Gather for a Good C.A.U.S. {wide open; char plot}

[Twilight Sparkle]

[WARNING: Super long lecture post ahead. The plus side is that if your character pays attention, you'll figure out a lot about the world.]


Twilight took a few sips of her own drink while she again surveyed the crowd. Sure, one boy was remaining rather distant from the rest, but everyone else seemed more or less comfortable with one another. Which was certainly good: they'd need to get on well if they were going to manage to accomplish anything. Twilight knew she'd gathered plenty of research, but they'd all have to pull together if they were going to accomplish anything.

Before Twilight could start on the actual information/introduction part, another interested party walked in. Twilight's head swiveled to the door, a smile appearing on her face almost instantly. The hair and tattoos certainly marked the girl as a Shifted, and that was enough for Twilight. "We're just getting started. Just settle in and order a drink. I'm about to begin."

Twilight took another quick sip before rising to do precisely that, grabbing a pointer and adjusting her charts. She positioned herself sort of at the head of the circle they'd gathered in, and made certain that everyone could see her. When she was positive they could, she began:

"Right, as many of you already know, I'm Twilight Sparkle. I used to be a unicorn from Equestria. My friend Rainbow Dash over there," she gestured toward the rainbow-haired girl, "used to be a pegasus. We're not now, obviously, because it seems that the Shifting phenomenon transforms sentient beings into a base form, that of the human," she nodded, then took a deep breath, "but I'll get to that in a bit. You see, this is C.A.U.S, which is for Characters Against Unwanted Shifting. I, uh," she blushed slightly, "mostly called it that because we'd have a catchy acronym.

"Anyway, I started C.A.U.S so that those of us who aren't happy about being dragged here would have an opportunity to do something about it. Now, I'm going to present my research and findings and some conclusions and such, and I'll ask that you reserve all questions till the end of the presentation."

Twilight paused to flip past the first part of her flipchart, which had contained a copy of the C.A.U.S. logo with the letters spelled out. The next chart showed a carefully colored pie chart. Twilight tapped it. "Like I said, we're all Shifted from different worlds. I've been talking to people, and I've managed to determine that most of us were humans prior to the Shift. It was still dramatic, of course, but you weren't changed from one thing to another. Some of us though, were something else. Besides Rainbow and me, there are also a handful of other people who used to be, uh, something else. I met a most charming guy named Pascal who used to be a lizard."

Twilight nodded before flipping again. It showed a list of various worlds/countries that people had come from. "Faraway," "Agrabah," "Equestria," "Grand Blue," "Earth," and a few others were all listed. Twilight nodded, "It seems like we all come from different places, some of them odder than this world, some eerily similar. There doesn't seem to be any connecting link between our worlds and this one, and I can't find anything that suggests that the worlds are linked. There has to be some sort of link between those worlds," she tapped the chart, "and the one we're in now, otherwise we wouldn't have Shifted here in the first place."

Twilight flipped again, obviously getting on a roll now. "What we do know is that something or someone likely brought us here. The suits were all expecting us to arrive, or at least were able to figure out where we landed. They're also quite insistent that we don't cross their boundaries," she tapped the current picture, which showed a fairly well drawn suit and a less accurate map of their area, outlining Tenebrae Estates and the border. "Which means that they don't want us in that outside world. It all adds up to them knowing more about this than they let on."

Another flip of the chart, this one a drawing of a unicorn with an arrow pointing to a purple-haired girl. "The problem is that the Shifting also took away our powers and stuff, so I can't use my magic to get us all home. This is important, because there's only two explanations for this:" she tapped a lower part of the same picture, "either this world has a normalizing effect on us, equalizing us as best it can, or whatever Shifted us is purposefully draining our powers."

She took another breath and flipped to the last chart, which showed suggestions. "Which leaves us with our priorities.  These are suggestions I have on how to get us started on getting home. There's no real order to this, because we don't know which is going to be key. But," she tapped the chart, "it's all important. First," she tapped the first item, "we need to see if we can figure out how to restore abilities. If we can get those who have magic or can fly or whatever to get their powers back, that gives us some of our edge back. Plus, if I have my powers, I might be able to make a portal or teleport us straight home. Though, uh," she bit her lip and looked slightly abashed, "I'm not sure I'm that good."

