"What Is Wrong With Nature"

by Merytsetesh

Rating: PG-13 for language.

Summary: Thanks to the internet Dethklok discovers one of nature's most disgusting underwater friends.

Disclaimer: Metalocalypse/Dethklok are property of Brendon Small and all the other guys at AdultSwim.

Author's Note: My first (completed) Metalocalypse fic! This story is entirely an excuse to tell people about a certain creature I had the dubious pleasure of seeing first hand.

"Huh."

From their respective places in the Mordhaus rec room, three out of five members of Dethklok didn't bother asking what had captured their lead singer's attention this time. Skwisgaar kept playing, Murderface kept reading, and Pickles kept drinking, though he hadn't actually heard Nathan in the first place over the buzzing in his ears. The assorted grunts, murmurs, and exclamations were a common enough occurrence that most of the band simple ignored the comments Nathan would make to himself while surfing the internet, just as they ignored the clicking of the keyboard while he blogged, tweeted, farmed, or whatever the fuck was popular right now.

"Woah!"

Skwisgaar, who was siting opposite to Nathan in the hot tub and therefore subjected the most to the singer's muttering, rolled his eyes and continued to finger his Explorer. He nearly popped a string at what Nathan said next.

"Did you guys know there's a cucumber with teeth in its ass?"

Tipsy and high out of his mind, Nathan's outburst had Pickles laughing uproariously. Or would have, if he hadn't been mid swallow at that exact moment, so he choked instead and shot his tequila sunrise from his nose. His laughter turned into a wail of pain at the burning in his sinuses. "Motherdoochebags!"

From the other end of the couch, Murderface ignored Pickles' sputtering to see for himself. He dropped his book on Civil War medicine, which mostly featured gruesome tin type photos of gangrenous wounds and amputation, carelessly on the floor. "Lemme schee!" He crouched down behind Skwisgaar, who had scooted next to Nathan to look too.

"Yeah, it's like this fish blob...thing." Nathan didn't look up from the screen, instead scrolling through a segment of text on a LiveJournal community entitled WTF_Nature. "It's also called the 'rump-toothed' sea cucumber and the 'five-toothed' sea cucumber. It's pretty disgusting."

"Okay, this I gatta see." Though a bit unsteady on his feet, Pickles made it to the hot tub without falling in, still dripping fruity tequila down his face. He leaned heavily on Nathan's naked back for balance, who pointed at the picture at the bottom of the page.

Murderface stared at the image for a long time, then said what they were all thinking. "That looksch like a turd. A schea turd."

"I know! But it's alive. It's a living shit. Oh, hold up—" Nathan grabbed his recorder. "Song idea: living shit. Attacked by living shit...uh...taking a shit that comes alive and kills you. Murderous shit beast."

"Pfft, whys dey calls it dat if it's a fish?" Skwisgaar snorted. "De cucumembers nots alive. Dumb dildos ocean bio-lolkist."

Nathan set his recorder back on the edge of the hot tub and kept reading. "It says here it has teeth in its butt so parasss...parasitic fish can't swim up it." He snatched the recorder back up. "Infected with parasites. Eaten by parasites? ...Eaten from the inside out...cannibal babies. Cannibal abortion! Fuck yeah, that's a brutal song title."

"Ja, dats a good idea," Skwisgaar, but he wasn't talking about the song. "I thinks maybe I's getting the doctor to gives me the ass-teeth."

"What are you talking — wait, what? Why?"

"To keeps the creepy rape-sit guys from trying to gives me the ass-sex! Likes in dat movie with dat girl? Teeth? She bites off the you-know-whats of these guys who tries to dos her."

"Can they even do that? Isch there schuch a thing as ass-teeth schurgery?" Murderface speculated.

Up to this point Pickles had been oddly silent. He stared at Nathan's computer with the single-minded intensity of the truly drunk, then at long last seemed to come to an epiphany. "Hey, it kinda looks like that thing Jabba the Hutt tried to shove Luke Skywalker into in Return of the Jedi."

It was Monday and Jean-Pierre patrolled his kitchen with the dedication of a drill sergeant. Around him underlings toiled over sizzling frying pans and the air was filled with the smells of spices and the clanking of metal pots. Never were the kitchens busier then they were on Monday and the six star chef reveled in the organized chaos.

After his accident, Jean-Pierre had been reassigned to Mordhaus to be closer to the medical facilities. Though Dethklok had done their best to patch their chef together (and impressed doctors by keeping him alive at all), several complicated surgeries were needed before he could be considered anywhere near healthy. The chef still had a few cosmetic surgeries left to schedule, but honestly as long as he could cook he didn't mind the horrific scars that covered his body or the awkward gait with which he walked.

Initially Jean-Pierre had been thrilled to work with Dethklok more closely now that he was their full time personal chef. The reality of his new job, however, was frustrating. Unlike on the Dethkopter, the boys rarely ate meals together or at regular times. Instead, their usual habit was to wander into the kitchen at odds hours and demand food, which left Jean-Pierre cooking quick, easy to prepare meals constantly. Like a true artist, he detested working below his level of expertise and Dethklok's midnight snacks of sandwiches and macaroni and cheese were no challenge.

The result was Monday Night Dinner, a multiple course feast of culinary delights served every Monday at ten in the evening as announced by the crash of large gong. Since he knew it was coming he had a full week to prepare meals to his satisfaction. Often he would take traditional dinners Dethklok was familiar with, such as a stuffed turkey, and customize the recipe until it was a unique masterpiece. There was always the risk that one of them (usually Skwisgaar, who was as fussy with his food as he was nondiscriminatory with women) wouldn't like it, but the successes were added to an ever expanding personal cookbook that he hoped to one day publish.

Tonight was an another experiment. Part of the terms of Jean-Pierre's employment was to make his meals as nutritionally balanced as possible...without letting Dethklok know just what they were eating. In that way they were like children who would refuse to eat their dinner, no matter how delicious, if they knew what was in it, so vegetables had to be carefully hidden in sauces, baked in breads, or disguised as another food entirely (there had been more than one veggie burger hidden under Explosion sauce to cross Nathan's plate). This Monday's main course was garnished with several vegetables, but hopefully the meat would distract them from realizing it.

The appetizers and soup went over well, but those were tried and true favorites of the band, curly fries and Chinese shark fin soup. As the main course was brought out on large platers by the hooded kitchen staff, Jean-Pierre twisted his gnarled hands nervously.

When the five members of Dethklok failed to recognize the food in front of them, their hunger turned to suspicion. Nathan looked pointed at Pickles, the bravest and as an experienced druggie the most likely of the five to put disgusting things in his mouth. "You eat it."

Pickles shrugged, then lifted a forkful to his mouth. He sniffed it curiously, "Smells good at least," then took a bite. Seconds later his eyes lit up and he nodded. "'S gud," he said excitedly through a mouthful of food, quickly shoveling more in.

With that vote of confidence, Dethklok dug in. Jean-Pierre breathed a sigh of relief, prematurely as it happened, because just as he turned toward the kitchen Toki asked the question the chef had begun to dread.

"Boy, dis is reallys good! Whats is it?"

The thick scar tissue on his face hid Jean-Pierre's grimace, but he couldn't deny a direct order. "It ish grilled halibut steaksh in zee dresshing of tomato, lemon, and cucumber, my Lord."

Simultaneously, four out of the five men spat out their food, choking and coughing in disgust, while Toki happily munched in ignorance.

END

A/N: Although I don't know if anyone has done an entry on WTF_Nature about toothed sea cucumbers, they are real. I held one while in Hawaii on a biology/botany/geology trip, and what a pathetic, fucked up little water balloon it was.