Please help me.
The voice echoed in her head, bouncing around like some grand yell going through a canyon. Joana's lips hadn't moved when Rhonda heard the sound, but she couldn't imagine anything else around her capable of producing so loud and booming a noise. "Wait... did you just...?" She squinted, and realized Joana's green eyes were staring, and they were strained. Almost as if she was fighting with all her might, not against the army throwing all manner of magic and weapons at her to little effect, but to keep still.
As the tentacle holding Rhonda captive loosened, allowing the latina to climb atop it, the voice boomed in her mind once more. This isn't me... something... something in this ship, it's... controlling me... She paused, taking a breath. It's so old... so powerful... it wants... the world... you have to.... kill it...
"Okay, okay, just hold on!" She huffed. Christ, these things always had to get more and more complicated. "My friends are getting a spell ready, it's gonna undo your transformation, turn you back into regular Joana, and this'll all be-"
It won't work! Her tone was growing frantic and pleading. Magic... spell... not strong enough... need to... force it out of me... The shaking in her tentacle was growing - she was having trouble holding on. You need to find... a relic of... First Ones... something of... it's own kind... hurry...
The booming psychic voice at last gave out, and in its place, Joana let out a scream of rage. The tentacle whipped, trying to grab up Rhonda again, and in an instant the young woman realized it was time to book it. She could worry about whatever the hell a 'First One' was later, after she'd avoided getting crushed into a sassy paste. And right now, the best place she could escape to - unless she felt like faceplanting into a wooden deck - was into the ocean, in the hope of being able to dodge the tentacles down there.
Slamming into the water wasn't what she'd call fun, but it was more survivable than a drop down onto the ship. Before she was even in all the way, she could feel her legs shifting; she didn't fight it, allowing them to rearrange, fusing into one limb, brilliant red scales emerging from hip to tailfin. It was a pleasant sensation, she would admit, one that she had no time to bask in as the tentacles started to thrash, seeming to aim right for her. It was a good thing she'd always been a fast runner - that seemed to translate into being a fast-swimming mermaid.
Darting through the water, she beelined right for the beach, flopping up onto shore with a gasp. She had to find Sofia, fast, had to let her know what Joana had said - her eyes fell upon the german girl farther up the beach, chanting out her intonations; Rhonda started to flop over fast as she could manage, too panicked to remember how to will her tail into legs right now. "Sofiaaaa!" She yelled out, "You gotta stop! It's not gonna work!"
The girl's eyes darted over to Rhonda, but she kept up her preparations. "Sofia! I'm serious!" She huffed, getting closer now, right up next to the ritual circle. "Are you listening to me?!" She was, but her expression made it clear that she was annoyed with doing so. "She talked to me in the head, Sofia! Joana, I mean! She said she's being controlled by... something! I think... I don't know, a First One, whatever the hell that is!"
The color rushed out of Sofia's face, her ritual coming to a halt.
Slowly, her head turned, eyes returning to Rhonda. "...please. Tell me this is a joke."
"Does this look like my joking-in-the-face-of-the-apocalypse face, Sof?!"
She had seen that particular face enough to recognize that Rhonda didn't have it. "Oh no." Her breath was getting fast and shallow as she looked to Elizabeth. "We have to retreat. Now."
"Young woman," the succubus began her stern reply, "I do not know what this 'First One' might be, but I-"
"You are fucked is what you are if you stay out here!" The panic was growing palpable. "If you want anyone here to live - if you want to see your big muscle-bound girlfriend survive - we need to get the fuck away from that monster, right goddamn now!"
There was a moment of pause, Elizabeth staring Rhonda down, but after that moment passed, she relented. "There is a temple, farther inland. It should be safe from this monster's reach."
As she put out the magical signal to retreat, Rhonda, finally shifting back to a pair of legs, had the obvious question. "Sof... what exactly is a First One?"
"A god."
"...little g or capital G?"
"Little g, but that's still a god." She ran a hand through her hair, leaning up against Rhonda. "They're... they're a myth to witches, a-a-a-a fairy tale.... the original practicitioners of magic, the origin of our bloodlines, blessed by Lilith herself... but... they're not even supposed to be real..."
Rhonda's brow furrowed. "We've met how many weird legendary creatures - or been turned into those creatures, too, mind - and you thought there were myths?"
"I hoped it was a myth. Because the rest of the legend... it says, if one of them ever woke up... it'd seek to retake it's dominion, and nothing in the world could stop it..."
