Culture Shock Part One
by Chara-the-Heart
Summery: I sometimes thought it would be cool to be transportef into an anime. Too bad I didn't consider language barriors, unfortunate misunderstandings or even local foods. psedo-self-insert
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa)
Chapter One: Normal Days Have Ended
My name is Jenna Bell and what you're about to read is an account of how wishes and dreams can come true in the most bizzarre and complicated ways possible. And for me it started on the most ordinary of days.
It was a Friday at the end of November when it happened. My school is called Sedona Magnet High School and it's magnet program specilizes in Life Sciences like biology, medicine, botony, zoology and such. I was a freshman, didn't have any interest in school clubs and I've never been a fan of organized sports. My only hobby really has always been reading and writing. And learning. I've always wanted to make a living being a studant for the rest of my life but since that would really drain money after collage I've been leaning more towards being a teacher. At least they get long summer vacations...
Anyway, other than reading and writing I had been slowly getting into the anime, Inuyasha, thanks in part to my two closest friends, Tory and Kristen. Tori is the artistic genious of the school while Kristen writes music and plays lots of musical instraments. Those two had been friends since kindergarden and when I entered middle school they kind of just melded me into their circle. Those two had really sucky home lives too. They would always ramble on and on about how they wished they could leave the world and meet Inuyasha and his brother Sesshoumaru. Compared to them my life was a modern Brady Bunch episode. My mom and I got along well, my dad and I respected each other and my siblings (one older sister, two younger brothers) were the best of friends. So why all this happened to me is insane and ironic. I just don't fit into the 'insane fan girl' steriotype, yeah it would be cool to go into 'Inuyasha' but its not like that stuff happens in real life.
School that day was ordinary for a Friday. I turned in a few assignments, got assigned weekend homework in every class, ate lunch outside with my friends ('Look, I drew a new picture of Inuyasha and Kagome.' 'Wow, that's insane talent, Tori.') and after school walked a quarter mile to buy my weekend candy as my ritual demanded. I always have had a sweet tooth and every week switch off the candy typpe I eat weather it be snickers, twizzlers, skittles or bubblegum.
This week I bought a stash of skittles. After that I walked across the street to the public bus stop and fished a novel (Good Omens) out to read while the bus came. I am a full bodied reader. I don't just skim the surface of a book I delve as deep into a story as my mind will alow and literally 'destroy' a book. I write in the margins, I cross stupid stuff out, I correct bad grammer (believe it or not editors do miss a lot of things) that is, unless it's a fictional book. I've only read one book in my life that got me so pissed off I literally set it on fire. Books consume me...
So when I felt a shiver go up my spine and looked up I was shocked to find myself, not at the bus stop like I was before, but at a train station, nipped by the air of a cold autumn afternoon.
"Oookay? What the heck just happened?" I asked myself, about ready to panic. I couldn't understand how I got there! "Am I...dreaming?" I contemplated pincing myself but that never really worked for me. I just figured I was lucky that I realized it was a dream because I've never had any luck trying to control the things that flash threw my head.
"Cmotpetv! Noela noehann he!" I looked over to the side and saw a blond teenage girl with light brown eyes running up to the train station with a larger man that looked like a cosplaying transformer. The girl looked over at me before looking towards her cosplaying friend and said, "Cmotpetv na aebokta. Cnpaiwhatb ee anr newa." Her voice sounded kind of harsh and very...Russian...
The cosplaying guy shuffled nervously before turning to me and asking, "Korna noela iiphxoltb ne?"
"I have no idea what you just said buddy," I replied. Why couldn't people in my dreams speak Spanish if they were going to talk in a forigen language? Or Japanese. At least with Tori and Kristen rambling in pseudo-Japanese I could have said 'help me out'.
The girl shoved the large cosplayer away from me and lead him away, whispering suspiciously to him. "Hmph, stupid English-speaker racist. Its not like I make fun of her for speaking that wierd Russian language..."
The girl suddenly appeared in front of me again, this time two feet in front of my face and I realized with a start that her eyes were golden, not light brown, "Wow, you're a really pretty girl. To bad your attitude sucks."
"Aenatbtbl rhebotnb mehr kopotvknn?"
"Uh...no habla espanol? Sorry miss, but I can't understand you."
She took out a silver pocket watch from her pants showed it to me with a tap of her finger, then pointed down the tracks. Oh! She wanted to know if she thought the train would be coming by? I shook my head in the positive and said, "Sorry I just got here, but I think it should be here in a few minutes...or an hour or two."
"Cnwrobab mehr." The girl nodded and plopped down next to me, eyeing my book in interet. I suppose she was just killing time until the train came.
"This book is in English. You won't be able to understand it even if you do read over my shoulder." I blinked and then remembered something my math teacher had said at the beginning of the year while trying to reign in the student's interest in his subject. 'If you know and understand math you can have a starting point for conversation no matter what language you speak! Words constantly change but numbers never do."
So on a whim I pulled out my Algebra 2 book and showed her the page I was on, jokingly asking, "So Blondita, want to help me with my homework?"
The girl looked at the book with a gleam of excitement in her eye, read a few lines before frowning and handing it back to me, muttering, "Eenp npovbhhytbih."
"I guess you don't like math..." When the train came allong the girl pulled the transformer cosplayer behind her and gestured for me to follow. Since I still thought I was dreaming, I did. If I had known where the tracks that train was going to take me I probably would have stayed home...
Ed and Al's POV
"Hey Al, look it's the train station!" Ed said as he ran up to the wooden building. It was far out in the middle of nowhere so he was surprised to see a teenage girl with dark blond hair, smokey green eyes and glasses looking over to he and his brother in slight surprise. There was a thick brown bag at her feet and she wore a blue coat of a strange material (windbraker)
"Hey, its a girl Al. Go ask her when the train comes."
With a sigh Al did shuffle up to the girl and asked, "Excuse me Miss? What time does the train to Central come?"
The girl looked slightly exasperated and replied, "Greeah no keble nate budayta."
Ed pulled Al off to the side and wispered, "I can't believe that bastard colonal sent a spy on me, retending to speak another language."
"Arn't you jumping to conclusions, brother? She could just be from another country."
"I'll just show her my Alchemist watch and ask her straight out if she's from Mustang then."
He jumped up in front of the girl and was surprised when she gasped in awe and said, "Pavani! Cortuvla pulva nuka de sonu."
"Did my commanding officer send you here to take me back to Central?" he tapped his watch to make sure she understood he ment the upper alchemist.
The girl nodded happily and babbled something else in her wierd language but at least she was honest. He plopped down next to her and looked at the book she held in curiosity. It was written in a very strange looking language. Before he knew it she suddently said something and pulled a book from the bag at her feet and handed it to him speaking in an excited tone.
There was what looked like an Alchemic array on the front and he took it eagerly but he went a few pages in before figuring out it was a simple math book written in her own language. "This is pathetic. If you give me math give me something more advanced."
Soon the train pulled in and Ed pulled the girl allong with him, intending to give both her and Mustang a good verbal lashing--together.
---End Chapter One---
Well what do you think so far? This isn't really a self insert since this Jenna is clueless to the Fullmetal world, but hey, whoever said the dimension-crossing-powers-that-be were fair?