Problems With Dating the RWBY Girls
Chapter 46: Neptunia (Neptune R63), or: Something Something Hydrophobia
You know, there was something to be said for dating a tomboy. On its surface, it seemed like the kind of thing that Jaune could really get behind – after all, what was better than a girlfriend who you could just treat like one of the guys? That made sense to him, at least in theory – you basically ended up with a friend you could drink and do dumb shit with, but who you could also sleep with and/or possibly get married to at the end of the day. As far as he was concerned, that seemed like a pretty good deal.
Of course, the downside of that was… well, your girlfriend was one of the guys, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because at least you knew how to act around her without being awkward, and a curse because there was something to be said in favor of traditional femininity, namely that it generally didn't result in your girlfriend doing a kegstand while all her teammates cheered on from the sidelines.
After she'd had her fill, Neptunia signaled for them to lower her from her spot atop the keg. They did so, and she did her best to adjust her skirt as she wiped the traces of beer from her lips. Yes, her underwear had been revealed to all four of the guys in the room. No, not a single one of them cared even a little bit, for a few good reasons – Jaune was already her boyfriend and had already seen her naked a number of times, Scarlet was gay and couldn't care less, and the other two already saw her as one of the guys and thus weren't attracted to her in the slightest, which Jaune could at least respect, considering he basically felt the same way about plenty of women in his life, too.
Anyway, Neptunia gave a small burp as she came over to him, scratching herself. Jaune sighed, setting his own beer down as she leaned against him and he brought a hand up to support her so she didn't fall over.
"You're drunk, Neptunia," he stated.
"N-no, you're-" Another burp. "-You're drunk, Jauney boy. Heh, gottem."
"Not really." He shook his head, sighing exaggeratedly. "Honestly, what am I going to do with you?"
"I've got a few ideas." She fluttered her eyelashes at him, which just made him grin. She frowned. "What's funny?"
"You, trying to be girly," Jaune said.
"What? I can be sexy!"
"I know you can, believe me. Just not in a girly way. Your sexiness works best when you're your usual extremely confident self, not when you're trying to force it. That's what made me fall for you, anyway," he stated.
That part, at least, was true. It had all started towards the end of his first semester, when students from the other academies had first started showing up for the Vytal Festival. He had first been introduced to Team SSSN because Sun had a massive thing for Blake, which ended up going nowhere – fortunately for Sun, Jaune figured; Sun was far too good for her – but that did result in them basically taking Jaune in as the fifth member of their crew.
As Sun had put it, 'We've been looking for another member ever since we got here and Jaune's the perfect guy. He's basically just Neptunia with a penis, which is exactly what we've been looking for.'
And so, with that admittedly bizarre train of thought established, Jaune had started hanging out with them. That had been a few weeks ago, and in that time, he had started to get close to all of them, but none more so than Neptunia. It had started with the two of them finding out that they shared similar dorky interests to each other, namely comic books and video games, which the other guys were apparently ambivalent on. That had led to the two of them hanging out with just each other for company. One thing led to another, and before either of them really knew what was happening, they were dating, first to test the waters and then as an official, exclusive couple.
Yeah, it was still hard for Jaune to believe that he had basically stumbled into a relationship with his opposite. The other guys had given the two of them plenty of shit for it, which was probably to be expected given what they were usually like, but it was good-natured, thankfully. As far as Jaune could tell, everyone supported the two of them going out, especially because it meant that their activities as a group wouldn't be interrupted or impeded at all.
Neptunia blinked in surprise as she processed his statement. "...Huh. So you're saying I should just be myself?"
"I thought that was obvious," Jaune replied. "Then again, you are drunk, so..."
She gave an exaggerated sigh, falling into his arms. "Jaune, I'm drunk. Take me back to my room and ravish me already."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that you talking or the alcohol talking?"
"Does it matter?" she asked. "I'm horny. The beer goggles are taking effect, I can feel it." She reached down and grabbed at his groin, causing him to jump in surprise, and he thanked his lucky stars that she was being gentle with him. A smirk crossed her face. "Oh, yeah – definitely beer goggles. It feels much bigger than usual."
"That doesn't make any sense," Jaune pointed out.
Neptunia rolled her eyes. "Why you gotta be so difficult, man? Throw me a bone here, specifically the one in your pants. School and the tournament got me stressed and I need some relief."
"We just did it this morning."
"Yeah, and I want to do it again, now are you going to keep being a little bitch or are we going to do it again?"