"It's dominion being...?"
"The whole world."
"Oh, well, that's normal." Rhonda shrugged, watching as the strange and mixed army fell back, centuars and nagas hauling away mermaids as amazons covered the retreat. "Look, Sof, they might be super-witches, but they're not running the world now. So something must have killed them off, right?"
Sofia nodded grimly. "Yeah. Themselves."
"...oh." That. That was. A problem. Such a problem that Rhonda didn't have any more reassuring words to offer as they at last joined in the retreat, falling away from the beach alongside the last of the battered army. Even as they trekked back to this temple, Rhonda found herself afflicted with growing concern, too much to even ogle at the myriad of beautiful women around them. She was used to world-ending threats, one of them seemed to roll around every year between September and May... but nothing had ever rattled Sofia as badly as this had.
The silent march brought them deep into the forests of the verdant island landscape, where large hills and distance provided ample cover from the monster at the shore. The temple Elizabeth had mentioned soon came into view, a magnificent example of greek architecture, gleaming with marble columns, a beautiful courtyard with a clear fountain and flowers in a rainbow of colors decorating the immediate area. A paradise, to be sure - one that, at the moment, played host to an impromptu field hospital, with wounded warriors of all shapes and sizes being attended to by what looked like pristesses.
Would've been a lovely place to visit under any other circumstance. Sighing, Rhonda nudged Sofia, trying to lift her spirits. "C'mon. We should be safe here. We can... figure something out."
"You can't 'figure something out' with this, Rhonda." She shrugged away from the latina, head hanging low. "First ones gave witches their power - which means our power won't work agaisnt them. The whole damn Council couldn't do anything to stop it. Anything that comes about from the work of witches, it's worthless against a First One."
"Okay, so no witchcraft... that's fine. There's gotta be-"
"It's fine?!" Sofia spun around. "I just told you, no witchcraft on Earth can stop it, and you think it's fine?!"
"Well some of us do just great without witchcraft, so yeah, it just might be fine!"
"Oh for - you can't just punch it, Rhonda!" The color was returning her face - a red blush of rage. "All the spunk, all the wits, that's not going to do jack shit to help us!"
"Oh, so we're doing this again?!" Rhonda threw out her arms wide. "In case you didn't notice, I've been doing just fine for years, Sof! Little old me, no magic, no powers, got by totally alright!" There was an awkward crowd of people staring now. "Would really like to think we've gotten past the 'oooo mortal girl is useless' phase by now!"
"Urrrgghhh!" The german girl stomped on the ground. "This isn't like anything we've dealt with before! You can't get away with just pulling whatever stupid shit comes to mind! You can't just be too dumb to beat! Not against power like this!"
"Really?! Because that's what you said about the Countess, and about Abigail, and about the valkarians and that pyramid and every other new thing we've run into! And you know what happened every time?! I came out just fine on the other end of things!"
"Because I was there to fix everything for you, dumbass!" She stomped closer, yelling right into Rhonda's face. "Our whole fucking lives, I've been following you around, risking my life, to pull your stupid ass out of the latest fire it got into!"
"I got into shit because of you, you crabby eurobitch! Every time I got turned into a frog or a cow or a table or some other shit, it was because you just had to attract so goddamn much weird shit! I got into those fires trying to stand by you, trying to be your friend, trying to be there for you!"
"Well maybe you shouldn't have!" She was screaming now. "Maybe I was fine without some rude cunt who didn't have any friends imposing herself on my life!"
"And maybe I would have been better off not trying to make you not feel so goddamn lonely, and getting shafted out of ever having a normal life for it!"
"Maybe you would have!"
"Fine then!"
"Fine!"
Breathing heavy, both girls finally turned away from each other, Sofia finding somewhere else in the wilderness to stomp off to, and leaving Rhonda to pant as she stood there, dozens and dozens of eyes upon her. She didn't say anything to any of them before scooting off in the opposite direction from Sofia, off towards a nice, relatively quiet side of the temple. A perfect place where she could slide down against a wall, curl up, bury her face in her knees, and try not to cry for a little while. Or a long while, as it ended up being - sun was setting when she finally had enough and pushed herself up.
She felt like garbage. And that was going to keep going if she stayed here and stewed. Only questions was where she went and what she did now. There were options, things she could do, but right in that moment... she wasn't sure if she'd ever felt more lost.