"Mine tunnels?"
Nick Fury asked, his tone puzzled.
"Actually, the mines around here have been abandoned for quite some time."
The agent handed over a file of documents.
Decades of continuous extraction had pretty much exhausted the ore veins. Workers left one after another when there was no work left for them. McCormack Mining stayed in business only because they still had old stock to sell off. By current estimates, if they didn't find a new ore source soon, the company would be shutting its doors in three months.
Nick Fury's brow furrowed. As someone steeped in conspiracy theories, his first instinct was to suspect McCormack Mining had cooked up a hoax to commit insurance fraud.
After all, weirdo insurance had become hugely popular lately. If McCormack Mining had taken out a massive policy in advance, that scenario wasn't exactly impossible.
McCormack Mining primarily extracted pyrite and copper. No gold byproducts had ever been found.
The United States was a federal republic, each state running its own affairs. The police system there was nothing like China's; the types and structures of law enforcement were bafflingly complex.
The local sheriff, usually called the county sheriff, held enormous authority and had his fingers in just about everything.
From parking tickets and domestic disputes all the way up to major felony investigations, it all fell under his jurisdiction.
But when it came to weirdo incidents, S.W.O.R.D. got a free pass everywhere it went. The governor of Arizona had even issued an executive order for full cooperation with S.W.O.R.D. operations. Nick Fury couldn't help but be astonished at how many times faster things moved now compared to his S.H.I.E.L.D. days.
Back then, even with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vast reach, handling an event like this would have taken five or six days just to evacuate civilians and lock down the area.
Now? S.W.O.R.D. received the alert and had the entire zone cordoned off within a single day. The local sheriff's office organized the evacuation on its own initiative.
Damn. Times really had changed.
Suddenly, gunfire and panicked shouting erupted from inside the cordon.
"What's going on?"
Nick Fury instantly drew his weapon. As a S.W.O.R.D. operative, the gun in his hand was far from obsolete gunpowder tech, which would be all but useless against a weirdo.
It was what Zodhis called an "Atomic Gun," built on principles of nuclear fission. This thing packed enough terrifying firepower to blast a main battle tank to scrap with a single shot.
Only agents with designations of three digits or higher were permitted to carry an Atomic Gun in the field.
Though Nick Fury privately worried whether the radiation might eventually cause his body to develop something unpleasant, after witnessing the Atomic Pistol's sheer destructive power firsthand, he had to admit having a genius for a director gave him an unprecedented sense of security.
"Our people got attacked while checking the mine entrance!"
A S.W.O.R.D. agent listening to comms in his earpiece quickly reported after getting the details.
The two men pushed past the cordon and were greeted by the sight of a huge swarm of giant spiders charging after everyone in sight.
"Motherf—"
Nick Fury stared at the spiders, each as big as a full grown man, then took in the teeming mass covering the hillside.
"This is Tiger level!"
"No, this is Demon level. With numbers like these, they could paralyze an entire city."
Nick Fury immediately radioed the situation up the chain. The manpower on site was nowhere near enough to exterminate this many spiders. He needed reinforcements.
Just then, a massive spider lunged at a little girl. Nick Fury didn't hesitate, pulling the trigger.
The Atomic Gun naturally had no recoil. It spat a beam of pale blue light. The ray looked like a stream of light particles, but it wasn't. Its speed was only supersonic.
The energy beam struck the giant spider and blasted it into pieces, reducing it to scattered chunks and fragments. The extreme heat vaporized most of the spider's bodily fluids and soft tissue. The bits that hit the ground were still burning.
Panic surged through the crowd as they scrambled to flee.
"Get those civilians out of here, now!"
Nick Fury shouted at the other agent, advancing with his Atomic Gun in hand.
"Yes, sir."
Nick Fury had spent the better part of his life never experiencing such a bizarre, outlandish spectacle. But he didn't lack courage.
The giant spiders had far quicker reaction times than humans. Even hampered by the constraints of gravity, they still managed to drag off many people who tried to fight back.
Fury fired shot after shot, covering the retreating civilians as they withdrew.
The biggest problem was how sudden it all was. The crowd had been maybe an hour away from full evacuation. Now everything had devolved into complete chaos.
Overhead, five Black Hawk helicopters spread out across the sky.
Originally those Black Hawks had only been deployed to maintain air superiority and surveillance in case the weirdo tried to slip away unnoticed. But now, seeing the teeming hordes of giant spiders, the pilots were cleared to engage.
Five trails of fire streaked downward with a shriek, plunging into the surging tide of giant spiders.
Hellfire missiles!
BOOM!!!
The thunderous roar of explosions coincided with rising balls of flame. A shockwave rippled outward. Spiders caught in the blasts were either vaporized outright or sent tumbling through the air. Whole swaths of the swarm were cleared out.
The Black Hawks were equipped with M134 Miniguns, multi-barreled rotary machine guns with devastating firepower capable of shredding anything short of heavy armor within a hundred meters. The nickname said it all: Vulcan cannons!
From high altitude the helicopters circled. Trails of burning tracer rounds rained down at terrifying speed. The air itself seemed to be torn apart as the barrage gouged craters in the dirt, kicked up clouds of dust, and scattered spider parts in every direction.
Globs of green ichor burst open. The spider tide was being decimated. Though the spiders were admirably fierce, thrashing their forelegs and hissing up at the sky, they still ended up as shredded wreckage.
Overconfident jumping spiders launched themselves toward the helicopters only to be blown apart midair. Their remains disintegrated before they even hit the ground.
"Looks like this weirdo problem isn't so tough after all. The only real issue is their numbers."
Watching even Black Hawks casually mow down the giant spiders, everyone else felt reassured.
The helicopter crews grew bolder. The giant spiders could jump impressively high, but the Black Hawks could always fly higher.
"Eight-Legged Freaks are nothing but target practice for them."
Zodd watched the scene unfold. The inspiration for these giant spiders had come from the movie Eight Legged Freaks. Sure, they looked horrifying and intimidating, but against heavily armed humans, this swarm was little more than a shooting gallery.
If it weren't for Zodd's mercy, having tweaked their biology so their density increased to support such massive bodies under gravity, small caliber rifles wouldn't even penetrate their hides. Without that adjustment, they might not even have been a threat to the town's residents.
After all, this was America. Everyone here had guns. It wasn't like the old days of swinging axes and cleavers.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Slow, heavy footfalls echoed out. A colossal shape emerged, revealing its monstrous form.
It was an enormous tarantula. Or maybe a bird eating spider. The exact species didn't matter. What mattered was that this thing was absurdly gigantic.
An ordinary giant spider, whether a cobweb spider or a jumping spider, had a body no bigger than a bathtub. Legs included, a grown man could just about wrap his arms around one. But this giant tarantula was the size of a truck. Its whole body bristled with coarse hairs. Its legs were thick and powerful as tree trunks. The monster movie proportions alone were enough to make anyone's blood run cold.
/-\
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