Twilight slapped the second one in almost a rush. "Next, we're going to need to get information straight from the suits. Which means either spying or, uh, infiltrating? They know what's going on, but they're keeping it under wraps. Next," she tapped the next one, "we need to get more Shifted together. It's possible that our working together will accomplish something. Finally," the last item, "we need to be on alert for new Shifted and keep trying to figure out if there's some kind of pattern. Just because we haven't seen one yet doesn't meant there's not."

With that, Twilight took a deep breath, took a step back, looked at the chart, looked at the crowd, and finally nodded confidently. "Now, are there any questions?"

[Deleted]

Gary was getting pretty annoyed by this point. So far he'd been in this town for a few days and still had no answer as to what was happening. What he'd noticed so far: First, he looked different. Not that different, but definately different nonetheless. Second, he'd seen no Pokémon since he woke up in that park. Not even one. Never in his entire life had Gary not seen a Pokémon for a such a long time. It had only been days, but to Gary, it felt like years. Lastly, he apparently wasn't the only one who had been "Shifted", whatever that term meant. Wherever he was, Gary wasn't the only one going through all this. It made him feel a little better, but he would never admit that to anyone else.

Anyway, he had heard some of the Shifted were holding a meeting about finding their way back or something like that. As he walked towards the building they were meeting at, Gary wondered what the others would be like. Were they from Kanto too? Maybe from somewhere else? Although he was still confused about everything that was happening and still worried about the fate of his Umbreon, Gary put on the best cocky grin he could muster and walked inside.

"'Sup! Hope I'm not late to this little party of yours!" Gary announced out loud as he entered. From the looks of it he probably was slightly late, but being fashionably late is how Gary rolls anyway. Without even saying anything else, Gary sat down in a nearby chair and stretched. As he sat down, a girl with purple hair began talking. Gary silently listened and followed along as much as he could. Years of listening to "Gramps" ramble on about Pokémon had trained Gary in the ways to listening to boring lectures.

Man, was it a lot to take in. Gary had trouble believing that they were all from different worlds completely separate from their own. Of course, that would explain why Gary hadn't seen any Pokémon yet, and possibly why he looked a little different than before. As Twilight Sparkle (which Gary thought was an idiotic name but assumed it was just a normal name wherever she came from) finished speaking, and asked for questions, Gary yawned and said, "Man, I'm starving! This place has food, right?"

[Deleted]

As per usual, Zoro was late.

It wasn't really his fault. The swordsman's lack of directional orientation had struck again, and while Zoro would have arrived on time, he ended up wandering for hours before he finally found the cafe. Slipping in the door, he arrived just in time to hear Twilight's explanation of her findings. Not wanting to interrupt, he stood off to the side, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. The purple-haired girl had some interesting points, and Zero found his usual scowl deepening pensively. 

So they were being kept here, isolated from... whatever this world was and kept in the dark as to the reason for their "shifting". Zoro's head tilted slightly to the side, his earrings chiming slightly as he moved. "... so we need information. We might not have magic, but we won't need magic so long as we have strength." Tilting his head up slightly, the swordsman puffed out his chest as he continued, "I can either grab one of the suits or help cause a distraction for someone else to do the nabbing. It'd be a cinch."

The teen walked in then, shouting loudly about food, and Zoro couldn't help the slight glare he shot at the boy. "... regardless, I'll help how I can. The only concern I would have is this: what if your powers don't come back? What are you going to do then?"

[Rainbow Dash]

Rainbow Dash had had a lot of difficulty following Twilight's speech. Twilight was a great pony and all, but man did she have a tendency to talk forever. Like that one thousand-page speech...so Rainbow Dash just sort of...tuned out for most of it, hoping to catch the recap later. After all, Twilight was her friend, so it would be easy enough to just ask her about it later in easier terms.

But then the green-headed guy (a nice shade, actually) did a nice job of hitting home the important points anyway. Information, huh? Well, she didn't like to brag, but Rainbow Dash had been pret-ty sneaky on occasion, so this was right up her alley.

