Lily would claim she was surprised that Electra approached her with this request in the dead of night if she was a liar. But she wasn't. So when the little familiar female Pikachu peeked into her camp while she was cutting up some berries for her Pokemon, she was anything but shocked. A bit later than she had anticipated, but Lily had been expecting Electra to return ever since they first met. The little Pokemon had a gleam to her eyes that was rare, but ever so familiar to Lily. An intensity, a drive. A need.

"About time you showed up," Lily hums out. She flicks a finger forward, her index finger curling towards her torso before she gestures to the cut-up berries laid out neatly on the table before her. "I made some snacks. Would you like some?"

Electra squeaks, and bounds up to the table with a swinging tail and eager pace. It's not long before Ash's Pikachu settles onto the little red cushion Lily had laid out in preparation. She watches, quietly, as Pikachu settles, and sips lightly on her tea. Yes. This will do.

What a pleasant night. With the humming summer air, a full ripe moon, and the bristling sound of water sloshing in a lazy river just down the hill. A night for a ritual indeed.

"So, I suppose we should get down to business then since you've made quite the journey here," Lily says. Painted fingernails trail the rim of her cup at a slow, monotonous pace. "You love him."

It's not a question. It's a fact. A fact so painfully obvious she's surprised Ash hasn't caught off yet. From what Lily knew about the little Pikachu, Electra hadn't been treated great in her childhood. Caught and dragged away by a Professor before Ash all but managed to convince Electra of her worth. That sort of twist of social interaction would naturally spawn a desire for the person in question. Ash extended a hand for Electra, and she latched onto it. An innocent feeling that twisted upon itself until obsession was too little of a word to describe it.

"I do." Electra stares up at Lily from across the table, with beady black eyes that hold such an intense love that it almost hurts looking at. The kind of unrequited love that could devastate any poor soul unlucky enough to inherit it. "And I want to be with him."

"I can't make love potions," Lily hums out, despite full well knowing what Electra was really asking for. She can't help herself. It's just fun to tease Pokemon.

"But you can turn him into a Pikachu again. I can't..." There's a flicker of her tail, unhappy and impatient. "I can't do this anymore."

Lily hums again. She sips on her tea for a moment, basking in the honey-flavored beverage. "I can. But I'm supposing you'd like a more... permanent solution, correct?"

"Can you?"

There's a pause. Then Lily, setting down her cup with a soft clink onto the wooden small table by her camp, stands. "Come along."

Where she leads the eager Pikachu who practically steps on her heels in a hurry to a clearing just to the side of where they had been sitting. Lily isn't a woman who likes dodging around preparations, so everything needed was already set up. Just in case Electra asked.

A flick of her wrist brings over a book that hovers just underneath her fingertips. She shoots Electra a look when the Pikachu cocks her head to the side. "Honey, witches can do much more than transformations. Give me some credit."

Nevertheless, her fingers twitch, and the book bounces open and flips pages faster than any human naturally could without her touching it. Soon enough, the required text she needs for this particular spell is in front of her.

"What you're asking me to do isn't necessarily impossible," Lily says. She taps her fingernails against the old, crooked letters on the page. "But it is very... difficult. Transformation spells like this are not necessarily permanent. Ash would always remain inherently human. The spell I had him under before only changed his outward appearance, but his human remained. Any spell that changes a human to a Pokemon will always force them to reset back to their original form at some point. It's the laws of nature."

Lily grins and waves her hand as she turns to look over at Electra.

"That's why witches exist, though. We just rewrite those laws."

Another flick of her hand. The book flips to another page, ripe with text scrawled onto the paper.

"To change Ash into a permanent Pokemon, I have to change who he was to begin with. It'll be a slow process - I'll be rewriting the universe itself." Lily tilts her hips to the side and stares down at the letters of the spell. "Of course, this won't be instantaneous, it'd be like flicking a switch and expecting everyone to suddenly speak one language. The universe will slowly need to rewrite itself to the correct - or, in this case, new - rules. I won't be changing any laws of the universe, just a small, insignificant human existence into a different form. But it will change his family to make up for this change, and everything he did as a human will be rewritten into the rules of his new existence over time. Ash himself will change to refit this new expectation as well. The only creatures that will remember the old Ash would be you and me."

Electra nods, her gaze set and firm. Lily chuckles at her expression. She had doubted that would be a dealbreaker. At the end of the day, it will still be Ash. It won't rewrite any of his core personality characteristics of the man. Just an adjustment to his species. His personality will just mold to fit that species.

