Author's Note: The challenge was to write a story about how messed up the tarantula hawk wasp is. Rated for...half-language? The word is half-said before it's censored, but it's a bad word.

"DUDE!"

Donatello glanced from his bowl of cereal over to the couch, from whence Michelangelo had made his sudden exclamation. "What?"

Michelangelo turned around and hung his arms over the back of the couch. "Hey Donnie, you gotta come check this out."

"What is it?"

"Some wasp on the Discovery Channel laid its eggs in this tarantula and now the eggs are hatching and eating the tarantula alive!"

There was a scream of protesting wood against concrete as Donnie shoved his chair back and shot towards the couch. Mikey turned back around as his brother did a front flip over the back of the couch and tumbled into a sitting position. He missed his mark by inches, landing on the edge of the couch, sliding off, and painfully hitting the floor. He ignored the pain shooting from his posterior to the crown of his skull, eyes affixed on the television screen, where dozens of wasp larvae were devouring a violently protesting tarantula.

"What are you guys doing?" interrupted the voice of Leonardo as he entered from the dojo. "We're supposed to be in there warming up. Holy crap."

Mikey glanced back at his brother. "Awesome, huh?" he said, indicating the television screen.

Leo shook his head with a sigh. "You guys...I can't believe you're wasting your time on this."

"We're not wasting our time," Donnie said stoically, without looking away from the television.

Leo raised an eye ridge. "Oh?"

"We're studying. Science."

"Yeah," Mikey piped in. "This's educational."

"Okay, what am I missin'?" Raphael ambled in from the dojo, stretching his deltoid muscles by pulling his left arm as far to the right as possible.

"Trust me, Raph," Leo said with a tone of distaste, "you don't want to see this."

But Raphael's eyes were already fixed on the television screen, wider than saucers. The tarantula on the screen was trembling, the thrashing of his legs slowing as the larvae devoured his body. His mouth opened, closed, opened. "That's fu...messed up," he corrected himself automatically as Splinter entered the room.

"Boys," their sensei said patiently, "I understand the need to expand your minds with..." his eyes fell on the television, where the tarantula had given its final death throes and was still, "...inexplicable knowledge, but while your minds are expanded, your bodies waste away. Come." He turned away and hobbled into the dojo. One by one, the brothers peeled themselves away from the television and followed him--Leonardo first, then a disturbed Raphael, then Donatello with Michelangelo forcibly in tow.

The end of the day saw them all grounded for being distracted to debilitation during practice.