? And having to constantly stop to eat...and then eat...and eat more. Shoveling away marshmallow and baloney sandwiches (...don't...ask how I got that combo. Even I am lost as to how it happened) while working on the robots proved to be disastrous. Upon trying to start one up he smelled burning marshmallows and cringed as he scraped the bubbling white and brown goo off of the sides of this robot's head.

He sighed exasperatedly and wiped his gloves off, forcing himself to resist the urge to eat the melted marshmallow matter and wondering why he had been so stupid as to leave one of those sandwiches in there.

He was distracted from these thoughts as his stomach started growling again...leading him to shuffle out of the laboratory muttering a string of words that would only show up as "turnip" if he dared to post them on Toysoldiersunite.

Weeks continued to pass. He always felt like time was running out as it was, but now there was this horrifying new deadline which was much, much closer. Decision after decision had to be made with so little time to contemplate the actions. And he kept putting on weight like there was no tomorrow.

He was not used to this. He was used to being trim and focused. Not some sort of...

He couldn't even think of a way to describe it. Something unpleasant. At times the word, "behemoth" leapt to mind.

"But," he reminded himself, "this still could be beneficial." these little pep talks were becoming more frequent. "After all, I..." he paused as he angled for a reason to use to convince himself, "I get an heir."

His work slowed for a second. That was it. That was all he had needed to think. This was an inconvenience. And an incredible one, at that. But it was beneficial! After all, there were probably very few people on this planet who posessed such a broad range of talents as he did. And the chances of being one of those people was higher if they were endowed with those same special genes...

Yes, he would have to work around his aversion to the sound of babies crying (or barking...), and yes, he would have to set a decent amount of work aside so that he would have the time and energy to nurture another human being for a good sixteen to twenty years. But he did have an army of loyal supporters and Nurses who assisted him when needed, and if he never did manage to get everything done before the ultimate deadline...there was someone who could pick up the slack with the same amount of skill he had always devoted to the task.

Surely he could handle the responsibility of parenting if he could handle the responsibility of ruling the world. Right?

Now, he reminded himself with a glance at the re-assembled pocket watch Fluffbot (as the speechless, marshmallow-damaged robot had come to be affectionately called) held out to him, that his tailor would be arriving in a short time. After all, if he intended to go through with this he needed the right clothing for the job.

He hesitated for a second, as a strange and sudden thought occurred to him:

"I wonder if I should breastfeed."

Fluffbot beeped loudly in response to this.

"What? No! The antibodies wouldn't do you any good: you're a robot, an artificial lifeform!"

Fluffbot whirred sadly. Dr. Steel sighed exasperatedly. This robot had a plethora of problems, but goodness, did he know how to make a man feel guilty.

"Well...just a little bit, I suppose..."

Fluffbot sparked and beeped excitedly as the Doctor moved his stool a few inches away with a, "God, you're weird."

Dr. Steel stared at his reflection with ambivalence. Had it really been more than eight months since he made that concoction that had landed him in this mess in the first place? It seemed like just yesterday he had been frantically searching through his collection of medical handbooks only to discover that this had been the source of all of his misery.

He wasn't so miserable about it now, despite the fact that it was 2:38 in the morning, his backache essentially guaranteed that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep any time soon, and he had an inexplicable urge to walk down the hall and inspect the nursery he had painstakingly prepared.

Even in this old manor full of heirlooms, stepping into the nursery was like stepping into a time capsule. For one, there was not a single robot or other piece of technology in this room other than the lone lamp by the door. He moved to turn it on, but decided the moonlight coming through the two windows--as he had left the drapes open--was more than enough. Much of the furniture in here dated back to his own infancy, as did another important object in the room.

He directed his attention to the rocking chair, which sat by the empty fireplace in the back of the room. In that chair rested a slightly tattered teddy bear. As he walked over he reflected on how it had always helped him sleep, he was convinced that this stuffed animal had protected him from the Alien Illuminati and goodness knows what else for years. Perhaps it really had, who knows? He picked up the bear and sat down with a sigh of relief, glad to be off of his feet again. From his place in the room he surveyed his handiwork for a while, running his fingers through the fuzz on the bear's ears.

"Any day now," he said quietly. He shifted in discomfort when, as if in response, the baby decided it would be a good time to suddenly hiccup. "You had better not come out a second earlier than you ought to, you understand?" He received another (slightly painful) hiccup in response, but allowed himself a smile. He pulled himself out of the chair with a groan and delicately returned the bear, yawning. He was finally too tired to care about some minor aches and pains and, after closing the shades in the nursery, went straight to bed and slept like a rock.

More severe aches and pains, however, were a different matter...