He shook his head. Obviously, he wouldn't ever say no to sleeping with her if it was what she wanted, but he had been hoping she'd take it easy a bit so the inevitable hangover in the morning wouldn't be quite so debilitating for her. Apparently, she couldn't care less about that if she tried, so fuck it, he supposed.
Sighing, Jaune took her by surprise by swooping her off her feet and into a princess carry.
"Fine, if you insist," Jaune said. "But I hope you realize that this is only going to make your hangover tomorrow way worse."
Neptunia waved him off. "You worry too much. Less worrying and more naked-ing."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," was all he said as the two of them scurried off to his dorm room.
Predictably, Jaune had been right, and Neptunia had been struck by a terrible hangover as soon as she had woken up.
Of course, that hadn't stopped them from attempting to complete their morning routine, namely a wake-up quickie before breakfast.
And so it was that Jaune again found himself between his girlfriends legs, going to work as best as he could.
"Oh, Jaune..." she panted. "Gods, I love you."
"I love you too..." he breathed. "Gods, you're so wet."
And that was when the shit hit the fan.
Immediately, Neptunia sat up straight, her eyes widening in fear. "W-what did you say?"
Jaune blinked, surprised. "Sorry? I was trying to talk dirty. Should I not have-"
"No, not that. I don't care if you try to talk dirty, no matter how bad you are at it."
Jaune's brow furrowed. "Ah. Well, if you didn't enjoy it, you could have just told me instead of insulting me."
"Oh, I'm real sorry for expecting you to know how to talk dirty. Excuse me for suspecting that you'd pick something up from the porn you watch."
"...People watch that shit with the sound on?" Jaune questioned. She gave him a blank stare, which prompted him to continue. "How can people listen to porn actors at all? Those people suck at anything that's not fucking and sucking. Seriously, have you sat down and actually tried to think about porn dialog for even a moment instead of just getting off to it? I don't know who thinks lines like 'Baptize me in your cum' are fine and dandy outside of bad fan fiction, but seriously-"
"Look, can we focus?" Neptunia interrupted, impatient. "I just want to know what you said."
"Uh, I think I said you were so wet?" Jaune said. "Why, is that a problem?"
"Yes, it's a problem!" Neptunia said. "Jaune, you know I'm afraid of water!"
He blinked. "...I didn't think it extended to the fluids your own body produces."
"Well, it does!" She crossed her arms and looked away with a 'harumph'. "So, there. You owe me an apology."
"Uh, fucking excuse me, but you don't seem very scared right now," Jaune pointed out.
"Because I'm just barely keeping it together," Neptunia replied. "I'm only not scared because you've got me mad at you instead. I want an apology."
Jaune gave her an exasperated stare. "Okay, just let me get this straight real quick. You're telling me that your hydrophobia extends to the water within your own body, yes? I'm not misreading the situation, here? That's actually what's happening?"
"Yes, obviously," Neptunia said. "I'm afraid of water, so naturally I'm afraid of my own water, too."
"And you're not just trolling me with this?" Jaune asked, skeptical. "Because if you are, it's not a very good troll. I'm not even mad, just fucking confused. This fear makes zero sense."
"Most fears make zero sense," Neptunia said. "Nora is deathly afraid of diabetes."
"That actually proves the opposite of your point, because given Nora's usual diet, that's a very reasonable fear," Jaune answered. "Seriously, I once walked in on that girl shooting up with a spoonful of sugar and a syringe she stole from the nurse's office. I thought for sure it would kill her, but I guess Nora is just made of sterner stuff."
"Okay, so that's one reasonable fear. My point still stands, especially with some of the other less-reasonable fears our friends have."
"Okay, like what?"
"Pyrrha is afraid of spiders," Neptunia reminded him. "Remember that time she went to take a shower, only to let out a glass-breaking scream when she found a tiny spider in the shower? And then because she was naked she had to wrap herself up in a towel and call for you to come kill it."
Oh yes, Jaune remembered… mainly because it was the closest he'd ever come to actually seeing a girl naked in real life at that point, since it was before he'd started dating Neptunia. Sure, Pyrrha was in a towel the entire time and he didn't actually see anything, and sure, he wasn't really attracted to Pyrrha because she was his friend, but come on, it was Pyrrha. She was smoking, even if he would never in a million years make a pass at her because she was such a good friend.
But even then, sometimes you can't help but admire what your friends are packing, and in Pyrrha's case, it was a chest that her tight-fitting armor apparently did its absolute best to conceal from the world, and that was a damn shame.