"Of course, this won't guarantee he will be attracted to you, so you shouldn't slack if you want his attention," Lily hums. She can feel the familiar bristling of raw, powerful magic building up in her chest as she prepares the first stages of the spell. "He's a man, I'm sure you can figure out how to seduce him."

There's a tap of her fingers, impatient and quick. Lily dwells over the next statement before she turns towards Electra.

"But changing the universe like this, well... it'll cost you." Lily gives a strained look towards Electra. "I know this is rather cliché - but it'll cost you some of your firstborn."

Electra's fur bristles at the thought. Lily sighs at the sight. "I know. If it were free, I would do it - I do owe you this much, but I can't alter the universe without something in exchange. I won't take all of them. Just some from the first batch. If you can't pay this, I can't change Ash."

There's a moment of thought from Electra. Lily knows it's a question no one should ever have to ponder, but it's one sadly required for this spell. Changing the fabric of reality and not expecting a price for it is... foolish, at best.

Then Electra nods. And Lily nods back, showing a soft smile towards the Pikachu before she begins letting her power spark in her chest.

"Alright then," Lily hums out.

___

It's the kind of morning where something feels slightly off to Ash. He's not sure why. He rolls out of bed in the same way he always does, pats at his alarm clock blindly under the fresh morning sun until the flopping magikarp quells away the obnoxious noises. Then he sits there, in silence for a moment, as Pikachu squirms underneath his crooked arm.

The same. As always. Yet there's something so eerily different that Ash can't place his finger on it. As if something has shifted. Turned. New and wrong, but new and right all at once.

Other than his Pikachu Electra seeming more tired, the morning continues as expected.

Ash isn't sure what is causing such an unusual feeling, but as the morning presses on, he finds that it doesn't concern him too much. Whatever it drifts into the back of his mind, only appearing occasionally as a little, unscratchable itch that disappears quicker each time it shows up.

The day continues. So the thought eventually leaves entirely. After all, Ash has so many other things to focus on that he can't sit there and ponder about the weird tingling of difference. Maybe he just moved some furniture around and forgot about it.

The feeling persists, though.

It comes to a head when Ash is making dinner in the local hotel he and Electra are staying at, with the soft coos of Pidove outside, their flock fluttering about in the sky. Electra has been a bit more clingy lately, which he would have found unusual a few days ago. Now, with her coiling around his feet, he can't find much room to protest. She seemed content to try and involve herself in his cooking endeavors, even if she was a bit awkward to stumble around.

Ash knows it's nothing more than an accident when he stumbles over Electra and spills the noodles he is making for himself all over the floor. Usually stumbling over his Pikachu was never a problem - Electra was usually firmly planted onto his shoulders or inside of his book bag. Not that night. Not until Ash slightly stuttered on his legs and the bowl he was holding tipped to the side, splattering down his shirt and all over the floor. Both dinner, his shirt, and the floor. Ruined in one single second of lacking situational awareness.

Electra's ears thump down against the side of her head, and he can just tell she's feeling awful about it. Ash can't even find himself mad at her, smiling softly at her as he leans down to inspect the damage. None on the carpet, thankfully. One quick rinse of his shirt and it'd be fine.

"Don't worry," Ash hums out to Electra, leaning forward to nuzzle the top of her fur with his nose. "I just need to grab a mop."

Cleaning is straightforward. It's when he takes off his shirt, though, that he realizes how refreshing it is to not wear clothes. There's a moment of clarity that hits Ash, jolting and sudden all at once, on how much he didn't... need a shirt. Ash was - he was a guy. An adult with a perfectly private hotel room (not that he needed to hide anyway, wasn't it natural for him to be shirtless?). It almost felt nice to stretch out his arms, feeling his muscles flex without restrictive, unnatural clothing in his way. Comfortable. Freeing.

"Ah, that's better," Ash hums out.

With his laundry running, and dinner now firmly cleaned away with a mop, he has no choice but to ransack the cabinets for an alternative dinner option. There isn't anything that looks appetizing, he realizes as his eyes dwell over the options sprawled in front of him.

Well, except for...

Hesitantly, Ash leans forward and sniffs the Persim with reluctance. The orange and yellow berry seemed to smell sweet, a tantalizing fragrance clinging to the fruit. While humans could technically eat Pokemon berries, they usually didn't. But his only other good dinner had been splattered onto the floor ages ago, and as much as Ash tried to think, he couldn't find a single reason why he shouldn't.