"Cool! Count me in," she told the crowd at large, putting her hands together and rubbing them. She gave a mischievous grin. "We can--"

She was interrupted by the newcomer, which completely threw off her cool. She glared at the guy for a moment. But by the time he'd settled in, she'd lost her train of thought. The green-haired guy spoke up again, but this time he wasn't making as much sense.

"What do you mean Twilight won't get her powers back? Are you saying that we're stuck this way forever? Is that what you want? Huh? Huh!" She leaned across the table toward him, then sat back and crossed her arms as she could practically feel the looks she was getting. "I trust Twilight. She's always gotten us out of trouble before. And we've been in plenty of bad situations. So instead of worrying about her, I say we go back to planning how we're going to kidnap one of the suits."

[Twilight Sparkle]

Nothing like late arrivals to throw off your groove. Though Twilight was most certainly used to people not exactly arriving on time. Either Rarity or Rainbow would show up late more often than not, and usually for some silly reason. They weren't usually quite so... brusque, though. Twilight ended up staring at the younger teen, blinking her violet eyes several times. "Err, I think so?" she managed, glancing toward the counter. That was his question?

At least the other late arrival, Zoro, had more to add to the conversation. In fact, Twilight nearly let out a sigh of relief on seeing him: they'd met before and he'd seemed interested then. Plus, he actually seemed to have retained some of his natural skill, which was always a boon. Not so boon-ful was his comment, which made Twilight's eyes pop again. "Kidnap?" the word came out about an octave or so higher than Twilight usually spoke. "I don't think that---"

But the guy continued, mentioning how Twilight's powers might never come back. That idea hit Twilight with almost the strength of a physical blow. She physically recoiled from it, blinking. Thankfully, Rainbow did what she did best: remained loyal. Sure, there was a bit there that Twilight was pretty sure had to do with the whole supporting of kidnapping, but it quickly segued into wholehearted support for Twilight's campaign and ideas. The ex-unicorn had to blush at that, the color contrasting sharply with the violet of her hair.

"Well, uh, we have good reason to suspect that our abilities will return. Um, that is, uh, based mostly on our hair color though," this last was mumbled and Twilight lowered her eyes. Now that was a bit of a loopy theory, and one that she didn't exactly have conclusive evidence for. She coughed into her fist and looked up. "Do we really think kidnapping a suit is a good idea? Won't that make us targets? It could be really difficult to manage anything worthwhile if they're really mad at us..."

[Deleted]

Jasmine listened intently. It was all very interesting. Some of the information was the same or similar to what she had discussed with Twilight, but there was a lot of new information in there as well. Something occured to her towards the end of the speech, but she kept quiet for a little while. And then more happened, so she couldn't really get a word in edgewise. But once the moment hit when the Rainbow stopped talking, she butted in.

"What if it's just an effect from the Shifting itself? It might just be a side effect instead of intended effect or something this world does itself. That would mean that powers would return over time. It could be like how my powerful headache went away shortly after I arrived, but takes longer to happen," Jasmine said. Her theory probably wasn't correct, but she liked being able to at least attempt to contribute something. "And if that's right, Twilight's magic will return eventually."

She listened as Twilight responded to it all. "They won't be able to punish us if they don't know who did it," Jasmine said with a devilish smile, "Who would suspect some innocent-looking girls of such a thing. I'm sure we could do it while the guys distract everyone else." That would be fun. But there was still the problem of what they'd do with the suit. And how they'd get the suit to talk. Well, that was a problem for later.

"Wait, you're basing your theory that your powers will return based on your hair color? That doesn't seem likely just based on the hair. The Shifting turned you into a human, maybe the hair color was more like an act of mercy," Jasmine said. It didn't make much sense after she said it. Maybe she should have thought more about that before she said it. Oh well.

[Henry Charmant]

Henry was hugely impressed by all of the work that Twilight had done so far. Her organization was remarkable, and her charts looked amazing. It was hard to believe that she had once been a pony--that sort of work didn't exactly seem like something one of those creatures could pull off. He was still admiring the summary and wondering what else he might want to add when a few of the newcomers made a distraction and Twilight's friend--Rainbow?--began yelling at the room. Suddenly everyone was looking like they might actually try kidnapping someone, and Twilight was so shaken from the mention of losing her magic that it didn't look like she could step up immediately.