Anyway, to make a long story short, that was when they had all realized that Pyrrha, the Invincible Girl herself, was deathly afraid of spiders, no matter how small they were. It was honestly really cute, but unfortunately it was also really annoying, because she was incapable of killing them herself.
"...Alright, yeah, you got me there," Jaune admitted. "I really don't get that one. It's not like spiders can even hurt her considering she has aura. Hell, she's Pyrrha Nikos, she could encounter a building-sized spider and probably beat its ass into the dirt as easily as she breathes."
"Right?" Neptunia said. "Irrational fear. I rest my point."
"Still though, don't you think this is going a little too far?" Jaune couldn't help but ask. "Neptunia, you're a human being. I'm pretty sure we're like seventy or eighty percent water. If your hydrophobia is really that bad, how do you manage to go through the day without having a huge existential crisis over that?"
"Well, I can't actually see the water, that's how," she replied.
"So, does that mean that blood freaks you out, too?" Jaune questioned. "Because I'm pretty sure that blood is mostly water, too. Hell, so is your own piss, too. Does that mean you're afraid of piss, as well?"
"Only if I look at it or touch It."
"...You touch your own piss?"
She huffed, annoyed. "You know what I meant."
Jaune furrowed his brow. This was getting kind of ridiculous now. The questioning session was getting old, too. Still, he could tell that they more than likely would not be getting back to sex any time soon – the mood had been very thoroughly killed by this point, and he suspected that there was now no going back, at least for the rest of the night.
Still, that didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun.
"Mind if I try something?" he asked.
"What are you planning?" Neptunia asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Just hold still, this will only take a second."
She gave him a questioning look, and found herself suddenly forced to bite back a small moan as his finger dipped between her leg. It didn't last long, though – he brought his hand up after just a second, but that was more than enough, as his finger was already mildly wet with her juices. Seeing it, her eyes widened.
"Jaune, what the fuck are you doing?" she asked.
"Exposure therapy," he said, trying to hide his shit-eating grin and probably failing miserably.
"Get away from me, you ass!" Neptunia said, scrambling away as he inched closer.
"Oh, come on." He rolled his eyes. "It's not even that that wet. It's maybe just a bit moist, at worst."
"A bit moist is all it takes!" she shouted. "Get the fuck away!"
"Babe, seriously, you've gotta get over this fear of yours," Jaune pressed. "It's just water."
"It is not just water!" she said in a panic, her eyes going wide. "It is dihydrogen monoxide, one of the biggest killers in the world! Every day, people drown or choke to death on their own fluids! Am I suspected to just be okay with that?!"
"...Uh, yeah? There's plenty of other stuff that kills people on a daily basis. Hell, the Grimm kill people on a daily basis, yet you're not only not afraid of them, you actively put yourself in danger by fighting them for your career."
"Oh, but that's just the thing – Grimm can be fought and killed, unlike water!"
"Okay, what about fire, then?" Jaune asked. "Fire kills people daily, too."
"But you can fight fire with a variety of things!" Neptunia said. "Meanwhile, what can you use to fight water? The fucking sun?" She shook her head. "That's why it's so scary – because you not only can't fight it, but it's everywhere. Remnant is mostly water. Hell, water even falls from the sky from time to time. What happens if it starts raining and just never stops?"
"That's impossible," Jaune pointed out.
"Or so you think! For all we know, the White Fang have some kind of weather dominator or something! They could be plotting to flood every human settlement in the world right now, and what are you doing about it? Trying touch me with a finger that's been soaked in my pussy juices!"
"It's hardly soaked," Jaune protested. "It's just a little wet, is all."
"That's all it takes!" she said.
"How are you even alive, anyway? Do you just not drink anything? Because if this much liquid is enough to scare you, I can't imagine that you're out there slamming down bottles of water on the regular."
"Simple," she declared. "I don't drink water."
"What." Jaune deadpanned.
She nodded, a proud grin crossing her face. "Yeah, I only drink milk and apple juice."
"That seems incredibly unhealthy."
"Milk is actually very healthy for you, and I don't just mean in the bullshit helps-create-strong-bones way."
"It's not so healthy that it prevents dehydration, though."
"Exactly, which is what the apple juice is for."
"Why apple juice, anyway?" he questioned. "Hell, while we're at it, why milk, too?"
"Because I happen to like the taste of both of them and I haven't found a single instance in which anyone ever died from drowning in either," Neptunia replied.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my whole life. Nobody's ever drowned in orange juice or cranberry juice, either."
