"Some random-ass fucking island in the middle of the Atlantic," Sofia replied, coming to a stop at the end of the driveway so that she could place down a few objects in a circle. "I'll prep a teleportation spell to get us there. Hopefully, a few of those cough drops should get her thinking rationally enough to go along with our fix - it's going to be a lot harder if she's resistant."
As the witch go to work conducting her little ritual, Rhonda turned back to Millie and Emma, giving them a reassuring half-smile. The redhead seemed relieved that things would soon be reaching some kind of conclusion, but her rainbow-haired girlfriend... her expression seemed to be one of sadness. She was intentionally avoiding looking at anyone else, one hand grasping her arm in a classically pensive pose. Rhonda knew that look. "Everything okay?"
Millie bit her lip, seeming to need a second to pull her thoughts together. "So, when you do your think, and all this gets undone... everybody is gonna stop being a mermaid, right?" She scooted a bit closer to Emma.
"That's right, yeah." She reached over and patted the young woman's shoulder. "You'll be right back to being human pretty soon. God knows I can't wait."
"I... don't want to change back."
Rhonda blinked. "You... what?"
Emma quietly interjected. "I'm... not a hundred percent on it either." She squeezed her girlfriend's hand. "Turning into mermaids, it felt... so, so wonderful. Having tails, being in the water... making love in those forms..."
"We're sorry about what happened," Millie finished her thought. "But... we're so much happier like this..."
Frustrating as all her transformations tended to be, Rhonda hadn't even stopped to consider that a rational person might actually prefer this state of being. For a minute she wondered if Emma and Millie were overcome by lust, but so far their minds had been unaffected. They just genuinely loved being something more than human - it was kind of respectable, honestly.
"Tell you what." She smiled, head leaning over to one side. "We need to fix this, and that's gonna make you two human again. Buuuuuut... Adie has some potions that can turn you two back into mermaids - without the whole viral singing thing. Think that'd be okay?"
Their eyes seemed to light up as they glanced between each other and then nodded eagerly. Total lovebirds - Rhonda was a little jealous, considering how many of her crushes had ended in heartbreak, tragedy, or some comical mix of the two. The thought that something might at least work out better at St. Chariot's briefly crossed her mind before a violet flame erupted from Sofia's circle. That was their ticket out of there, and quickly all four girls headed on through.
What met them on the other side was a whole hell of a lot of shouting, and some truly enormous explosions.
She had sort of expected the beach of this small island to have a mermaid or two sprawled out on it, considered this is where Joana had ended up. A few aquatic followers of hers, or something. What she most definitely had not expected was the sight of dozens of amazonian-looking women with muscles drenched in sweat, accompanied by packs of glorious centaurs, nagas with glinting tails, fairies fluttering about, and even a group of mermaids nestled on the rocks - a truly diverse force of warrior women, all armed with bows and arrows or spears or slinging magical bolts at...
"What the fuuuuuuuuuuuck." Rhonda stared in disbelief at the target of their fury. She'd seen a kraken once - not up close, but in a vision. So she recognized the tentacles, at least. Less familiar was the wreck of a World War Two battleship from which the tentacles emerged, heavily scarred yet still blazing away with heavy naval guns that were putting craters into the island landscape. The thing she definitely didn't find familiar was the fact that, stretching up out of the ship like the massive vessel was just a skirt, was the upper body of that kraken: the humanoid, giantess form of a woman with enormous breasts even relative to her towering height, bright green scales running up and down her body, fins emerging from the forearms she occasionally swept across the beach as she bellowed with rage.
She glanced over to Sofia. "Please tell me that's not her."
"You asked me never to lie to you."
"Fuck."
As all four girls scrambled to their feet, unsure of where the hell to even begin, Rhonda suddenly found herself knocked down by one of the amazons. This one, though, was special: aside from the obviously magic sword she carried, her impressive musculature and stonking gigantic rack - not to mention the way she was taller than even the other amazonian warriors - made the gorgeous redhead stand out. "Who the fuck are you?!" she demanded, as a hauntingly beautiful succubus in a white robe came to a landing next to her.
"Turned on," Rhonda muttered. The woman's grip on her sword tightened, and the latina quickly snapped of fantasizing about getting crushed to death by the greek-looking woman's perfect, thicc thighs. "I'm Rhonda! I'm Rhonda, and this is Sofia, Millie, and Emma!" The girls waved. "We uh... we're trying to fix... that!" She jabbed a thumb at the kraken-ship-Joana monster.
The succubus glanced over at Sofia, then tugged on the redhead's arm. "I think she's being truthful, my love," she spoke in a proper British accent with an alluring tone, "That blonde girl is a witch. I suppose you must be here to cast some kind of spell to undo this calamity."
"Mermaid pandemic," Sofia clarified, already breaking out some of the spell components. "If we can cure that woman, it should turn her human again, plus everybody back home - and that thing she's merged with should go back to sleep!"
The succubus seemed disgusted the instant she heard Sofia's accent, but this wasn't a time to look a gift witch in the mouth. "Very well. I will assist you with the preparations." She glanced down to Rhonda. "You - I can sense the spirit of a warrior. You will accompany my beloved to force the beast into a position to help."
"Elizabeth, I don't need-"
She was cut off by a finger on her lips. "Cassandra. Please, trust me in this." She leaned in to whisper something in the redhead's ear; whatever it was, it caused the amazon to look a bit confused, but she backed off, allowing Rhonda to stand up. "You two," she quickly motioned to Emma and Millie, "You will help us as well. Quickly now!"
Well, at least it was obvious who was in charge. She shrugged, looking up at Cassandra, who stared back down at her for a second with a quizzical look before posing a bizarre question. "Do you... do you have any idea what... protaganist energy is?"
An explosion from a gun hit nearby prevented Rhonda from answering. "Okay, problem for later - we need to get you into fighting shape, then climb up and hit that crazy bitch in the human part!" It was as solid a plan as one could hope for in all this chaos... but what exactly did she mean by getting Rhonda into fighting shape?