Chapter 3: With Regards To Kelp And Jellyfish

Okay, okay, I swear this chapter will make up for the dolphin murder in the last one. Probably. I mean, it's hard to top anything as extreme as that. But, I'll try, man, I'll try. Anyway, with that pleading out of the way, just remember that I don't own RWBY, or any other media I put in here. If I did, then dolphin related violence would be in the actual show. Now, onto the bloodless, non-violence filled chapter!

xxx

Jaune was sitting on a bench in the western exhibit wing. He was rather bored, and as a result was browsing the internet on his scroll. Arguing with people on his favorite forums was infinitely more interesting than what Pyrrha was currently obsessing over.

"Look at this one! It has enough proteins and vitamins to power the brain for a week!" the athlete declared. She was marveling at some weird ocean plant in a tank of sea water. Naturally, she was completely intrigued by the healthy properties of various plants. It was nostalgic of Pyrrha. It reminded her of all the plants she ate while training for various tournaments she competed in.

"That's great, Pyrrha," Jaune murmured disinterestedly from the bench. He didn't even look up from his scroll. He just failed to see how plants could be interesting in the slightest. That, and someone on the internet was WRONG, so he needed to fix that.

Pyrrha turned around to look at her boyfriend. Seeing that he wasn't paying attention at all slightly irked her. However, her passive attitude restrained her annoyance. So, instead of expressing her disappointment, she tapped her foot repeatedly against the floor.

"Don't you want to look at these exhibits with me?" Pyrrha passive—aggressively complained.

"Not really," Jaune bluntly admitted.

Pyrrha's upper lip twitched a little. "Are you sure? I would like it if you did," she further insisted.

Jaune sighed and got up from the bench. He didn't want to stop telling people on the internet that they were wrong, but his girlfriend was rated more important than that. So, he strode up to the salt water tank, and stared at the plant.

"So… what does this weed do, exactly?" he asked as he leaned in closer to the tank.

"Oh, a lot of things!" Pyrrha began to lecture. "A lot of smaller fish live among the leaves, where they can hide from larger predators. Also, with all the minerals that the rich seafloor gives the plant…".

Jaune's attention began to drift away from Pyrrha's incredibly dull talk about plants. Instead, his thoughts returned to how to take down some uppity girl on the forum he most frequently visited. Every time he tried to post a theory on some game or story, this girl shot him down and called him some rather archaic insults. Who the hell calls people 'dolts' nowadays, anyway? Well, Jaune knew at least one person who did, but at annoying poster probably wasn't her. Who would honestly think that Weiss Schnee would frequent Grumblr often?

"…Nutrition boost gave me the energy to finish the tournament! Isn't that great!" Pyrrha asked Jaune. She had finished her lecture, and now was looking at Jaune expectantly.

"Y-yeah! That's, ah, awesome. Was th-that your fifth victory?" Jaune quickly bluffed. It looked like Pyrrha had bought it, as she was pondering what trophy she won with the help of natural supplements.

"I think… it was my… seventh victory, actually," Pyrrha thought out loud. "Yeah, it was my seventh one,".

"Ermm, how many have you won, e-exactly?" Jaune asked. Now that he thought about it, he knew that Pyrrha had won a lot of athletic competitions, but he didn't know the specific amount.

"Oh wow, that question takes me back…" Pyrrha mumbled as she tried to remember how many times she won stuff.

Let's see… Since Pyrrha had been a professional athlete all through her early teens, it was hard to point to the exact amount of trophies, medals, or plaques she had won. To her best estimate, it had to be around nearly twenty or thirty by now. And, if you counted sponsorship deals as 'winning things', then those numbers got a little more blurry. She had sponsored so many products, ranging from breakfast cereal (that was cool) to shoes (that made sense) to maxi-pads (…now that was a weird experience for a young Pyrrha).

"I guess… somewhere around thirty, give or take," Pyrrha eventually settled on.

Jaune couldn't help but be impressed by his girlfriend. "Thirty?! Wow, you're like some… some athletic machine or something!" he complimented. Sure, it was a rather lame one, but Pyrrha found it somewhat charming with its earnestness.

"More like a person, but thanks for the compliment!" Pyrrha thanked back in a perky voice. With that conversation now over, the par walked over to the next exhibit.

At least this one was tangibly more interesting than the other one. There were some cool looking jellyfish in this tank. Maybe it was an apology from the aquarium staff for the other tanks filled just with coral or plants.

Jellyfish, as anyone who had seen some before, were pretty cool. It was interesting to think that something that might as well just be a puddle of bio-slime could actually be a living, moving creature. That, and they were like glow sticks, too. This is what makes jellyfish appealing, especially to Jaune.

Not minding the horrible stings they could give, of course. But, that was a different matter entirely.

"Man, it's really cool how they just light up like that…" Jaune observed about the jellyfish.

"It's called bio-luminescence, Jaune," Pyrrha tried to explain. However, Jaune was more fixed on the coolness factor of the jellyfish rather than the science.

"Yeah, yeah," Jaune dismissed, "But look at that! Look at it! It's glowing! Gahhh! So cool!". His gushing was kind of funny, at least to Pyrrha. It was nice to see Jaune be so invested into something unusual.

"You must really like jellyfish," commented Pyrrha as she watched the odd creatures.

"Oh, you bet! They're like… gahh… and rahhh… you know?" Jaune enthusiastically said, not finding the right words for his excitement.

Pyrrha couldn't help but chuckle at Jaune's sentence. "Yeah, I get it," she laughed.

Jaune couldn't resist the urge to tap at the glass. The jellyfish didn't react. Instead, they chose to keep on lazily swimming around in front of the glass pane. Still, Jaune was amused to no end. Jellyfish were way more interesting than telling some fussy chick on Grumblr that she was overall wrong about everything.