"Actually, that's not true," Neptunia said. "There was a case decades ago where a storage tank of orange juice burst and flooded the factory it was being held in, drowning like three people. And then, a short while after that, some guy fell into a vat of cranberry juice and drowned."
"So, because like four people in total have been killed by each of those, you're now afraid to drink them?"
"Yes, which is why I drink milk and apple juice only, because nobody has ever died from those," she stated.
Jaune facepalmed. "...Okay," he conceded, though not because he agreed with her reasoning, but rather because he was already sick of arguing this with her. "Alright, fine, I'll play your game. So, milk, huh? Does that include chocolate milk and strawberry milk, or just regular milk?"
"Regular milk only, specifically whole milk, since that has the highest fat content," she stated. "If I have to drink something other than apple juice, I prefer it to be somewhat viscous, so it doesn't seem as close to water as it actually is. I can really only drink whole milk without having a panic attack, since that has the highest fat content, and thus doesn't seem to be as close to water as the others are."
Jaune just stared at her in disbelief. "...That doesn't explain why you don't drink chocolate milk or strawberry milk, though."
"Well, it's not that I won't drink them," she explained. "It's just that I prefer not to. You see, I can't make them myself – yes, the chocolate or strawberry syrup is pretty viscous and molasses-like when it comes out of the bottle, but something about mixing it with the whole milk causes me to freak out. So since I can't mix it, that means I'm limited to buying it pre-made from the store, but unfortunately none of the stores around here sell pre-made chocolate or strawberry milk outside of those little boxes, and those usually aren't made with whole milk, so I can't drink them without freaking out, either."
Again, Jaune gave her a blank, disbelieving stare. After a few seconds, he gave a heavy sigh. This was, without exaggeration, the dumbest thing he'd ever heard of, and that was including the time he had walked in on Blake reading her own crudely-made porn aloud, the time he had stumbled upon Weiss mumbling to herself as she wrote in her diary, and the time he had overheard Yang singing in the shower. At no point did it make any kind of sense or even remain consistent with itself for more than a sentence or two. He honestly felt dumber for even hearing his girlfriend sit down and explain it to him.
Now, Jaune was no fool. He knew that in any relationship, he was going to have to put up with his significant other's quirks, the same way they'd have to put up with his quirks, too. Everyone had them, after all, so it only made sense. But seriously, this was a bridge too far. He honestly had no idea how to even deal with it. Even thinking about it just raised more questions than it answered and threw his brain for a loop.
So, he didn't think about it, and instead decided to just have some fun with it, because fuck it. There's only one thing you can do when your girlfriend tells you she's afraid of her own cum and that she only drinks apple juice and milk, and that's tease her relentlessly over it. So he did, which is to say that he once again started chasing her, trying to poke her with his still-slick finger.
"Jaune, you fucking asshole!" Neptunia yelled as she scrambled around the room, trying to avoid him.
"It's just exposure therapy!" he shouted back, a huge grin on his face. "You can't overcome your fears if you always avoid them!"
Needless to say, there was no more sex that night, as predicted.
The next morning at breakfast, Neptunia was predictably pissed at him, which is to say that she had pretty much decided to pretend like he didn't exist. That was probably overkill considering that by the time he finally caught her his finger had been completely dry, but still, he supposed he could understand just a bit as to why she was so mad. After all, he had exploited her biggest fear for laughs. Granted, it was a highly irrational, highly hilarious fear in the first place, but still, he could see why she was so mad about it.
"Alright, I'll say it," he ventured. "Neptunia, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" she asked.
"...Do you really want me to go into detail on this one? Because all our friends are right here."
He gestured around the table at the rest of his team, Team SSSN, and Team RWBY, who were all leaned in, waiting to see what the trouble was.
Neptunia was unperturbed, however. "Yes."
"Okay, then," he said with a shrug. "I'm sorry I exploited your intense fear of water for my own amusement by chasing you around and trying to poke you with a finger of mine that was slightly moist with your femcum. Does that do it?"
She didn't say anything, but she did relax, then turn to him with a nod and clamber into his lap, which he took to mean that she liked him again. Of course, there were others who weren't quite so satisfied.
"Seriously?" Weiss asked. "That's what you two were fighting about?"
"I wouldn't exactly call it fighting, but yes," Jaune said.
"I'm sorry, but that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Seriously, she's afraid of her own juices?"
"So, what?" Neptunia asked. "You're afraid of clowns."
