STA Studios: One-Shots

Parlez-Vous Français?

Synopsis: A glitch in the game causes Jeff to be stuck communicating in French. Nobody else speaks the language, so... trying to understand him is going to be super fun.

Author's Note: Two things. First off, you'll notice that this story is short. That is NOT on purpose. I kinda sorta procrasinated again and ran out of time to get it done. So instead of trying to cram, I decided to just release what I have. I will finish this story another time and let you know when that is done.

Secondly, because the majority of Jeff's dialogue in this story is in a language that is not English, I've provided a Google Document that has all the translations. I recommend you to follow along with that document as you read this story. To access the document, please scroll to the bottom of this page and click on the "External Link" button as shown in the image below.

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Another day, another game. If the crew were going to be honest with themselves, they were getting a bit sick with the same old Among Us routine. It felt strange to admit, but the glitches they used to get were actually kind of... fun. Sure, they had been scared of them when they had been happening, but at least it was more entertaining than just doing tasks, killing people, and sabotaging stuff. At this point, the group of friends were ready to admit that being test runners was probably the most boring job ever. Innersloth didn't make updates often, which meant that they didn't get a lot of betas to test, and any minor changes went as good as unnoticed. They were basically playing Among Us five days a week for about eight hours per day, making them easily susceptible to burnout. It was all too easy for the crew to grow envious of the regular players who could just come in whenever they felt like it. Why couldn't the crew enjoy the same privileges? Did they really need to be here that often? Sure the game could have a few bugs, but it didn't require a specialized crew to be running through the program all the time... right?

Nobody took any deeper thought into that question as they slowly filled into the dropship for another uneventful day. A few crew members had suggested making their own events to facilitate something entertaining, but they hadn't been able to agree on what to do, much less figure out how they were going to go about hosting one. Would they need approval from the admins? Keep the event to themselves only? Or open up their lobby for multiple others to join so that the event could actually hold some meaning? Similar issues ran with modded versions of Among Us—it had taken quite a while for Banana to set up the last mod they had played. Obviously the admins didn't mind if they ran through some custom-made modes every now and then, but what if they did so too often? Would it mess up their expertise in the vanilla game? Alter their role as test runners? Ruin their position as different? So many unanswered questions left them stuck.

The lobby, usually bright with an exciting combination of intriguing speculations and lively chatter, was now reduced to a dull buzz of weak small talk. Friends stood next to each other with little to no acknowledgment. Couples only gave each other a small "hi" before falling into silence. The air was heavy with disinterest, and all anyone could think about was how much they looked forward to their lunch break, or the end of the day, or even the weekend—never mind the fact that it was only a Wednesday. Because seriously, this silly game of running around a designated area trying not to get killed was starting to get to them. There were so many other things they could be doing right now...

Of course, this pessimism only held for so long, because soon Jeff entered the lobby. Now, Jeff usually didn't lighten up the room upon his immediate presence, as he was no person to do such things, but today was an exception. Because the moment Jeff opened his mouth, a foreign language spilled out of his tongue.

"Salut, tout le monde...! Je suis vraiment désolé d'être en retard. Il y avait beaucoup de circulation dans les rues..."

The entire lobby fell silent. Heads turned his way, bearing expressions of confusion and utter bewilderment. Jeff, who had been smiling apologetically, quickly frowned. "Quoi?" he said. "Tu es en train de me dire que tu n'as pas été pris dedans?"

There was another moment of silence before it was finally broken by Mr. Pepperoni Man. "Dude, what are you saying?" he asked, scowling deeply in confusion.

Jeff looked just as confused as he. "Que voulez-vous dire?"

Mr. Pepperoni Man turned to face the others. "I'm not crazy, am I?" he said to them. "Is it just me, or is Jeff speaking in a different language?"

A low murmur rose from the lobby as people agreed with him and started to try and guess what the language was. Jeff, on the other hand, crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Est-ce une sorte de farce?" he asked, looking annoyed. "Parce que ce n'est pas drôle. Je parle anglais parfaitement bien."

A pause.

"That's French," Snowball suddenly said, glancing at him curiously. "Huh. I didn't know you spoke French, Jeff. Much less the fact that you speak it well."

"Quoi?!" Jeff threw his hands up into the air. "Je ne parle pas français! Allez les gars. Découper."

"Does anyone know what he's saying?" Ninja asked, almost in an exasperated manner. His response was several headshakes and shrugs.

"No idea," Mr. Grits said. "Sorry."

Banana stared at him wide-eyed. "How?" he asked. "I thought you knew that language."

Mr. Grits snorted. "It's Spanish that I speak, not French."

"Ohhh."

Avi blew out a sigh. "Well, that's a shame," she said. "If Jeff had been speaking Spanish, we could at least get a translation."

"Yeahh." Mr. Grits crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Well, what do we do now? We can't understand him. Should we tell someone?"

"I think the bigger question is how Jeff is speaking French," Poop said, frowning down at his tablet. He was hosting the game today. "I'm looking at the language settings right now and it doesn't look like it's been tampered with... but even if it was, how come Jeff can speak it fluently? We've never heard him speak French before. You don't become fluent in a language that quickly..."

And just like that, the lobby was alive with bustle again, everyone talking all at once to either try and figure out what was going on or discuss how interesting the game was going to be today with a language barrier. Not that it was a good thing, but it did switch things up a bit. Chester turned to look at Mrs. Potato and Darth Tater with an expectant look on his face. "Well?" he said. "What do you guys think?"

Darth Tater blinked. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked.

Mrs. Potato rolled his eyes. "I know what you're thinking," he told his friend. "It took me ages to make Iva's translator, and it wasn't even that good. I doubt Jeff speaking French is permanent. If it is, then I'll do something about it."

Chester rolled his eyes in return. "And here I thought you were a genius inventor," he retorted, but the tone made it clear that he was just messing around.

Mrs. Potato scoffed. "Good inventions take time," he replied hotly.

Darth Tater snickered. "Oh, really?" he said. "Because I have an objection to that. I made a human-bot in one hour tops!"

Mrs. Potato gave him a weary glance. "Given planning time and blueprint drafting, I'm sure it took longer than that," he said. "And if this human-bot was made so well, then where is it now? How come I've never seen it?"

*WORK IN PROGRESS - TO BE CONTINUED*