Carefully, he leans forward and secures a small bite from the skin of the sweet-smelling fruit. And it's... good, actually. Really good. Eating the berry felt as natural as eating normal human food. As if finally scratching that itch that's been taunting him for the past few days.

Ash shrugs to nobody in particular and closes the cabinet door, taking a larger, more filling bite out of the berry.

That's not the end of it, though.

Ash finds that he keeps doing it. Keeps eating food not meant for him. Keeps finding excuses to shrug off his shirt or socks at the earliest possible convenience. Which was fine in the comforts of whatever hotel room or apartment he was staying at for the few nights during his usual travels. It's not fine when he finds himself unconsciously beginning to do it in public.

It's small at first. Whatever catalyst that started the night of the spilled noodle dinner has seeped into his life. Sometimes Ash forgets to slide on a second shoe or forgets his socks. Sometimes he'll roll out of bed and have to pause, trying to figure out why he wasn't walking towards the closet to get dressed in something other than his pajama shorts.

And can anyone blame him? Clothes are uncomfortable. It's been getting more difficult to find them lately, too. As if they've vanished from the night sky. Sometimes he'd reach for a shirt he thought he had and realized that he never owned it in the first place. Then Ash would look over the rest of his shirts and would question, briefly, why he owned those.

It's a bit of a headache, admittedly.

One time Ash walks into the store, Electra perched on her usual spot on his shoulder, without socks or shoes. He doesn't mean to intentionally go around without store-compliant articles of clothing, but it's just so... easy. To forget. Sometimes Ash has to remind himself why he needs the stuff in the first place. Even wearing a shirt that he had to talk himself into putting on repeatedly feels claustrophobic.

"Excuse me," The store cashier says, waving her arm to get his attention. "Sir, you need to be wearing shoes."

"Why?" Ash just blurts out. Because he doesn't understand why he can't. Isn't it natural for him to not be wearing shoes? Electra wasn't wearing any. Why should he?

The store cashier blinks. The woman looks Ash up and down, staring blankly for a moment. "I..." She draws out slowly, rubbing at her eyes. "I'm... not sure, actually. Nevermind."

After that, Ash doesn't bother trying to convince himself he needs shoes. Especially since they seem to disappear entirely, so why bother hunting down a pair of shoes if he doesn't even need them? Ash can't even recall ever really owning a pair.

The shirt soon follows. Ash does try to repeatedly remind himself to put it on in the morning, but throughout the day he repeatedly finds himself inching it off in the most random of places when he gets distracted. At one point, on the way back from the store, he found himself shirtless with the bundle of useless fabric half draped over the edge of a trashcan. He chuckled to himself, drawing it back into his arms, happy that he managed to catch himself moments before he entirely threw it away.

Ash realized, two hours later in his apartment, that he had taken it off again two minutes down the road and thrown it into a ditch subconsciously.

Other people have started to pick more and more on the idea that Ash simply was exempt from the rule of clothing. He stopped being questioned entirely if he walked into stores barefoot or without a shirt, and it would only reinforce his confusion as to why he had to wear such things in the first place.

At this point, it was becoming abundantly clear Ash needed a break. A vacation. A getaway from the bustling city he found himself residing within. The loud constant noises were likely the source of his constant headaches and shivers of confusion, and Ash was starting to get antsy for a break back to nature. Back to where he belonged.

(Why did he belong there? Heck if Ash knew. But the need was growing with an urgency he was starting to find no reason to question.)

Electra seems all too content as the two of them settle onto their respective train seats, her tail swinging ecstatically as Ash sorts through his duffle bag of items. Some of the things he left back in his apartment were because he didn't really need them. Whoever's shirts were organized with his pants wasn't his - Ash didn't need shirts. The single pair of socks, too, must've been accidentally sorted into his stuff. It just made sense, after all.

Ash leaned back into the train chair, feeling their compartment rumble down the tracks to the local, large forest where Pokemon roamed free and relatively untouched by society. It would be a perfect place to camp. Free from his burdens for a few days. The air felt cool around his bare torso as he tapped his similarly bare feet against the ground.

"Are you excited, Electra?" Ash asks, moving to grin down at his Pokemon.

Electra squeaks out a usual Pikachu noise and nods. Her tail thumps against the seat with excitement as the two continue on their way to their new home.