"Get away from her, you bitch."
- Linda Hamilton, Ghostbusters 2
Shaman Apsu was feeling rather octopedal today. Throughout her insatiable hunger for universal conquest, she rarely faced an enemy worthy enough to coax her into her true form: That of a half-woman, half-Black Widow monstrosity. A beautiful nightmare on eight legs.
This small blue planet known as "Earth" had posed one of those rare challenges, but Apsu still managed to prevail with only a simple hidden net. Seconds before, they had been showing off their abilities as conduits for elemental magic. Now they were pinned to floor of her rocky nest under five layers unbreakable silk, a death shroud welcoming them to their final tomb.
It was impossible to tell what was what in that clustered mass of alien biology. A cotton glove helplessly flailing around here, a high-heeled boot kicking about there, decorative bust and back ribbons rustling everywhere. They were maggots wiggling and squealing for mercy.
Every insectoid appendage that emerged from Apsu's body was seeping with venom. She elaborately positioned her limbs over each color-coded alien sticking in her web as if they were tiles on an interplanetary game of Twister.
She instantly stung anywhere she sensed vulnerable flesh. She tasted frightened beads of sweat as she dodged a choker and bit into a neck with her two fangs. One of her legs poked into a wiggling bare shoulder while another prodded an armpit. Her spinnerets shuffled against a blob of web and a brightly colored miniskirt before sinking into a creamy thigh.
Seconds after the venom began running its course, the writhing pile of webbing and Earthlings settled down. Their movements slowed as they softly groaned in deadly sleep.
Apsu's spindly hind legs made a chitter chitter chitter as she backed up from the net and started working with her forelegs. The sound of ripping silk echoed through the cave. In the dim shadows flickering against the dark cave walls, Apsu's silhouette lifted a vaguely hourglass mummified shape into the air and secreted it away to somewhere safe, warm, and hideously miraculous.
Leathery chitin shuffled in the darkness. Apsu's voice flowed through the nest in recurring waves: Always starting with soft discomforted moaning and ending with a long wave of relieved purring. One after another, the deep bass of a human heartbeat would slow, stop, and gradually restart with an eerie new rhythm, like tribal drums changing to a different tune. The melody would always be punctuated at the end with the same loud damp glup. She dealt with each obstacle patiently and with her full attention like they were dishes lined up in orderly fashion on a buffet line.
The patterns on Apsu's arachnid abdomen flashed through a rainbow of colors and resonated in a deep magical hum as she became intimately emburdened with the power of each of this planet's gods. She sparkled red for Aries. Green for Zeus, who was made of surprisingly grittier stock compared to the rest and took the most effort to pass Apsu's test. White for Selene, the most delicate one to handle. And blue for Hermes.
Once each helpless morsel caught under her web had received her special care, her shadow sorted the oval-shaped things that used to be hourglass-shaped things into a tight cluster and spun a final blanket around them to protect them from the cosmic chill. She chitter chitter chittered up the wall and left the nest in bleak silence.
Minako cautiously glanced through the cavern hidden underneath Shaman Apsu's throne room. The grotesque interior revealed everything about the space queen's true nature: Giant nets of web dangled from the ceiling ready to spring a trap on any unsuspecting victims. Fragments of acid-burnt cocoons were strewn about the floor. She was standing next to a row of giant egg sacs that were each the size of her.
Towering proudly behind her reproductive handiwork, Shaman Apsu grinned at Minako.
"Where are my friends, you old spinstress?" the guardian of Venus shouted.
"Why don't you see for yourself? They were almost about to hatch anyway," Apsu taunted her.
Four of her spindly legs tiptoed along the sacs before slowly injecting their contents with a final dose of poison.
"Time to wake up, darlings!" she cheerfully said as she pulled her needles away
The egg sacs throbbed in obedience. One by one, the silky black shells tore open and spilled out waves of acidic green yolk.