Everyone else at the table started to snicker, and Weiss flushed red. "...H-how did you-"
"You accidentally left your diary on your bed when you were in the bathroom one time and I happened to take a look." Everyone else continued laughing, and Neptunia rolled her eyes. "Oh, like you all are any better. I know for a fact that everybody on my team has really irrational fears, too. Unless you want me to go into detail, I suggest you all stop laughing at Weiss."
"Actually, please go into detail," Weiss said. "I think some payback is warranted."
Neptunia shrugged. "Alright, here goes. Sage is afraid of heights. Sun is afraid of girls who are stronger than him and who are capable of beating him up. Scarlet is afraid of wearing jean shorts, because he thinks they're very unfashionable."
"He's not wrong!" Coco called from across the cafeteria.
"...They also squish the dangly bits," Scarlet timidly added, earning him a nod of solidarity from every other man at the table.
"Dude, how the hell did you end up with the most rational fear out of all us, and more importantly, how the hell did it end up being jean shorts, of all things?" Sun wondered aloud.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Ooh, ooh, are we sharing everyone's biggest fears?!" Nora said excitedly. "Because I have a lot to contribute!"
Everyone looked at Ren expectantly, but he just shrugged. "What? I'm not going to stop her this time. You all deserve this for laughing at Weiss."
"Thank you!" Weiss exclaimed.
"Wait, why aren't you freaking out about this?" Yang asked.
"Because unlike the rest of you, my fears are actually quite rational, since they're based on things that have actually happened to me in my life," Ren replied. "Anyway, the point is, I'm not going to tard wrangle her this time. If it bothers you all so much, one of you can do it."
But it was too late, for Nora had already started revealing everyone's deepest secrets.
"Pyrrha is deathly afraid of spiders," she said.
"We already established that earlier," Jaune replied.
"The others weren't there for it, though," Neptunia reminded him. "So this is new to them."
"Eh, not really," Ruby said with a shrug. "Remember that field trip out to the forest we took a while back? Yeah, we saw her freak out when she went to get tree sap and there was a small spider on the tree in front of her."
"I still don't get that fear, by the way," Yang said. "Pyrrha, you're like a giant to them, and they can't even hurt you because you've got aura. I know it's kind of a dead meme saying that the spider is more scared of you than you are of it, but seriously, you're Pyrrha Nikos and it's a tiny spider."
"That's what they want you to think," Pyrrha said, her voice taking on a harsh tone as she leaned in ominously. "Those little hellspawns have eight legs, eight eyes, and eat by melting other insects down into goo from the inside out and then sucking it. It's just not natural."
"Actually, spiders occur in nature, so they are by definition natural," Blake said.
Pyrrha glared at her. "Don't you have to be a smart-ass somewhere else?"
"Not until four."
"Look, we're just trying to get to the root of the problem, here," Weiss said. "Mainly because your fear makes no sense and we want to help you get over it."
"Well, don't," Pyrrha requested. "I know it's not rational. I know it doesn't make even the smallest amount of sense. But, damn it, it's my biggest fear, and I don't really care about getting over it. Keep those little multi-eyed, multi-limbed monstrosities far away from me."
"Actually, I'm pretty sure almost every creature in the world is both multi-eyed and multi-limbed," Blake chimed in. Pyrrha glared at her again, and Blake shrugged. "Hey, I said not until four. I don't know what you expected."
"Moving on," Nora exclaimed. "Next up: Yang. This one should be pretty obvious."
"Is it someone cutting her hair?" Jaune asked.
"What? No. Gods, no. Why would you even think that? No, it's the dark."
Everyone stared at Yang in surprise, and Yang winced as she slumped over in her seat. "Seriously?" Neptunia deadpanned.
"Look, I can't help it!" Yang said. "You never know what's lurking in the dark, just out of sight. There's a reason why it's one of humanity's primal fears – because we've learned that basically everything that can hurt us lives in the dark."
"Wait, is this why we have a night light in the dorm room?" Weiss questioned. "Because I asked you back when we first moved in and you told me it was for Ruby."
"What?!" Ruby asked, sounding downright offended. "Yang!"
"Oh, come on," Yang said. "Like I was going to admit that I'm afraid of the dark."
"That doesn't mean you had to tell them that I was afraid of the dark!"
"Well, I wasn't going to take the fall for it if I could avoid it! It's an embarrassing fear!"
"Oh, come on, it's not that bad," Ruby reassured her.
