As if on cue, the answer came stumbling out of the stockroom. "Miss Adie, I have that shipment for the Christina g-"
Pausing both mid-sentence and mid-stride was a a young woman, not much older than Sofia or Rhonda, dressed up in what looked like a blacksmith's clothes. A redhead with dark, grease-smeared skin, freckles dotting her face in a sea of cuteness, and so many frazzled ends at her mop of a short hairdoo that one had to wonder if she even knew the concept of a comb. Carried in her arms was a wooden crate full of various pink liquids in glass vials. Her green eyes darted between the witch, her best friend, their erstwhile comapnions, and the old woman, before finally settling back on Sofia.
"Oh sweet mercy and shite on me shay begorra," she muttered in a distinctly Irish accent. "I did something bad didn't I?"
The pieces were falling into place as soon as the duo spotted Niamh, a glance between them confirming that they were on the same page. The assistant to Sofia's Aunt Adie was far from unfamiliar; they'd first met her years ago on a vacation trip to Dublin, wherein the they'd just barely managed to help the girl stop her slightly-psychotic parents from quite literally wiping England off the face of the planet. Unfortunately, she'd been exiled from her home... and over the following years, as she passed through various caretakers, her ditziness had only ever seemed to increase. Between the cute, overworked look, and the airheadedness she sometimes displayed, the girl had enormous bimbo energy, all without giant tits or blonde hair or pink nails.
Sofia's face was pale as she turned to her aunt. "Please," she started calmly, clasping her hands tightly together, "Please. Tell me you didn't?"
"Ah, so you want me to start lying to you then?"
The teenage witch looked defeated as she closed her eyes and slumped her head against the counter. Sighing, Rhonda figured this was one of those times when she needed to take over, stepping up to the redhead and placing both hands gently on her shoulder. She was a nice girl, extremely kind and always trying to do her best, but... well... she just wasn't all there. And sometimes, Sofia's German uptightness didn't blend well with that. Occasionally it took the more patient hand of Rhonda to work things out. "Niamh, honey, you were manning the shop while Adie was gone, right?" The girl nodded fearfully. "And did you sell any mermaid stuff to anyone?"
She looked up for a moment, thinking, then nodded. "Aye, uh, there was a lady, Joana. She found some mermaid scales, and Aunt Adie said mortals get their first product free."
"You're absolutely sure it was just scales? Not anything else?"
There was a brief pause before Niamh's eyes began to grow wider and wider and wider. "I'll.... uh..." With an almost comical urgency she set the crate over on the counter before rushing back, shouting 'shite' over and over as she stumbled through the stockroom, knocking over various things and smashing into others. A solid minute of this cacophany of clumsiness passed before she rushed back out into the storefront, looking somehow even more frazzled. "Uh... Miss Adie... that... those Essences you ordered, uh... t-the ones we were storing in other jars until you got the new jars in..."
"You mixed them up with the normal stock?"
She swallowed audibly, responding in a mousy, worried voice. "Aye ma'am."
"Well, that would do it, now wouldn't it?" Despite the cataclysmic consequences of this little mixup, the old woman hardly seemed worried. "Lucky for us, if she was in here, we'll have a receipt. Now let's see...." She peered into a drawer, flipping through several sets of papers before producing an enchanted receipt, one that looked not too different from what one received at a grocery store. "Aha! One Joana Wells, given a bottle of Mermaid Scales as a free sample. Should be enough for a tracker spell to find her."
Sofia swiped the receipt from her aunt's hand without looking up. "Terrific," she muttered, before finally pushing herself back up. She glared daggers at poor Niamh, the reason for all of this enormous mess... and for just a moment, she was just too overcome with frustration at the ditz of a witch-in-training not to take a little revenge. Without thinking, she suddenly broke out into a mermaid's song, the magical tune filling the store and Niamh's ears in equal measure. Aunt Adie shrugged it off, being constantly warded against such things - but her assistant was not quite so lucky.
"Well now that was rude," her aunt commented as Niamh dropped to the floor, convulsing in supernatural arousal. Sofia only shrugged before resuming her singing, the other three girls watching on in amazement as the changes began to play out. Compelled to rip her clothes off, Niamh was soon crying out in pleasure, hands gripping at her itty-bitty-titties as they swelled up in her hands. Her legs were drawn together, flesh merging and twisting over itself as they became a single limb, one that soon began to shimmer with an emerging covering of sparkling scales, green as a four leaf clover in color. The final flattening of her feet into a wide fin was accompanied by her loudest cry and a squirt of juices from where her slit had reformed, bits of milk drippling from her now sizable nips.
Rhonda found herself staring in blushing excitement for a few moments before giving Sofia a 'what the hell' look - but her friend was already marching to the door. "She caused this, she should have to deal with it!" she shouted over her shoulder. "Now come on, we need to go talk to someone who can create a reversal ritual that'll propagate from this Joana to everyone in her little lineage. It's the only way to actually fix this."
The latina sighed as she ushered Emma and Millie to follow, trying to turn them away from giving concerned looks to poor Niamh, currently flopping around and lost in mindless self-pleasure. Her own concern was already on the next thing that Sofia needed to get. Because she only knew of one place where they could get that kind of a ritual prepared, and she wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of having to go deal with...