"Squad, watch out! High-speed infected ahead. DASFs, check the area."
The four DASF operators moved away from the vehicles while Vanguard Four-Six slowed along the industrial road.
The Radar marker went still for a moment, then it crossed another block before the squad leader finished enlarging the area, changed direction around one ruined warehouse and appeared beside the formation’s western side almost immediately after.
"West!"
The nearest Guardian APC turned its autocannon, but it was too slow.
Something passed between two buildings as a dark blur.
The gunner fired anyway, sending a short burst through the road where the marker had been, but the contact was already thirty meters away and moving toward another structure.
The MDC soldiers looked around in confusion.
"What the hell are we shooting at?"
"Keep your head down!"
The marker turned again.
One of the DASF operators moved first.
He crossed the road at a speed that made the MDC soldiers stare, jumping over an abandoned vehicle before disappearing behind the corner of a factory building.
The contact met him there.
A loud impact echoed between the structures.
The operator came back through a metal door hard enough to tear it away from its frame, landed across the pavement and rolled twice before planting one hand against the road.
A thin shape followed through the same opening.
It did not look anything like the Tank.
The infected was smaller, built around long limbs and a narrow torso that seemed almost starved compared to the heavy monsters they fought earlier. Its arms hung close to the ground, while both legs were disproportionately developed around the thighs and calves.
The head snapped toward the operator before it disappeared.
"Move!"
The operator threw himself aside.
The Leaper landed where he had been, cracking the concrete underneath.
Before anyone could fire, it jumped again.
The Guardian APC on the western side tracked upward and opened fire, but the rounds crossed behind the creature as it hit the wall of another building, pushed from the surface and changed direction without touching the ground.
The squad leader watched its marker jump across his Radar picture.
"Fuck me. This is the worst."
He could not depend on the Apaches while the infected kept weaving between buildings and friendly positions. Any clean firing window disappeared almost as soon as it appeared.
The Missile Infantryman followed the marker through his HUD.
"Airburst?"
"Not through those buildings. Hold it."
The squad leader changed channels while watching the marker move between the buildings.
"Guardians, cover the roads. Armor, hold fire unless you have a clean lane. Infantry, close the gaps around the vehicles!"
Riflemen and Army Soldiers tightened their positions while both Guardians covered the widest approaches. The Vanguards remained farther back, their main guns following the contact only when it crossed the longer roads where a missed shell would not land among friendly troops.
The Leaper did not give them one, moving through the buildings instead.
The Leaper did not give them one, moving through the buildings from a wall to a rooftop and onto another wall, and it had already circled almost the entire block before the formation finished tightening around the vehicles.
The DASF operator who had been thrown through the door returned to his feet.
"You good?" another operator asked.
"Hits like a truck."
The four separated again.
Unlike the vehicles, they could at least respond when the creature changed direction.
The Leaper seemed to notice. Its next jump carried it directly toward one of them.
The operator fired, three .338 rounds crossing the incoming path.
The Leaper twisted in the air. One round passed beside its head while another clipped its shoulder.
The creature changed its landing and struck the side of a building instead, claws scraping through the concrete before it pushed away again.
"Got a hit!"
"Doesn’t look enough!"
The Radar marker accelerated.
The Leaper landed behind a group of Riflemen.
One soldier turned, and barely saw its figure.
The infected struck him across the back and sent him into the side of the Guardian APC before continuing through the formation.
Blood spilled from his mouth as he struck the Guardian, and his body went limp before falling onto the road.
"We got a man down!"
The Army Soldiers fired after the retreating contact.
Most of the rounds hit nothing.
The Medic nearest the Rifleman rushed over, but one look at the man’s crushed chest and the blood spreading beneath him was enough.
"He’s gone."
Nobody had time to stay beside the body as the Leaper had already crossed the next building.
Instead of following it, the four DASF operators suddenly broke away from the street and disappeared into the surrounding structures.
One entered the same factory the infected had used earlier, another crossed toward a partially collapsed warehouse while the remaining two moved deeper through the buildings on the opposite side.
The MDC soldier looked around.
"Where are they going?"
The squad leader ignored him and kept the regular formation compact.
"Infantry, stay with the vehicles. Don’t chase that thing into the buildings. Guardians, keep the roads covered."