"Yes, it is," Ren said, earning a glare from the two sisters. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Yang is built like a brick shithouse, her favorite thing in the world is punching the everloving fuck out of people, and she can make her hair glow like the sun whenever she wants so long as she has aura. Excuse me for thinking that this fear is even more irrational than Pyrrha's, because at least Pyrrha doesn't quite fucking literally have a built-in hard counter to spiders."
"She kinda does," Sun pointed out. "I mean, if it came down to it, she could always just squish the spider with her foot or her hand or something."
"And get spider guts all over myself?" Pyrrha asked, shuddering. "No, thank you. It's much easier to simply get Jaune to do it."
"Why am I the one who has to clean up everyone's messes?" Jaune wondered. "Can't you people be bothered to take care of your own problems for once? What next, am I going to be wiping all of your asses for you on top of alleviating your fears? Maybe giving you all bedtime stories and a glass of warm milk while I'm at it?"
"I mean, if you're offering..." Sage ventured, though he cut himself off when Jaune stared at him.
Yang shook her head. "Okay, I'll admit it – no, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, it's worse than Pyrrha. And yes, it's bad for my reputation that I need a night light and a security blanket of some kind whenever I fall asleep."
"Wait, for real?" Blake asked. "Is that why you sleep with those old boxing gloves all the time?"
"Of course," Yang answered. "What, did you think I just did that for fun? No, it's because I can't fucking sleep without them, since then I have to focus on the monsters that might be lurking in the dark."
"What kind of monsters could possibly be lurking in your dorm room?" Neptunia wondered. "Oh no, are you going to be attacked by Blake's crudely-made porn or Weiss' snoring?"
"To be fair, I imagine that Weiss' snoring is probably horrendous enough to warrant a good amount of fear," Jaune said, earning him a roll of the eyes from Weiss.
"Ha, ha," Weiss deadpanned. "And what's your biggest fear, Jaune? Since you're acting like such a dick to everyone, it must not be that bad."
Nora opened her mouth, eager to say it, but Jaune beat her to the punch. "My biggest fear is getting into a relationship with a girl who's a piss-poor match for me, and then my entire life devolves into a series of endless shenanigans, making me into a sort of cosmic plaything for an audience that enjoys watching me suffer for laughs."
"Damn," Yang said. "And I thought our fears were irrational."
"You laugh, but just look at who I'm dating," Jaune said. "Neptunia just about peed herself last night because I chased her around with some of her own juices on my finger. If that's not shenanigans, I don't know what is."
"How does that even work, anyway?" Pyrrha wondered. "Does she just have a miniature heart attack every time she has to go to the bathroom or something?"
"If you must know, I try to avoid using the bathroom as much as possible," Neptunia answered. "In fact, pretty much the only time I use it is when I'm at home, because that's the only place I'm comfortable allowing myself to have an anxiety attack while I'm on the toilet."
"But we've been at school for almost a year," Sun pointed out, skeptical. "Are you telling me that you've been holding it this entire time?"
"Let's just say that going home is going to be a huge load off my mind and leave it at that."
"That doesn't seem physically possible," Weiss said, just as skeptical as Sun.
"Fear is a powerful motivator," Neptunia responded. "You ought to know, since the last time someone suggested putting on that clown movie for movie night, you ran out of the room faster than Ruby using her semblance."
"Yeah, what's up with that?" Yang asked. "I mean, seriously, clowns? Talk about weaksauce."
"Oh, don't act like you don't get it," Weiss said with a roll of her eyes. "They're not natural, okay? All that makeup and perpetually-upbeat demeanor… it makes me think that there's something seriously wrong with anyone willing to dress up like that. And let's not forget the fact that several serial killers have dressed up as clowns, too."
"I mean, it's not quite as bad as Neptunia refusing to use the bathroom for a year or Yang still needing a night light at age seventeen, but it's not great, either," Ruby offered.
"And what's your biggest fear, then?" Weiss demanded. "Nora, tell us Ruby's biggest fear, I bet it's hilarious."
"My biggest fear is that my mother is actually dead and not just missing," Ruby responded. "I mean, sure, part of me knows she's dead, otherwise she would've come back by now, but I'm afraid of having it actually confirmed because then it means that there's officially no hope of ever seeing her again, and that I'll just have to accept that she's gone forever and that I didn't even get to say goodbye."
"Okay, so it's not actually hilarious," Weiss backpedaled. "Change the subject, please – this suddenly got very depressing."
