Adventures of the Golden State (Hetalia)

Author: Ashynarr

Summary: Under much protest and complaint, I've decided that since I have nowhere else to put these, I'm going to share some of my state OC drabbles to see how people like them. Mostly focused on California, but will feature other states.

Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.

Warning: State OCs

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((Inspired by the americanwizarding tumblr blog))

"You know, I'm really jealous these guys are native to your shores and not mine," Isabel sighed as she scratched behind the ears of the chestnut horse. "You and Caroline both."

Sam snorted. "Like you haven't tried to get a herd going down in San Diego."

Bella huffed. "That's wasn't me, that was some dumbass with more money than sense, and the board cleared that up before the poor things got heart attacks from all the tourists around. Besides, if there's any sort of import I'd want, it'd be those little maple dragons of Sue's, because god those are adorable as all get out, but they can't stand my climate, not that I can blame them."

"Learn that from experience too?"

Bella gave him a look like he was stupid for suggesting she'd risk the little critters like that. Sam sighed and looked back to his own horse, whose ears had been twitching the entire time.

This one is strange, it told him, tilting its head thoughtfully. But not bad.

"That she is," he agreed.

"If you're talking smack about me to the horse, I'm gonna smack you," Bella replied cheerfully.

Sam rolled his eyes. "He was just saying you're weird, but the good kind."

The western state pursed her lips in thought before nodding. "Eh, I can live with that. You wanna race?"

Her cousin turned to give her a raised brow.

"I don't usually have much time to get in some horse-riding, and I've never been on a seafoam breed before," Bella defended, "and they like you, so I figured I'd at least ask."

Sam conceded the point, glancing back to the horses for their approval. The one with her threw his head back, pleased with an excuse to burn some energy, and the one with him was fine with it as well.

Isabel beamed at the news, giving a quick hug to the stallion before quickly coming around and all but vaulting onto his back. Very few ever seemed to remember that her childhood had been defined by horse and cattle ranches, to the point where they'd made up the vast majority of her population for generations, but it showed once she actually got on a horse and promptly outraced you or pulled tricks that might be called reckless by the less informed.

Of course, that just meant their race was fair, since he had the regular practice to her dusty skills, the two laughing at the sand and sea spray kicked up by their steeds as they raced down the empty stretch of beach.

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((Bella = Canon, Isabel = Hidden Away 'verse))

Bella blinked, then raised a finger to ask the first question that came into her head. "How in the hell did they pull that sort of thing off?"

Her younger dimensional counterpart shrugged. "I never got the full story, but apparently England and France weren't around at the time, so the easterners got together and decided that what the countries didn't know wouldn't hurt them. After that it was a matter of keeping track of when any of the Nations would show up and getting the kids out of the way in time."

"No no, I mean…" Bella paused for a moment to think of the right words. "The east coast sort of… didn't get along in that time period? Especially between the north and south. The fact that they willingly cooperated on something of that scale before the Revolution is just really hard for me to picture."

Isabel hummed thoughtfully. "Well, Virginia was the one who pointed out that they'd all lose their privilege and attention from England if they didn't go through with it, so I guess that they decided cooperating was the lesser of evils."

"Doesn't seem to have affected the human side of history much, from what I can tell."

"Humans are humans; I think only full out intervention would really make a difference."

"Probably," Bella agreed, not mentioning the universe she'd been in where just that had happened.

(Needless to say, it'd been… interesting. And more nerve-wracking than she'd liked.)

"Are you sure you can't tell me more about what's coming?" Isabel asked, frowning. "I mean, it's not like it'll affect you once you're gone."

"I know, but I'm not such a dick that I want you to get in trouble if the others realize you know more than you should," Bella replied. "Besides, you'll more than likely hit sixth most powerful economy in the world without any of that, since you're as competent as I am."

Isabel snorted and grinned. "Hard not to be with what I've got at hand. Are you sure I should try getting along with New York, though? He's not exactly friendly towards me right now."

