At least when you plan for the worst you have something to do when the worst happens. That doesn't mean what you can do is a good idea though! I hope Terra is alright, and I hope she killed enough spiders to give jack time to arm the big bombs.

Well, this couldn't be a lot worse unless all those spiders were already loosed on the Arizona countryside.

Another nitpick came up when I was looking over the chapter...

The aerial footage on TV of the making of spider jutney? Why would the Air Force release it so quickly? I mean, aside from the typical reluctance of the Air Force to show off just how good their reconnaissance, and the technical difficulties of transferring broadcast quality from whatever format they use into one for a station, there is still one problem...

The situation is still live. Men are still in the field. And worse yet, there is no indication that the body of the spider has been taped off. As soon as that tape hit the air, first of all people would go see it, and the relevant TV stations would send their own copters to get footage along with ground crews to get on the scene reporting. People may take pieces of the spider as souvenirs. Basically, the situation in relating to the public would spin out of the control, unless they had more boots on the ground to control the crowds. Which they don't Worse yet, people are heading towards a situation where they could spider chow. Which is part of the reason why they don't have boots on the ground, because they would be in danger from the spider horde.

Possible solution: Have Willow be looking at the video recording of the action that the Air Force really should have put behind better firewalls.

Edited to Respond: Yes I have noticed and I do appreciate you giving my thoughts as much consideration as you have. I hope that I have note come across as ungrateful, it is just trying to have a conversation via the review posts seems a little awkward....

Edited to Further Add: Hah! Not sure if you realized, I think we both added our previous responses within a minute or so of each other....

I'll think about that. I used all your other comments already, as you may have noticed.

EDIT: Now you can see what changes I made. Thanks for the information and the advice.

Well, that was a great story. Kind of sudden to kill of your main character like that, though.

Seriously, Edge. Of. My. Seat.
And the less I visualize that egg sack, the better. GAH!

Well, it's Monday, so only two days to the enxt chapter.

And I considered writing the egg sac and the environs in more detail, to make it a LOT creepier, but there's a limit to how much Stephen King I want to read, much less write.

Wow and OH Wow! What an ending for this chapter. Loved it.

Thanks. My muse demanded I end the chapter right there.

As an aside, the Venom and the Viper are both USMC-only aircraft. Why does this matter? Luke AFB is Air Force. Make whatever Chair Force joke you want to make here, but an AFB may have some version of a Huey it will not have a Viper. The Air Force's mission is defined so that it has no need for attack helicopters.

Nearest Marine Air Station is Yuma, depending on exactly where this is in the state.

And I'm pretty sure that the canopy of a Viper can't open in flight, so Alex flying over to grab the light and such is pretty unlikely. There just wouldn't be room for them to keep a duffle bag in there.

Yeah, these are nitpicks. You can handwave away the weird basings (Jack had them forward deploy to Luke just in case he needed them) but Viper can't do what you are asking. Maybe have another Venom been sent with the drone with the two Vipers sent along to shoot off the missiles, so that is what Tera flys over to.

Thanks for the info! It's easy enough to handwave some of the stuff (I *could* claim different rules for Venoms and Vipers in the Alexverse, but I won't), but there's definitely no room for that waldo in a Viper.

EDIT: I went and edited some of the story arc details. Thanks!

Brilliant story thanks for writing ;D Just got caught up ;D

I'm glad you're enjoying it. The next chapter will be up on Wednesday.

Picturing the swarm inside the sac heaving and writhing. Eww :(

If this story arc gives you horrible spider-related nightmares, then my job is done. :-)

No, just kidding, I wanted to write it well, but I didn't want this to turn into a Stephen King novel with graphic descriptions of every detail and horrible descriptions of gore and... Well, you know.

> "Earth vs. the spider" ... cast "Too Dumb to Live" ...
*go to take a look*
Damn! You weren't kidding there.