Henry stood and looked over the group with a smile. "It's clear that Twilight has done some very impressive work here by compiling this data and giving us such an informative update. Now that we can see some of the work that appears to be going on behind the scenes, I agree that it is important for us to gain more information and for us to try to understand the power behind the suits. But I would like to ask everyone, does it really seem valuable for us to kidnap one of them? They so far have not been very forthcoming, and I do not see that taking a person hostage will improve their attitudes toward us nor provide us with any extra information. The leverage we would gain would be minimal--all they have to do is wait until another person shifts over and take that new person hostage, and then where will we be? They still have more power than us, and doing anything rash will certainly not improve things."

He smiled over at Twilight and her friend. "I do believe that Twilight's magic will return. She seems confident of this fact, and I trust her judgment." He then looked over at Zoro, another person he counted as a friend. "I also understand that it may take some time, and we can't simply wait around for us all to recover whatever may have been lost. I don't have any comment on the hair color, since I still have trouble understanding some of the effects of the shift, but I do think that it would be valuable for us to come up with some sort of plan of action. Unfortunately, for now, that may simply mean continuing to gather information as we may and hope that we stumble across something more useful. For now, it appears to me that we have already made some impressive leaps in understanding, and our act of coming together to share information and to unite our abilities is a step in the right direction."

He sat down, pleased with himself for coming up with such a positive speech off the top of his head. Apparently he hadn't completely lost his royal touch. Now he just had to hope that everyone listened and agreed.

[Deleted]

[OOC: Warning: Incoming long post detected!
Anyway, time for Gary to show everyone he's more than just a kid with attitude.  ]

Gary gave a thumbs up in response to Twilight answering his question and said "Thanks!" While going off to find something. As he ordered some weird looking fancy cake that he had no idea what it was but thought it looked delicious, Gary listened to the conversation the others were having from a distance. Sure at the moment Gary just seemed like a dumb kid with the attention span of a Rhyhorn, but Gary was ready to prove them wrong. Oh, did he love proving people wrong.

After returning with his mysterious, though admittedly tasty cake thingy, Gary waited for some fancy looking guy with black hair to finish talking, then responded.

"Look, it's pretty obvious that the suits know something. If they didn't, how could they have prepared for us coming here? I don't know about you, but those guys found me not even five minutes after I woke up. That just doesn't happen by coincidence. The question is, how much do they know? We don't know if this is merely a measure to solve a problem that arose, that problem being us "shifting" here," Gary put emphasis on the word shifted and did little air quotes as he said it, "or, this is all happening on purpose for who knows what reason. Either way, we're not finding out what's happening unless we find some way to get them to spill the beans. Heck, even the grunts probably won't know much too; if we want real answers, we'll need to find their leaders, whoever they are. Whether or not we're going to have to use force depends on how...cooperative they are.

Now, we have one advantage over those suits, and it's that most of us have special traits that they lack. Like you," Gary said gesturing towards Twilight, "have magic, or did at least. Even if it doesn't come back, I'm pretty sure your knowledge will come in handy. Magic ain't really natural if you ask me, and this shifting business doesn't seem too different. And you," he said pointing to Zoro, "I really doubt you're carrying those swords for show. If we want answers, we're all going to need to use anything and everything we got."

At this point Gary realized that he hadn't even introduced himself. "I bet you're all wondering, "Who's this kid and who does he think he is?" Well, I'm Gary Oak: Pokémon Master. If you're curious as to what my special talent is, it's leadership." Gary left out the part where he mentioned what he commanded were animals, but hey Pokémon were sentient and although being a Trainer is easy, being a good Trainer requires constant training and skill, and Gary definitely fancied himself as being a damn good trainer. "Sparky over here seems like she knows what she's doing, but a second leader is a good idea in case things go wrong or our little troupe here gets too big to handle. Besides, my age would let me keep the younger Shifted in check. So, I hereby nominate myself as Vice-Leader of C.A.U.S."

With that Gary finished his speech and took a bite out of his cake. "Thish is gud cake, by the way," Gary commented with his mouth full of cake.