Minako didn't recognize the darkened figures at first. They murmured together in a small chorus of stretches and yawns. The life-sustaining venomous ooze rolled off of their sleek silhouettes in rivulets of stream. A few of them just had to shake their hair before they were all dry.
The cavern's weak light finally began to showcase their forms, and Minako gasped.
Usagi was the most recognizable of the bunch. That was to say, she still had her dumpling tails with some new decorations and not much else. Rei had gone for more of a quiet tomboy look. Makoto's ponytail was the length of Usagi's braids and had turned grayish-brown. Ami almost looked like a different person with her thick blue Egyptian bob and sharpened facial features. Although they were still highlighted in their own planetary colors, the four were clad in full-bodied and full-figured black suits that no modest Sailor Senshi would ever be caught dead in. They were each accented by exotic markings on their faces, and their species was anything but human.
"This Earthling had been waiting to meet you," Apsu said to her creations. "Why don't you introduce yourselves, girls?"
"Nergal," said Rei.
"Marduk," said Makoto.
"Sin," Usagi giggled.
"Nabu," said Ami.
Minako was speechless. She glanced up toward Apsu with a look of rage on her face. Apsu simply smiled back. Shaking her head, Minako's thoughts returned to her friends.
"Sailor Moon? Sailor Mars? What's happened to all of you?"
"Oho, I didn't know these things had names before I made my Oppositio Scouts out of them," Apsu laughed. "I just thought they were a bunch of apes in fluffy skirts."
Minako stared at the Oppositios in fear for their well-being. The Oppositios stared at Sailor Venus like a group of distant strangers.
"Who's that flabby bag of Earth bacteria?" the ever curious Nabu pointed toward Minako.
"Tangerine on white is so out of fashion." Nergal rolled her eyes.
"Can I eat her?" Sin asked excitedly, her stomach growling and her irises sparkling in enamored hearts.
"She's only one of your less evolved forebearers, my little queens," Apsu answered. "The last of her kind, I'd imagine. Why don't you show her how we treat such rare guests?"
"I say we pound her into space dust." Marduk uncrossed her arms and crackled her knuckles.
Minako knew there would be no holding back. She didn't have time to grieve for her friends. She'd figure out a way to heal them with the Silver Crystal later. If there was any hope for all of them, the first thing she had to do was survive this encounter.
Minako reluctantly fired a Love and Beauty Shock at the Oppositio sisters. They attacked her in return with powers that were familiar but dissimilar to her former allies. Fire that rippled through the air in zero gravity waves. Bolts of lightning that defied the known laws of physics. Water bubbles made of corrosive acid rain. A flying Moon Tiara shaped like a giant Starfleet insignia.
Dodging each of them, Minako sprung off of Sin's shoulders and unleashed her Love-Me Chain at Apsu. Another chain secretly thrashed out of the darkness toward Minako.
"You'll never win, you awful hag!" she shouted. "I'm Sailor Ve-…"
The sharp sound of impaled flesh stopped Minako's voice dead in it its tracks. She looked down and blinked at the massive stinger bursting through her yellow brooch ribbons and sticking out of her back. The segments were covered in scales and led all the way to a scorpion tail that had been hidden behind Apsu's abdomen.
Apsu swiftly retracted her stinger and curled her tail. Minako stumbled in her Sailor slippers and dropped face-down on the ground.
Her senses dulled as a large red puddle grew underneath her. She could feel herself growing colder and colder, until she suddenly felt warm. Apsu was nursing over her and diligently wrapping her entire body in webs. The Oppositio Soldiers loomed around her, a ring of twinkling eyes against giggling shadows.
Apsu's voice broke through the muffled silence of Minako's quickly fading universe.
"Help her into my ovipositor while her blood is still warm. This one's got plenty of gestating to do."
The Oppositio Scouts lifted Minako's tightly bundled frame off of the ground and gently eased her through the gates of Ishtar.
Author's note: And that's a wrap.