> And the next chapter will update on Wednesday. Same Tera time, same Tera channel.
You made me spit my OJ with that line. Not all over the keyboard, thankfully, as I was able to turn around intime.
Anyway, that's the sort of line that validates my decision to read every single review and response in your stories. Would you believe that they are more entertaining than most stories on this site?

"Hey, the last time I was nearly eaten alive in a spider cave by a giant spider, I dropped my bracelet, so can we go BACK in the cave and look for it?"
"Sure, what can possibly go wrong?"

That's not the official dialogue, but it's close enough. There's not one single person in that movie who isn't toting around the Idiot Ball for large chunks of the movie. In fact, I think they all had a backpack specifically for lugging their own personal, extra-large Idiot Ball throughout the movie.

And it wasn't really 'Earth' vs. that spider. It was more like 'a few really dumb guys in this one hick town'.

Comments from author:
Ed, Ed, Ed, please stop sneaking over and reading my notes. :-) :-) :-)

Cready and Baker are being given regular doses of antidote by the prison authorities, but that does not mean you'll never see them again. And Jack will have a very different name for Cready.

Tactile telekinesis is bot one of the many powers I thought about, as you'll see later. And I already thought about your last suggestion too...

Comment from Ed:

Didn't anyone tell you I was exposed to GC-161? My power is the ability to peek at other author's notes all the way from Colorado. ^_-

(I was holding out for the power to attract cute geek girl authors, like Jack got, but you takes what you gets, right? ^_^)

EDIT: I'm in my fifties, a tired no-longer-useful relic of the Cold War. Trust me, dear lady, who you are shines out through your writing like a good deed in a dark world.

I haven't been a cute geek girl author for thirty years, if that.

Damn! I hope she's okay.

Fortunately, you only have to wait until Wednesday to find out.

Ack! What a nail-biting place to end a chapter!

*sweats bullets over Alex's possible fate*

That's because I'm a horrible person, and I've been reading Dresden Files books to get more tips on ending chapters with hideous cliffhangers.

On the other hand, I could be ending *stories* with hideous cliffies. I mean, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming have both done that.

Quoting Author - And Jack will have a very different name for Cready.

Considering he also seemed to be stuck in a semi-liquid state, I've been calling him Meltdown in my head.

And I've been wondering for a while how effectively invulnerable Alex's silver-state is. I would hope she went to that as she was zapping the claymores. If not, explosives in an enclosed area, even if it is fairly large, could be bad even if she doesn't catch any of the ball bearings those things are packed with.

Meltdown's a pretty catchy name.

I'd like to point out that if powers ARE returning, that means Jo (aka Crush) will be recovering.

Jack gets the idea for a Suicide Squad? Jo Baker's losing weight - that might take care of SOME of her attitude if she realizes that she's entering the "large but really attractive gal" zone and can start getting boys with just good looks (but needs an attitude makeover to keep them), and is offered parole in return for carrying out missions where they need super strength and invulnerability

I doubt the Human Torch will be much help as his powers cause him pain, but there could be others.

Ever thought of giving someone Tactile Telekinesis, Diane? Limits would be no levitating something you can't touch, but the TT would compensate by giving psuedo-super-strength and limited impact resistance. Superboy light, as it were...

Since many of the background things are the same... Megaman, "borrowing" the name from the game?

Or any of hundreds of names. Wonder Man? ^_^

And there really needs to be someone who takes a hit of something nastily nootropic...

Ed, Ed, Ed, please stop sneaking over and reading my notes. :-) :-) :-)

Cready and Baker are being given regular doses of antidote by the prison authorities, but that does not mean you'll never see them again. And Jack will have a very different name for Cready.

Tactile telekinesis is bot one of the many powers I thought about, as you'll see later. And I already thought about your last suggestion too...

Time to find out just HOW invulnerable Alex is in silver morph form. All these stressful situation might even trigger some changes in her.

There are some things you do not want to have to test.

The big risk isn't the blast directly, it's still being able to get out afterward. She'll be very dazed and injured.

I think there might be a LOT of big risks there. :-)