"Trust me, he'll come around," Bella affirmed. "And besides, you'll want to know the east better so that when your economy skyrockets, you can laugh at them all from your enormous piles of money."

Alright, maybe it was a bit mean to not mention anything about Susie, but Bella was fairly sure that the only way to make it genuine would be for Isabel to discover the softer side of the Garden State for herself, not make half-hearted overtures based on advice from an alternate self.

And as for Ben, well, she'd been to enough universes to know that Ben was the absolute best one could hope for as both a rival and as an ally.

Besides, warning about the next world war and the cold war after was just common sense and hard for any individual to derail regardless of what her counterpart did - the details, not so much, and she'd be damned if Isabel got blindsided expecting one thing and tripping over herself to adjust her plans for another.

Chaos theory sucked, a lot, but that was life sometimes.

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((Because I have the strangest things in my story notes document…))

"You know, I was expecting it to be a bit harder to build up some cash when I got dumped here," Bella mused, holding herself still to avoid getting prodded by a needle.

"Most newcomers don't establish more than a dozen patents in their first week and sell rights to them all for as much as you can get," Rarity replied, finishing up the last detail work on the dress that'd be seeing the young woman to the Gala that spring. "Especially that black thread - it's bizarre to work with something that doesn't look like it exists."

Bella laughed. "Yeah, but you have to admit it's also really neat holding the closest thing to the void right in your hands- er, hooves."

"More like exasperating," The unicorn replied, making a loop around the stool to inspect her work. "The material sells as quickly as Twilight can make it, and that's including the percent she's allowed to keep from each batch for her experiments. At the least it hasn't affected my normal sales yet…"

"I mean, I'm pretty sure it's only another month or so until it becomes mass producible, and then you'll have to deal with the next season's fashions all using it."

"That's what I was referring to," Rarity stepped back, withdrawing her tools with a firm nod. "You're all done by the way, and thank you as always for being a good model."

"Thanks, Rarity, I love it," Bella replied, stepping off the stool and taking the chance to look herself over in the mirrors. "Are you sure I can't just kidnap you when I go home? Because I know Francis would adore you endlessly, especially since it'd make Arthur that much more jealous."

The unicorn laughed. "I'm afraid I work for myself alone, even if he does sound sophisticated. I'll consider visiting once I can afford the time away from the shop, and not because you bought out a week of my time."

Bella grinned and shrugged. "Hey, cash is cash, and I'm sure Twilight will be mostly behaved when she insists on coming along."

Rarity simply groaned as she anticipated what her friend would do with so much new research material. "Maybe I should just wait until everything blows over…"

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((And a different sort of Pern crossover because I'm trash.))

"Come on, Ginny, come on…" Bella exhaled sharply, foot tapping against the ground as she glanced again to the side. "Where even are you?"

Finally the connection clicked, and she didn't even give Ginny a chance to speak before starting in. "Hey, you're a specialist on supernatural stuff, right? 'Cause I sort of have a big problem and need you help, like, immediately."

"Isabel?" Ginny checked, sounding rather irritated. "I'm in the middle of a meeting, I can't just get up and leave-"

Isabel pulled the phone from her ear, brought the camera up and around to take a few pictures, and sent them. The noise from the speakers immediately stopped, and she brought it back up to her ear again. "Like I said, a big problem."

"...I swear, if this is some sort of prank-"

"I'd be pulling it on Sam, or one of the other more gullible states, and you know it," Isabel interrupted. "And I wouldn't do it with a giant fucking dragon that almost tore up half of my garden!"

"Right, just- give me a second, alright, and you can catch me up while I get a flight over," Ginny groaned. "I swear to God this is not how I needed my week to go…"

"You're preaching to the choir."

On getting no reply, she pulled the phone away and finally looked back to the hulking gold beast that had crushed her tomato and lettuce beds. At least it hadn't run into any of her fruit trees, which were not the sort of things she could just replant casually once this issue was dealt with.

