Part 056 – Hunted

I made a chopping motion with my hand. Half of my squad split up to circle around the building. "We’ll cut him off here." I whispered to my three subordinates.

Sneaking around slowly, at the exact moment we had prepared for, all 6 of us jumped out at the same time, aiming into the alley. The Hero wasn’t there.

Shit. How did he escape us? He’s so much faster now than he was only a few days ago.

"Above us!" one of the men gave a yell and quickly fired an arrow at the Hero. The Hero moved so fast that it startled me. My eyes could barely even track him. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, he evaded us easily by getting out of our line of sight.

"Hunter squad two, he’s on the roof. Send the birds up there." I spoke into my magic crystal communication device, it had a medium range but could pass through anything, even solid brick and dirt.

"Affirmative." Three men jumped out from behind a nearby shop and quickly climbed up the side of the building, jumping from spot to spot as they climbed. Their agility always impressed me.

"Hero is on the move. Shoot to kill, don’t hold back." I raced down the street with my men, following behind the Tracker, an expert trained to follow the magical path of any enemy he has attached a spiritual anchor to.

The tracker’s eyes were aimed at the top of the roofs, but suddenly his gaze dropped to street level. "He’s on the ground again."

"Damn, he’s fast. Already two blocks away." I grimaced. He’s making this really hard on us.

"Captain Adams, should we set the dogs on him?" My right flanker directed the question at me.

"Negative. The dogs won’t be able to catch him, and they’re too valuable to risk. We’ll do this ourselves." We kept running after the Hero. He wasn’t moving forwards very fast. Perhaps he was toying with us.

Suddenly, one of my men gave a yelp, and was yanked into a back alley. What the hell?! "Johnson! Johnson!" We halted our chase to race back into the alley. Johnson was gone, there was no sign of him.

"Shit. Captain, bad news. There’s three signals now. They’re all in different directions."

What the fuck? Three signals? "How is that possible? Tracker A, Tracker B, can you both confirm?" Tracker A nodded. Tracker B confirmed over the radio.

I turned to Phoebe. Wearing her light armor, she was small and slender. You almost wouldn’t even notice she was there. "How is this possible? How can there be three signals?"

"He made clones of himself. Be careful, the clones will be half as powerful as he is, but you know how strong he is." Phoebe confirmed my fears. He is so hard to pin down now.

We rushed down another main street, passing many citizens who were alarmed by our military gear, and the sight of soldiers racing down the streets in the middle of day.

"Keep following the original signal, but keep your eyes out for the clones. I don’t want another sneak attack. We can’t afford to lose anyone else."