The marker moved again.
It circled behind the northern warehouse but refused to cross the open road, passing through another structure before climbing toward the upper floors.
Whatever intelligence existed inside that thing seemed to understand exactly where the heavier weapons could reach it.
The western Guardian rotated toward one possible exit.
The marker changed direction before appearing.
"Smart bastard. It knows!"
The squad leader tightened his grip around the rifle.
The Leaper was not simply running randomly around them—it was watching.
Every time a weapon moved toward one side, the infected shifted somewhere else. When the infantry tightened behind the armored vehicles, it climbed higher through the surrounding structures and searched for another approach.
The Radar showed everything it was doing, but knowing where it was did not mean they could hit it.
The marker stopped inside the northern warehouse.
The squad leader watched it.
"Stay sharp."
The contact suddenly jumped three floors, shattering a window above them.
"Roof!"
The Leaper came over the edge.
One Guardian tracked upward, but the creature never entered the street.
It jumped from the warehouse roof toward the side of another building, claws striking concrete before its legs compressed against the wall.
The squad leader expected it to launch toward the infantry, but it did not.
The Leaper stayed there for less than a second before throwing itself backward into the broken windows it had come from.
The autocannon burst arrived after it disappeared.
"Fuck. It’s testing us."
The contact descended two floors, crossed behind the building and accelerated toward the eastern side.
The squad leader followed the marker and realized that one of the DASF operators was already waiting inside.
As the marker reached the corner, gunfire erupted from within the structure.
The Leaper flew through a window, twisting sideways as several .338 rounds followed behind it. One struck somewhere along the torso, but the infected landed against another wall and escaped before the operator could follow with another burst.
The operator did not chase and disappeared back inside.
The squad leader finally understood what they were doing.
The operators were not trying to catch the infected; they were taking away the places it wanted to use.
The Leaper crossed another rooftop and found a second operator ahead of it, but it quickly changed direction.
A third operator was moving through the building below and the infected turned again.
They continued shifting around it using the same Radar picture until the Leaper began circling inside fewer and fewer structures.
The MDC soldier watched the markers.
"They’re surrounding that thing? Holy shit, how can they keep up?"
The infected accelerated again, breaking through south.
One operator appeared through a doorway and fired.
The Leaper jumped before the rounds arrived, crossed toward the second floor of another building and immediately found another operator moving through the windows ahead.
It twisted away, but that route placed it above the wide open street.
The Guardian covering the open street fired the moment the Leaper entered its lane.
The Leaper dropped.
Autocannon rounds ripped through the building behind it as the creature struck the pavement on all fours.
Before it could launch itself away, several grenades landed behind and beside it, sealing the routes it could have used to turn away.
The Leaper reacted immediately and twisted toward the only open direction left.
The grenades exploded behind it, blasting fragments and debris across the road while the creature launched forward. One of the operators fired from the building opposite them, his first burst crossing the Leaper’s path before another DASF attacked from the side.
The infected tried to change direction but its left leg was hit.
The Leaper crashed into the pavement and rolled several meters before forcing itself upright with both hands.
"Leg!"
The Guardian autocannon opened fire.
The Leaper jumped again, but its damaged leg failed to give it the same power. Instead of clearing the street, it barely reached the side of an abandoned vehicle before several thirty-millimeter rounds tore through the road around it.
One round struck its lower body.
The creature spun across the pavement, giving the DASFs time to close in.
The Leaper still refused to stay down and pushed itself toward another building, dragging the damaged leg behind it while using its arms to throw its body forward.
A .338 round punched through one shoulder, while another struck the remaining leg.
The infected collapsed and tried to jump one last time, but nothing happened.
The DASF leader crossed the last few meters before the Leaper could recover and drove his monomolecular blade through the side of its neck.
The creature thrashed violently, cracking the pavement beneath it.
He pulled the blade free and stepped away. Two HCMARs fired into its head.
The Radar marker disappeared.
The DASF leader returned his blade to its sheath.
"Target eliminated."
The squad leader checked the Radar picture before looking north again.
"Good. Mount up. We still have people waiting for us."
The four operators returned toward the vehicles while the rest of Vanguard Four-Six reorganized around the dead Rifleman, but there was no time to stop with the Lasher still active two sectors north.