Honestly, the weirdest part about this all was that dragons were supposed to be extinct - or at least close enough that one wasn't likely to just randomly wander into a populated region. Not to mention those eyes, like someone had just decided to scale up dragonfly eyes and put them into the sockets instead. Overall, it was as if someone had tried to recreate one of the European breeds after hearing about it for the first time, only to forget half the details in the process.

Noise came over the phone again, and Bella put it back to her ear. "What was that?"

"I said I've got a flight, so I'll be there in a few hours. You're in Monterey, right?"

"Yeah. What do you want to know first?"

"What direction did it fly in from?"

Bella pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "No clue - first time I noticed it was when it'd screeched right before it crashed into my planter boxes."

"Then what direction does the crash point to?"

"Hold on, lemme check- east, it came from the east. I guess?"

The dragon groaned, and Bella really hoped Ginny would get there soon. Gah, why couldn't Tony have been available, he could've gotten there in a fraction of the time!

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((And rounding it off with some more HP-verse stuffs.))

"Are all of these magical?" Ginny asked, holding up the basket in her hands with a critical eye.

"Nah, only like half of them," Isabel replied, cutting up the rest of the vegetables going into the salads for their lunch. "And most of 'em are preservation spells, since they're better at keeping the fruit from spoiling without cluttering up my fridge."

"I'll admit these are some of the cleanest spells I've ever seen," The witch replied, settling the basket back down on the shelf she'd pulled it from. "I can't find an edge or hole in it anywhere."

"It's the benefit of having the best basketweavers in the world," Isabel agreed cheerfully, tossing everything into two bowls and bringing it over to the kitchen counter. "Case in point, how many baskets do I have on each of the shelves?"

Ginny frowned, glancing around at all the various crafts. "Three, three, three, three, two, three… wait a second."

Isabel laughed. "Man, it got you too? I expected more of the wicked witch of the east."

"I'm sorry I wasn't exactly looking for that in particular," Ginny sniped back. "But that is an impressive notice-me-not - how in the world are you not affected?"

"Got tied into it when I got it as a gift," The western state replied, taking a bite of her salad before continuing. "I keep all my blackmail on Ben in it."

Ginny snorted but didn't call her out, which was good, because the actual things inside there were fairly personal, hence the reason for having a basket that could vanish the second you stopped thinking about it. Someone observant might notice it if they were OCD about that sort of thing, but she didn't have so many come through her house that it was a major concern of hers.

And those who did? Well, there was a reason she'd paid extra for a bit more protection around it… you know, just in case.

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AN: Right, so my excuse for not posting in a while is, well, I sorta got caught up in an exciting new Naruto/HP xover on the SpaceBattles forum and it's the main focus of my time. It's got high approval ratings for being original, so if you like that shit go check it out!

In order for these drabbles:

My New Jersey friend and I were discussing State abilities, and she decided Sam aka Texas had something to do with animals, so, animal communion.

I've got a lot of crossovers down for Bella to experience, which is hilarious when you consider I started out with the idea of Alfred and Matthew experiencing the fun of the multiverse.

Surprise, I liked MLP more than I thought I would when I finally decided to watch a few episodes. I'm still sorta meh on some episodes, but overall it's a surprisingly mature, lighthearted series.

This is born entirely out of the annoyance at the HP xover that first held this idea and its ability to completely fuck it up. Also, my friend apparently had this exact same idea only with her char before I ever mentioned it to her – clearly she and I have hit bestie status if we share such wavelengths!

Finally, props to my california history class that taught me so many new and exciting things about my state's history, including the fact that Bella really hated everyone for a long while. Also that she held the country by the balls less than thirty years after she joined the Union – don't believe me? The elections of 1880 were determined by who was more anti-Chinese immigration – which was only considered a problem in California!