Leaper

The Leaper was a Necromorph able to hurl itself across great distances toward its prey. Reanimated from a single human corpse, it sported razor-sharp fangs and a long, scythe-tipped tail formed from the victim's legs and intestines, which it used both to propel itself and to strike. It moved with a speed and agility that few other common forms could match, navigating even open vacuum with ease, and it proved a constant danger to survivors like Isaac Clarke across every major outbreak.

Anatomy#

The Leaper appeared to be made from a single human corpse whose modifications served to give it vastly increased mobility. The muscles of the upper arm became more developed, and the fingers grew bladed claws for climbing and slashing, while the hands dislocated and the thumbs moved to the back to form animal-like paws. The vertebral ridges lengthened slightly and the spine grew more flexible to aid in locomotion.

The legs were the most dramatically altered part of the body. Their muscle and bone was flayed, fused together, and lengthened into a single limb tipped with a heavy, durable blade. This tail was highly flexible, able to contract and coil to about a third of its original length, and the Leaper used it both to launch itself toward its victims and to stab into them in the manner of a scorpion. The skull's cranial and sinus areas appeared dislocated from the neck, and the jaws were heavily mutated. The upper teeth and most of the palate were gone, replaced by a pair of multi-jointed appendages bearing sharp bony fangs, while the lower jaw split into two curved mandibles ending in knife-like points.

Behavior#

Leapers were encountered in every known major Necromorph outbreak. They were equally at home in normal gravity and in vacuum, crawling swiftly across surfaces or jumping between them to pursue prey, anchoring with their arms when needed in zero gravity. They often scouted their victims by flashing quickly through open vents, rattling them to frighten a target before bursting out at high speed and falling on it from an unexpected direction. In zero gravity they frequently hunted alongside Lurkers, forcing survivors to dodge ranged barbs and leaping attacks at once.

On Tau Volantis, the cold preserved the dead as mummified Leapers, which bore strange mutations not seen in fresher forms. In place of massive fangs, a multitude of fingers sprouted around their mouths, and similar supernumerary limbs grew at random across their bodies. These mummified variants appeared to be fused from multiple corpses rather than a single host, and retained scraps of the clothing their hosts had worn in life.

The Enhanced form#

The Leaper also had an Enhanced form, encountered later in the outbreaks. Darker in color and possessing glowing eyes, it was considerably tougher than the ordinary kind and capable of inflicting more harm. The Enhanced Leaper was notable for retaining its full appearance across all three of the early outbreaks rather than changing form as many Necromorphs did.