In the early hours of the following morning he found himself wide awake once more. However, this backache that was keeping him awake was much more intense and much more persistent than usual. As soon as he thought he had found a comfortable position the pain would return. Eventually, he consulted the now very worn and earmarked handbook on his bedside table. This was not normal. At least not in comparison to what he had come to accept as a "normal" amount of discomfort.

"One weird thing after another," he muttered, exasperated, as he closed the book and returned it to its place. Today was the day. He had been dreading and yet eagerly anticipating this day for the past four-and-half months, and wasn't sure what to do now that it was finally here.

Seeing it as the only rational course of action, he simply went about his day as usual. This succeeded until Fluffbot computed that it was a bad idea for the Doctor to be up and about in his state and half-wrestled Steel to his room before going to fetch Nurses Candi and Lauren.

“You turnip, Fluffbot! Let me out of here this instant!” The Doctor slammed his fist against the door once more. “I'm warning you, just because your speech programming is fried doesn't mean I can't turn the rest of you into something usefu—GOD!” He clenched his teeth and rested against the door. He knew perfectly well that, at this point, any hope of getting any work done today was probably lost, but that didn't stop him. He was bored and hungry.

Fluffbot responded with a series of patronizing bleeps and dissonant square tones.

“Well the least you can do is get me some cookies.”

Curious beep.

“No, these aren't like the cupcakes. Hamster 2,017.85 experienced no side effects.”

Clicking.

“I don't care if he's dead, that's your fault for putting him next to the Jacob's Ladder! Come on, I'm hungry!”

Fluffbot responded with a dutiful whirring noise and clanked off to fetch said cookies.

A few hours later Dr. Steel was in his bed, exhausted, recovering from another stabbing pain and shaking a little bit. He hadn't really expected for it to be this unpleasant, and he wasn't sure how much longer this would be happening. But as he thought about this and the comforting voice of Nurse Candi as she dabbed his forehead, he could definitely feel that he was losing his grasp on consciousness. Rather inconveniently, just as Nurse Lauren entered the room with an assortment of linens, Dr. Steel lost his hold on consciousness entirely.

It was dark when he finally came to. And every inch of his body felt incredibly sore. He wondered if this was what it felt like to survive the apocalypse; it seemed likely. As he slowly adjusted to the meager light filtering through a slit in the thick drapes he realized he wasn't wearing his goggles. He reached for them blindly and put them on just as he heard his bedroom door open.

"Oh, I..." Nurse Candi looked away quickly. Seeing the Doctor without his glasses, even if it was for a microsecond, seemed strange and invasive.

"Yes?"

"I came to check on you. We've been taking turns."

"How long was I out?"

"A few hours."

Dr. Steel took a deep breath and directed his attention to the clock in the corner. From what he could recall, a "few" was a bit of an understatement.

"And...the, uh...the delivery: did it go well?"

Nurse Candi nodded, smiling.

"It's a girl. Six pounds. Perfectly healthy."

A sigh of relief escaped his lips.

"That's good."

"I can bring her in if you--"

"No, no...let her sleep."

Within a few days the Doctor began to feel like his good old self and was able to hold his daughter for the first time. He couldn't help but be amazed by how mellow and quiet she was now in contrast to how much she had moved around before...And he couldn't help but marvel at how she managed to look so delicate and yet so robust. With her pale complexion and slight blush to her cheeks, she looked more like a doll than an infant.

"I know exactly what to call you..." he said gently. "Bridget." Bridget yawned. "Bridget Theodora Steel..."

And to think, a mere nineteen weeks, three days and fifteen hours ago, he didn't even know she existed. He mentioned this to her, but her only response was burying her face into the folds of his nightshirt with another yawn. Dr. Steel felt a smile creeping across his face. He didn't even particularly like babies. But...of course, Bridget was to be an exception. The next eighteen years were going to be incredibly tedious, but he had a feeling they would be well worth it. This was going to be his only child, and he was going to make a point of raising her well, though he forced himself to remember that her own intentions may someday differ from his own. And that freedom, he hoped, would leave her all the more inclined to follow in his footsteps.

"Fluffbot, I swear, if I hear you say something like that in front of Biddy again, I'll reconstitute you as scrap metal!"

The robot's response was a frightened clank. Then an inquisitive series of clicks.

"If I can understand what you're saying, she probably can, too."

Awkward silence.

Beep.

"Apology accepted. Just...don't do it again."

More clicks.

“I...well...I don't know. You have a tendency to glitch and misfire your wiring...” He pulled Bridgett closer.

Fluffbot whirred disappointedly.

Dr. Steel sighed.

“Well, all right. I promised you I would let you hold her.”

Fluffbot extended his arms and beeped again. Dr. Steel grimaced.

“What do you mean, 'that's not the only thing' I promised you?”

Explanatory rattles and clanks.

“Don't push your luck.”