"Blake's biggest fear isn't actually dogs, you know," Nora offered.
"What?" Yang questioned, shaking her head. "Now you're just full of shit. We know for a fact that Blake is terrified of dogs."
"Yeah, but it's not her biggest fear, it's just one of her other fears," Nora explained. "Blake is kind of a pussy."
"Pun intended?" Scarlet asked, earning a glare from Blake that forced him to shrink back in his seat.
"Anyway, you all know that Blake is afraid of dogs and Adam Taurus, but what she's actually terrified of the most is bad fan fiction," Nora said.
"Can you blame me?" Blake asked. "Seriously, I like to read fan fiction as a hobby, and some of the shit I've seen floating around on the DustNet makes me want to just curl up in a fetal position in the shower and wonder where we all went wrong as a species."
"What aspects of the written word could possibly be so bad that they'd make you lose faith in our future as a whole?" Weiss questioned.
"Oh, sure, make me give you a fucking list, why don't you? Okay, fine, I'll play your game. Just know that if I have a panic attack, you're all responsible for getting me out of whatever tree I find myself in." Blake took a deep breath. "First off, Mpreg. Know what that is? It's a genre of gay smut where a man gets pregnant with another man and has a baby through his butt."
"Okay, that's pretty bad," Sun said. "People actually get off on that?"
"No, but yaoi fangirls do," Blake answered. "But, as you can probably guess from that response, I wouldn't exactly call them people, so no, I guess people actually don't get off on that. Aside from that, there's also guro, or snuff as you all might know it. That's where people like to create erotic scenarios in which someone is violently murdered for the sexual thrill of it."
"How the hell do you create an erotic scenario in which someone is murdered?" Pyrrha wondered. "You'd have to be pretty fucked in the head to even try to do something like that."
"Believe me, you don't want to know," Blake said. "What else? Oh, how could I forget the plethora of other weird and fucked up shit – inflation fetishists, bestiality fetishists, incest fetishists, non-con fetishists… the list goes on and on."
"Why do you purposely seek this stuff out?" Sun questioned.
"I don't, and that's the scary part," Blake said. "This shit just pops up on the front page of the archive whenever I'm searching for something new to read. There's practically no avoiding it."
"Is there no way to block these people?"
"There is, but more of them just keep coming up from nowhere. It drives me fucking crazy."
"Can we move on?" Jaune asked. "I want to know what Ren's biggest fear is."
"That the giant Grimm who destroyed my village and killed my parents finds me again one day," Ren answered.
"That's boring as hell. Where's all the funny?"
"Oh, I'm sorry I can't have a retarded fear like the rest of you idiots do. Next time I'll go back in time and dress up like a clown so I can scare my younger self in his formative years, maybe then you'll be happy."
"You're making fun of me, aren't you?" Weiss said, her eyes narrowing.
"Oh, piss off, you're asking for it with the clown thing. It's your own fault for being more afraid of them than the White Fang."
"I'd be more afraid of the White Fang if they weren't so utterly incompetent," Weiss replied. "Seriously, they can't do anything right. Meanwhile, I still have yet to see anything that will persuade me that clowns aren't secretly planning to destroy us all."
"You know, as bad as these fears are all, I have to say that I'm jealous of all of you," Neptunia interrupted. "Because at least your boyfriend doesn't exploit your phobias for cheap laughs."
"I did that one time only, and I literally just apologized for it," Jaune pointed out.
"Two times, actually. Remember that time you tried to drown me a week ago?"
"Uh, no? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't act like you don't know."
"I really don't."
"Well, this is concerning," Weiss said. "I mean, if you're so readily exploiting her fears not only for sick kicks but your own sexual satisfaction as well-"
"Don't even start," Jaune warned.
"If I may?" Sun asked, then turned to Jaune. "Dude, put yourself in her shoes. Think of what she would interpret as drowning, and then think back to things that happened a week ago."
Jaune blinked, confused, but did as Sun recommended, eventually coming up with what seemed to be the only suitable answer. "...I accidentally came on your face?"
"You're damn right," Neptunia snapped. "It was like I was being waterboarded. Shame on you."
"Why are you just now bringing this up? This really seems like something you should have been more concerned about a week ago."
"Because now I'm starting to see that it's turning into a pattern of sorts. You get your jollies off of pure maidens being scared to pieces in front of you."
"Whatever you say," he deadpanned. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to accidentally cum on your face and make you feel like you were drowning or something. I legitimately didn't know your fear went that far until today."
"Hmph. Apology accepted."
