The Aether Swap (Patreon)

(Girl to Bag, Girl to Cosmog, Cosmog to Girl TF)

(Pokemon)

“No, Mother! You need to stop what you’re doing!” A pained scream echoed throughout the walls of Aether Paradise as Lillie finally faced her powerful parent, the young teen having her back pinned against the white-colored wall. As much as she hated to admit it, her escape attempt was proven a failure. She was still trapped within the confines of this artificial island, and the girl could do nothing but clutch a white bag with a Pokéball logo on the sides in her arms tightly, forced to stare as Lusamine made her way towards them. This wasn’t right! Nebby never did anything wrong, why couldn’t her own mother get that?! The girl would love to be able to fight back somehow, but alas, she wasn’t a proper Pokémon trainer, so she could only despair at what was happening before her eyes. If only Gladion was here to help her…

“Be quiet, girl! You stole the Cosmog, so you’ll be giving it back now! You’re not worthy of owning a Pokémon, especially such a rare specimen!” Lusamine grabbed the bag’s handle and tried to yank it out of her daughter’s arms. Yet, as she did so… she realized it was empty, “Where did you hide it?!”

Lillie gave out an audible squeak, but was somewhat relieved to see that the Pokémon was able to escape on its own. True, she did want to spend her time outside with the Cosmog and maybe become a proper trainer, but even if she was going to stay behind and get punished, at least the little creature would be free now… yet still, she was quite surprised herself… Where had it flown off to? “I-I didn’t do anything… Nebby, where are—”

Both women were about to find out as pink, cosmic fog surrounded them and they felt their bodies weaken. Once again, the blonde teen was reminded that the Cosmog was far from a normal Pokémon as far as abilities go… but what was it doing? Lillie tried to call out or… to be completely honest, do anything but as soon as her limbs stopped working, so did her eyes and before long, the young girl completely lost consciousness.

*

“W-wuh? What… happened…?” Lillie awoke groggily from her forced slumber as some leftover pink hue left her eyes. The last thing she remembered was Nebby’s fog, she and her mom inhaled some of it but… what happened after that? Was Nebby safe? Was she safe?

The girl tried to push herself up and attempted to stand but… couldn’t. Was she weakened by the fog? Possibly, but even so, there should have been something, some kind of motion! Yet there wasn't even the slightest twitch of a muscle to confirm she was in any control… Thinking about it, however, it wasn’t just the muscles either! No heartbeat, no pulse… it’s as if the girl wasn’t even alive! What did Nebby do to her?!

But even weirder than this complete and utter stillness, was the feeling of… emptiness? Hollowness? Void? Lillie couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she couldn’t deny it. Whatever happened, it seemed like her insides were nonexistent. Was that the reason for these inhuman sensations?! Not having a heart would definitely make her heartbeat disappear but it still felt so… impossible. You had to have a heart to be alive, and she certainly was!

Wait… wasn’t she forgetting something? Or rather, someone? That’s right, her mom was here too! Or.. well… she used to… right now, Lillie couldn’t see the woman anywhere - not that her sight was all that reliable, being stuck in a single position was quite limiting. For all she knew, Lusamine could’ve been much in the same boat as her, just positioned behind the immobile girl’s line of sight. But her mother’s safety wasn’t the focus, even Lillie’s very own was secondary. After all, the blonde didn’t risk escaping from this fake paradise for her own sake, rather it was to free her dear friend…

N-Nebby? Are you there? Please, say something, anything! Pew for me! I need to know you’re safe!

.

..

…

“Pew!”

Lillie’s heart skipped a beat. He was alive! Nebby was safe! Once again, the blonde girl tried to stand up and hug the poor thing, or at the very least to waddle over but as she had apt time to learn, her body wasn’t too keen on listening to her commands. Although… it was all Nebby’s doing, wasn’t it? Lillie knew that the Cosmog was just trying to protect her from the clutches of the woman she called her mother but… why did it affect her as well? Did the Pokémon miss and hit them both by accident?

The girl’s thoughts raced at Mach speeds as she tried to stitch the pieces together. Nebby was safe, yet her body was still… well, she wasn’t sure what exactly, other than seemingly unliving…

“Pew, pew!”

The little Pokémon’s mouth opened again, and by the sound of things, Nebby was even closer to her position now… Yes, smart Nebby, smart! Come closer so I can take a look at you! Lillie screamed internally. She wasn’t sure why the Pokémon wasn’t fixing all this mess yet, but maybe it just didn’t see her? Maybe if they met face to face, it’d finally realize the truth and make her body work properly again?! Then they could run away from this place and have their own adventures in Alola, just like Gladion probably was doing right about now.