[Twilight Sparkle]

"It's just that most people with odd hair color came from worlds that
are vastly different than this one," murmured Twilight, still slightly
ashamed. Neither Jasmine nor Henry seemed all the convinced that the
hair color theory was the best option. Twilight was just taking one of
many possible options, and she still believed that this theory made the
most sense. Until she could prove it conclusively, that was what she was
going for. Not that Twilight had a lot of time to dwell upon theories,
what with everyone volunteering at once. At least she wasn't going to
have to worry about people being enthusiastic enough to actually do
something.

Henry even stood and gave what Twilight thought to be
quite the rousing speech. He evidently had some actual leadership to go
with his title, and Twilight again couldn't help but compare Henry to
her brother. Technically, Shining Armor was a prince himself now, since
he'd married Cadence and all. Clearly he and Henry would get along.
Twilight nodded to Henry, trying to gather up some more excitement.

"Yes,
that's the idea, we need to--" she tried, only to be interrupted by the
kid. She fell silent as he talked, though her lips nearly pursed
together. Nobody had seen this kid before, and, well, he was obviously
younger than anyone here. he looked even younger than Jasmine by a
stretch. His age didn't make him any less right though; Twilight had to
give him that. The suits clearly knew something, but Twilight knew
firsthand that they were very tight-lipped about what they knew. She was
caught somewhat off guard as Gary gestured at her, turning to him and
blinking her wide eyes. She followed Gary's gesture to Zoro as well.
This all sounded well and good, and not all that different from what
Henry said. Only... with decidedly less ego. In fact, this whole thing
sounded very much like something Twilight would have expected of Spike.

Twilight
wound up mouthing the words "Pokemon master," her eyes flicking to a
few faces to see if this registered with anyone else. "It's Twilight
Sparkle, actually," she said, unable to keep some of the exacerbation
and frustration out of her voice. "I introduced myself earlier... and,
look, we don't really need leaders or anything," though Twilight technically supposed
that she was in charge. Her eyes flicked to Henry, whom she'd always
considered her "second" as much as that counted. "We just need to band
together and such. We," she paused, "appreciate your enthusiasm, Gary,
and you've got several good ideas." She managed a smile, though part of
her wished she could actively zap him. She nodded and looked around.

"Right,
well, we know we need to get information, and that means prying. The
suits won't even tell the faculty here anything, so we'll just figure
something out," she nodded, then turned, flipping to a blank chart.
"I'll start working on getting back some of our abilities and all.
Henry, Jasmine," she turned and looked, "do you think you could work on
getting information? People seem to respect you more," another quick
nod, and a shift. "Gary, why don't you get a few people and start trying
to figure out who the leader is? Somebody's got to be in charge of this
mess. And, uh, Zoro and Rainbow..." she turned, biting her lip, "could
you maybe try getting information from the suits, if you can? Preferably
not by... kidnapping, if you can..."

Well, they did used to say
that Twilight's special ability might as well have been organization...
she looked around hopefully now, attempting to look far more confident
than she felt. "And anyone else, feel free to pitch in wherever you
think you can do the most good."

[Deleted]

Apparently bringing up the fact that their powers might not return was a bad idea. Another girl with bright hair - one of Twilight's friends - immediately jumped to her defense, along with several others. Zoro waited till things calmed down, a slightly disappointed frown creasing his brow as he replied sternly, "I'm not saying your powers won't ever come back. I'm just saying you should entertain the possibility that it might either take longer than anticipated, and that we should prepare for the worst. Trust me, I want your powers to come back. Luffy - my captain - he's got powers too, and they're on the fritz. He used to be the strongest kid I knew, but here he's... weaker. If you rely too much on the hope that your powers will come back to you, we might all get tripped up, and end up stuck here. Or worse."

It was a depressing sentiment, but someone had to bring it up. 

At least they were getting to actual planning, though. Zoro wasn't so sure he liked this Gary kid, but at least he acknowledged that Zoro had some skill. And Twilight was assigning him to dealing with the suits. He couldn't help the slight smirk that twitched his lips. Perfect. 

The no kidnapping rule wasn't a big deal, though Zoro had to point out, "Technically they've kidnapped us. But fair enough. We'll try something else." He wasn't sure what this Rainbow girl was going to do, but if things got bad, he could handle himself.