"You're all a bunch of nutcases," Ruby deadpanned. "Like, for real. I used to think I had problems, but you all are some messed-up people."
"You know, I'm still curious," Pyrrha couldn't help but ask.
"Here we go, proving my point again." Ruby threw up her hands in exasperation. "You know what? I'm out. You can all discuss the finer points of Neptunia's ridiculous fear by yourselves, I'm just gonna go fondle Crescent Rose or something."
Nobody paid any attention to Ruby as she stormed off, instead focusing on Pyrrha. "What are you still curious about?" Weiss asked.
"Well, how far this fear of hers goes, obviously," Pyrrha answered. "Neptunia, just out of curiosity, you do want kids someday, right?"
"Of course I do," came Neptunia's response. "Kids would be nice, and I like to think I'd be a good mother."
"Well, have you thought about the logistics of that yet? Because if you're scared of water… well, I'm pretty sure that cum is mostly water. And you're obviously going to need at least a few loads of it inside of you to make sure you actually get pregnant, so..."
Neptunia paused, thinking about it for a moment. "...I mean, if it's for a good cause, then I could make an exception, I suppose."
"So you'll make an exception for when you have kids years in the future, but you won't make an exception for when you have to go to the bathroom now?" Yang asked.
"Well, cum is much more viscous than pee is, so it's not as much of a problem."
"This is making my head spin," Scarlet commented.
Sage put a hand on his shoulder in solidarity. "Relax, bro – this is just Nep-Nep talking more nonsense."
"I know that, but this is even more nonsensical than usual."
"You could say that again," Jaune said. "This is what I have to put up with every day, by the way."
"We know, because we've lived with her for almost a year now," Sun reminded him. "You don't get points for doing what we've already been doing."
"Even if I'm doing it in a much more intimate way than all of you have up to this point?"
"...Alright, fair enough, I guess. "
"Alright, I'm just about sick of all this question-and-answer stuff," Neptunia declared, rising to her feet. "Come on, Jaune. I'm suddenly in the mood."
"In the mood for what, exactly?" Jaune asked.
She rolled her eyes. "What do you think, idiot? It's time to fuck and suck. I'll even swallow this time if you want me to."
"Oh, so now she's okay with drinking it?" Weiss asked.
"I told you, it's more viscous than water, so it's not nearly as bad."
"Then why the hell were you so upset with him cumming on your face two weeks ago?!"
"You wouldn't get it."
Jaune just sighed as he stood up and followed his girlfriend out of the cafeteria and back to her room.
No, nothing about this made sense in the slightest, but fuck it, if this was going to be his life now, then he might as well get used to it, he figured.
This chapter is basically how to take a single joke and just run with it to the point where it's obnoxious. In my defense, Neptune doesn't have a whole bunch else to work with aside from the whole hydrophobia thing, so I chose to make take that and make it as stupid as I possibly could. Let me know how I did, because judging by the amount of brain cells I think I lost writing this chapter, I think I made it very stupid.
One weird thing about this chapter is that a lot more people were interested in seeing R63!Neptune than I ever thought there'd be. She's one of the more requested characters, probably up there with Emerald and Arslan (who are both coming… eventually.) The most requested overall is probably still Ironwood (who's also coming eventually) but Neptune definitely isn't a slouch in that department.
Anyway, I don't have much else to say, aside from mentioning that I had the most kickass weekend I've had in a long time last week. Some family friends called me up and invited me to be a part of their crew to fire off an authentic Civil War-era cannon one of them bought, and I told them there wasn't a single thing about that sentence I didn't love, so I did that. And then it turned out that the guy whose land we were firing the cannon on was a licensed SOT, meaning he was a federally licensed gun dealer who had access to shit that regular jerk-offs like the rest of us can't get, so he just said out of nowhere "Hey, why don't I also bust out my Barrett M82A1 and my full-auto M249 SAW and we really go to town?" (side note: yes, I know regular people can own .50 cals in states that allow it, my state included, but you get my point.) So I guess what I'm saying is that I now have video of myself putting a round through a .50, plus a belt through a machine gun, and I can safely say that I didn't ever expect to get to do either. It is a bit bittersweet, though – that SAW was a fucking blast, and I am now lamenting the fact that I will likely never own a machine gun of my own, because all the transferable machine guns out there cost an arm and a leg (the cheapest I could find was an AR-18, and it still cost twenty grand). But at least the belt I put through the SAW was a good time.
Next update: Saturday, August 7.