A few more ‘pews’ could be heard in the coming minutes, some seemed to be closer to the girl’s current location, some further… it seemed like Nebby was just as confused as she was, flying around at random until…

She saw it.

The Pokémon finally appeared in Lillie’s line of view! The girl would squeal with happiness but… the Cosmog wasn’t Nebby, not by a long shot! The creature was undoubtedly the same species but at the same time, completely different… instead of a gradient of blues and purples, its skin was instead a mix of white and gold, and… wait, did it have human hair?!

It was weird and definitely didn’t look natural, but sure enough, it was as if someone put a wig on the poor thing as a prank and it couldn’t take it off… A wig that looked suspiciously similar… long, blonde hair, it matched up almost perfectly with her own mother’s hairstyle!

This combined with the white color of the Pokémon’s skin, it almost looked like Lusamine in Pokémon form! On any other occasion, the girl would laugh such an idea off but… looking at the Pokémon for any amount of time, one thing was obvious - the creature looked like it was drunk, or tipsy at the very least. It couldn’t fly straight nor could it keep the flight up for more than a few seconds, and every time it had to land, it seemed to pout, almost as if…

It was unused to its body.

But that couldn’t be true, could it? Surely, this unique Cosmog wasn’t her very own birthgiver! It sounded silly! Yet it made sense, too much in fact! Did that mean she was transformed into a Pokémon too?! If she did, it’d have to be something very small but… even if Pokémon weren’t humans, they still had a heartbeat and stuff! How could she have been a Pokémon if she didn’t meet these obvious criteria?! Unless…

“Ah, there you are! Gosh, using human limbs to walk is so weird…” An unfamiliar voice of a young girl called out. But how?! As far as Lillie knew, there were no kids her age in here… but that wasn’t important! The content of said message mattered much more… ‘human limbs’? But… how could someone not know how to use their own limbs?!

Oh, were they in the same boat as her mom?! But that’d mean… wait, did Lusamine and Nebby swap species?!

As if to answer that question, the girl’s voice came closer and closer until she finally appeared in Lillie’s view… and without even thinking, the blonde instantly accepted it as the truth. It was Nebby. It shouldn’t be possible, the idea of a Pokémon becoming human was absurd, yet here she stood. Dark, ebony skin, a pair of yellow eyes, and most noticeably, the fluffy mess of a hairdo that was an otherworldly mix of purple and blue.

But…! If the duo switched species, then what did Lillie end up as?! Why did she feel so… inhuman?! No, that didn’t quite cut it, cause that’d imply the possibility of her being a Pokémon, but that wasn’t true as well! What was happening, why hasn’t noticed her yet?!

“Dear Arceus, you’re so darn cute! Looking at your hair, you must be Lillie’s mom, right~? Lusamine, was it?” The dark-skinned woman crouched down in front of the pouting Lusamine and gave the woman-turned-Pokémon a nice, big pet.

A pet that the Cosmog wasn’t too pleased about it seemed, apparent by its string of angry-sounding ‘pews’ that followed. Although stuck in this pathetic situation, Lillie couldn’t help but mentally giggle, seeing this once-powerful woman in this helpless state was more than a little cathartic, even if deep down she knew that Lusamine was the luckier of the two… what had she become?!

“Yes, yes you are!” Nebby teased the tiny Pokémon before picking Lusamine up and squeezing her round body slightly. “To think I used to be this small…”

The now-human girl held her involuntary companion tightly against her chest as her eyes darted around the place, “But if you’re here… where’s Lillie?”

I-I’m right here! How can you not see me?!

“Meh, she probably just woke up earlier and went somewhere… Well, Lucy, any ideas?” Nebby shone a grin as the white-and-gold Cosmog kept trying to escape from her clutches, only to stop and go red upon hearing its new name… and the next second, it tried its damndest to escape from the hands of the teen girl with no avail.

“S-stop trying to escape! You can’t turn back anyway, so you better behave, okay Lucy? You’re not the big bad Aether President anymore, just a cute Pokémon!” Enforcing her grip, the blue-haired girl looked around, her eyes zipping around as if looking for something until they settled down on…

Finally, someone noticed me! The girl cried out in happiness as she was her once-Pokémon looking down at her and smiling, yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but think that something was wrong… well, not counting the obvious transformation that had just occurred. Nebby’s eyes… they were staring right at her, but they lacked any sort of recognition. These weren’t the eyes you had when seeing someone you know in the crowd, quite the opposite. It’s like they saw something that was here, but not something they remembered… as if they were looking at an ordinary object.

