Culture Shock

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 Three: What's All This Crap?

It was an ordinary box. Inside it were the things confiscated by prisoner #28 (aka 'Jenna). PVC Richard Gronwick's job was to take the objects in the box and catalog them to be investigated by the proper authorities. Inside the box was a bag of the color green, a bundle of clothing (prisoner's wore a special uniform) and a strange box made of metal and a strange substance. The cloathing was fairly easy to catalog and so was the bag but after that things in the bag life began to get tricky for Richard.

There where fourteen books. He couldn't read them at all but they some of them looked pretty advanced. Other's where strange with drawings of people with large head and strange eyes. Possibly a comic about mutants? In actuality sice Jenna got...transported on a Friday most of the books where for doing homework over the weekend. Midterms where coming up in about three weeks and she wanted to do well on them. She had a textbook for each of her classes: Human Biology, Earth Science, Algebra 2, Freshman English, World History, Beginning Spanish and her elective Alternative Medicine.

Not only that she also was given two Inuyasha manga's to read over the weekend by her friends and had six other books where there just to read 'for fun'. They were Good Omens, The Collected Works of Sir Issac Newton, a Bible, a Biography of Abraham Licoln and An Idiot's Guide to Playing Piano. There where also seven spiral notebooks with very unorganized notes for classes and random ideas for private use, graphing paper for her algebra class and a solar calculator.

Food was easy for Private Gronwick to catalog, though it was certainly not ordinary food. There were the remains of Jenna's lunch, a bag of half-eaten corn chips and half a peanut butter sandwitch. The other things were all in sealed packages: a bag of skittles, two granola bars and dried cherries. There was also a set of steel utensils and a clear bottle of an unknown material (plastic) with water in it.

There were four mechanical pencils with refills and two dozen pens, ten in black ink, ten in blue, and one each in green, red, metallic silver and pink. There was also a roll of floss and a nailclipper.

Lastly came Jenna's wallet. In it was her school i.d., a public library card, a coffeeXchange gift card, $12.56 in cash, a public bus pass, assorted photos of family members and a club card for Boarders Bookstores.

PVC Gronwick was feeling frustrated. What jurisdiction did suspicious pens with strange ink colors go? Family photos? A fork, knife and spoon? A tiny machine with rubber buttons on it? He couldn't even seperate the books because some didn't have pictures so he couldn't figure out if they were science, history or even fictional books.

Meanwhile interrogating Jenna was giving Major Eliza Myers a headache as well. How was she supposed to question this girl if no one in the entirety of Central could speak her language!? She was going to strangle that Fullmetal kid for dragging her all the way from the middle of nowhere. "Okay let's try this again. This is a transmutation circle. Do you know how to activate one?"

The girl for sure wasn't an alchemist. When handed a piece of paper and given a demonstraition to draw a circle she couldn't even get a straight line. The girl was obviously tired. The past 48 hours had been a nightmare for the both of them and Eliza was reaching the end of her rope. That's when the girl began to do something...odd.

She was bowing her head and had her eyes closed. She was obviously distressed by the witness of the tears coming down her face but as she spoke her odd language another began to emerge. "Lechah' dodi' likrat' kah-la-"

A passing fellow soldier froze and in a horrified whisper he asked, "Myers? Is that girl...speaking Ishbalan?"

"It sounds similar to it but I'm not sure. Do you know anyone who can speak Ishbalan fluently around here?" Eliza asked.

Her coworker winced and he said, "I only know of three who are in the building currently. Colonal Mutang, 1st Liutenent Hawkeye and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes."

"You'd better get the Lt. Colonel then. He would perobably be nicer to her since he hasn't heard that song yet." Eliza said frowning in annoyance when he left, humming that song along in stride., "And stop singingnit, that song is annoying!"

"I can't help it. That song's tune is pretty catchy."

Jenna didn't know what to do, she was frustraited, cold, mad, sad and scared. What happened to her? Where was she. This was going on far too long to merely be a dream. She was living in normal time, sleeping eating and breathing but she was living in a nightmare! "I want to go home..." she said with a sigh. Bitterness swept up inside her and so she began to pray. Her whole family was Jewish Orthodox and she was able to speek Hebrew fluently thanks to her grandparent's never ending chatter in it.

Needless to say she was completely startled when a man with black hair, green eyes and glasses decided to sit on the other side of the bars of her jail cell and struck up a conversation with her, "Hello there young lady. It must be frustraiting being stuck in a place where no one understands you. Would you like to see my daughter Elicia? She's three years old and absolutely adorible!"

The man shoved a picture of a cute little girl in front of her and she hesitantly smiled, "Your daughter is very cute, sir. I have a cousin named Angelina who looks similar to her. Is she going to have any siblings at all?"

The man exploded into a wide grin as if the idea had never occurred to him before, "What a wonderful idea! A little sister would be perfect for Elicia! What's your name, by the way? Your prisoner card only says 'Jenna'."

"I'm Jenna Bell, I'm fifteen. Who are you?"

"I'm Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes and I'm a soldier in the military of Amestris. It's a pleasure to meet you miss. How did you come to know the language of Ishbala so well? You don't look like an Ishbalan."

"We're not speaking Ishbalan. We're speaking Hebrew and I'm not a Ishalan or whatever you said, I'm Jewish-American. My ancestry comes from Russia, England, Scotland and Germany. I've been meaning to ask this anyway: Where in the world am I?"

Hughes looked concerned, "Amestris is the most powerful country in the world. Are you suffering from a head injury at all?"

"No I am not! And Amestris isn't the most powerful country in the world! The United States is!"

..."This could be a problem sending you home if you are as insane as you seem to be."

"I'm not crazy! I just wand to go home!"

End Chapter Three

Sorry for stalling on this chapter. The story is going to get much more...interesting from here on out so stick around! Thank you for all of you who have reviewed and I'll begin working on the next chapter immediately!