By now, Pyrrha was getting a little weirded out by Jaune staring at the display tank. He had been standing there for several minutes now, and he wasn't showing any intention to move onto something else. Was this what it felt like to be Ren? If it was, Pyrrha was beginning to understand the soft-spoken easterner a little more. Well, at least Jaune's love for jellyfish wasn't as bad as Nora's energy for… everything, really.

"Umm… are you fine just standing there?" Pyrrha asked, hoping to draw away his attention. It didn't work at all.

"Uh-huh," was Jaune's distant reply. It was almost as if he was hypnotized by the gentle, lazy swimming of the jellyfish.

"Do you… want to sit down or something?" Pyrrha pressed some more. The only response she got from Jaune was a non-committal grunt. Pyrrha's lip twitched again. How was it possible that a bunch of jellyfish got more attention than his girlfriend? Those things didn't even have arms or legs!

"Well, I'm going to sit down. Feel free to sit next to me when you want to," Pyrrha announced in an overly sweet tone. It was (or rather, should have been) an obvious passive-aggressive statement.

Pyrrha slammed her rear into the bench, and repressed an irritated huff. She had to calm down. Yes, that's what she needed to do. She tried to remember the techniques her old trainers taught her to calm down, and not let her emotions overflow. Breathe in and out, in and out. Count to ten, and then count backwards to one. Stretch your back, and think about something peaceful, like ocean waves crashing against the rocks on a beach.

Don't think about getting your gun/lance from the van to impale a bunch of stupid jellyfish. Don't think about how their goo would splatter on the floor. Don't think about how good it would feel to kill something that was stealing the passionate attention that you thought you only shared with Jaune. That's right, don't think about any of those good ideas.

Stay calm, just calm down.

xxx

A half hour passed, and all Jaune had done in that time was move to a different side of the tank to get a better look at the jellyfish. Pyrrha was trying really hard to be patient, but by now, her capacity for that had been greatly diminished. Right now, Jaune was being a complete time vampire. And not the cool and badass ones, like ones that could pause time and drop steamrollers on Stand users. Just an annoying one.

Pyrrha was anxiously bouncing her leg up and down, trying to work out the anxious/angry tension that had built up. Now that she thought about it, Jaune must have had some serious willpower to not go to the bathroom, and stare at jellyfish instead. Why couldn't he apply himself this hard when it came to combat and aura training?

Just stay calm, Pyrrha.

Her patience was finally rewarded, and Jaune walked over to the bench. But, instead of sitting down, he held out his hand to get her up.

"Come on," he ordered, "We're going to look for more jellyfish now,".

The elation that Pyrrha felt was quickly replaced with an inward groan. He was still on a jellyfish kick? Wasn't spending at least forty-five minutes staring at a whole bunch of them enough already? Sometimes, Pyrrha felt that Jaune had parts of him that were a complete enigma. She understood Ren more and more by the minute.

"C-can we please look at something else?" pleaded Pyrrha.

Jaune raised his eyebrow at her. "Like what? Jellyfish, by definition, are the most interesting thing in aquariums," he said, as if it was a clear and obvious fact.

"Really? What sources do you have?" Pyrrha questioned.

"Oh, that isn't important. Now, come on! Those big jellies are waiting for us!" Jaune declared as she began to walk away.

Now outwardly groaning, Pyrrha stood up and reluctantly followed her partner. Just… why, anymore? What was he getting out of all of this? Was it some scientific obsession of his that she didn't know about? Was it some odd fetish? Or, was this some sort of punishment for some trespass she didn't know she committed? If it was, Pyrrha was more than willing to degrade herself in front of Jaune in order to escape this torture.

Dragging her feet behind Jaune, Pyrrha was now wishing that he would drop this whole fascination of his. At this point, she was beginning to regret ever coming to this aquarium. The five extra credit points seemed less and less worth it by each passing moment. But, as her leader and boyfriend, she was obligated to support him, no matter what.

So, trying to dull her immense boredom and irritation, Pyrrha tried to remember the better, more exciting things she and Jaune had done together. Like killing Grimm, copulating in the gardens, studying, copulating in a van, camping, and so on and so forth. At least all the positive moments of their relationship outweighed the less than desirable parts of it. Pyrrha made that fact sink in. And, for all she knew, Jaune might find one of her habits annoying too. But, since he said nothing about it, she chose to believe that he was holding his tongue for her sake. Jaune could be a very considerate fellow.

Straightening her posture, Pyrrha sped up her pace so that she could walk next to Jaune. If they were going to do this, they might as well do it as a couple. So, she grabbed Jaune's hand and interlocked it with hers.

Jaune turned his head to gape at her. The blush on his face made Pyrrha feel good about her actions. It served as a good reminder that at heart, Jaune still felt strongly about her. That unspoken token of affection made things look a little brighter, at least from her point of view.

As for Jaune, his fleeting feeling of love for Pyrrha at the touch of her hand was swiftly replaced. It was replaced with the determination to find some more jellyfish. Maybe he could Pyrrha to appreciate them for what they had to offer! Yeah, then she would love them as much as he did! It was perfect!

And so, the team leader dragged his subordinate on a quest for awesome jellyfish to look at.

So, their trip so far wasn't that odd, at least compared to what their other friends had experienced.

xxx

As you probably guessed by now, every chapter is going to focus on a partner duo. That way, the fluff is compartmentalized, and you can enjoy them as their own stories! Cool, huh? Well, anyway, before you leave for now, be sure to send a review or massage my way. This is The Draigg, signing off to find a jellyfish!