“This will do nicely!” The once-Pokémon-girl gave an innocent smile and bent down, her left hand holding Lusamine hostage while the right reached out in Lillie’s general direction, just a bit higher when her eyes were.

Huh? Did she mi— Lillie cried out in pain as she felt her hands being yanked into the air by some sort of unseen force, but it didn’t take her long to connect the dots, it was Nebby! Yet, if this was true, why did her hands feel so thin?! Why were they seemingly attached on both ends?!

Unfortunately, the blue-haired girl didn’t seem to care about the silent pleas of her former companion. Instead of easing the pressure, the opposite happened as Lillie felt her limbs being hoisted even higher up. The rest of Lillie’s unmoving body pulled along with them until she hit some sort of a wall, although a surprisingly soft one. And there her brief journey ended.

At least, before she heard the sound of a zipper being opened and felt a gigantic hole appearing in her back. The sense of emptiness that permeated throughout her body this far multiplied, unbearably so. What was happening?! What was happening to her?! What had she become, what did she do to deserve this inanimate fate?!

As these questions bounced soundlessly in the blonde hopefully-still-girl’s head, Nebby had her own struggle - trying to somehow contain the Cosmog that used to be this place’s president, why did the little creature have to fight back so hard?!

“Come on, get in the bag, you damn critter!”

“Pew! Pew!”

B-bag?! Lillie froze. S-she probably means the one I had with me, right? But I didn’t see it anywhere… wait, don’t tell me—

The short-lived theory was put to rest as Nebby’s struggles came to an end and the ebony-skinned girl overpowered the once-human Cosmog. And as she did, Lillie felt her insides fill up with… something. Something very warm and squishy, but most importantly, alive.

No, that can’t be! I didn’t— I haven’t become a simple bag, have I?! The girl cried out her nonexistent tears. Surely, this was a mistake, wasn’t it?! The lively creature inside her couldn’t be her very own mother!

It’s impossib— w-wait, what’s this feeling?! Oh no, it’s the zipper again! Nebby, stop it! Don’t touch it, please! You can’t just close me with Lusamine still inside like some stupid bag!

But she absolutely did. Paying her bag no more attention than her clothes or accessories, Nebby spent the next few hours looking for Lillie, but alas, the search yielded no results. The closest thing to a hint was some girl talking about how she used to be a bag or something, but that was crazy talk, right? Well, she and Lusamine did swap species, true, but object transformation was beyond her abilities, that’s for sure. At least her new companion seemed to have finally given up and stopped rampaging…

And unfortunately, the blonde once-girl was forced to endure all of it, as it seemed the inside of the bag worked as one big tongue, and Cosmogs weren’t all that tasty. Why?! What did she do to deserve such fate? No girl should be forced to lick her very own mother’s body, let alone do that as a completely immobile bag! All she wanted to do was to be close to Nebby and for her mom to not hate her so much, but out of all the three, her fate was by far the worst…

Was this her new life? Was she stuck as a simple Pokémon bag?! Would she never again do something as simple as eating or even breathing? What did she do to deserve this?! She didn’t wanna be a stupid object for the rest of her life, used by her unaware travel companion, not to mention having to hold a very pouty Cosmog. Nebby could have so many new experiences as a human girl, Lusamine would probably get used to her new spot sooner or later too, but she?

Even if the Cosmog was constantly being teased, at least Nebby acknowledged its existence! The teen knew that the creature used to be a human, all the while she treated her own friend like an ordinary bag, painfully unaware of the truth! This was so unfair! What if she broke?! What if, after a few years, her body was so worn down she was no longer usable, what then?! Was she going to be thrown into a trash bin like the object she was?!

Lost in thought, Lillie didn’t realize that as she wept for some sort of divine intervention, Nebby was already making her way out of the Aether Paradise and onto one of the four islands of Alola by a boat. It seemed Lillie had disappeared, but maybe the girl was able to escape? Either way, this was the former Cosmog’s best bet, and even if she and Lillie were to never meet again, she’d never forget the girl’s act of kindness that set her free in the first place.

And hey, if she could somehow get her hands on a Pokémon that can actually fight (unlike Lucy), maybe she could give this whole ‘trainer’ thing a try, the bag she took as a souvenir still had a lot of free space for pokeballs and potions, after all~

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Hi! This thing turned out to be more than a tad longer than originally planned, which is good for this story ofc, but also means I won't be able to write the Genshin short story on time. The diaper TF will be posted on (probably) the 31st, maybe earlier if I can manage, but the story will be delayed by a few days. Sorry, but hopefully you all understand!