Snippet #1338596

As Matt continued ahead he could now hear his pursurers quite clearly. Seems they had given up on being sneaky. But seeing as they hadn't actually caught up with him yet, Matt could infer that these weren't elites. No, they were too slow... either that, or maybe he really WAS as fast as he had though before, and Kain and Shadow were simply special. The former was certainly more believable.

Matt could see the begining of a clearing ahead. The trees were getting father apart... Matt turned sharply to the right. There was no need to go in the clearing. He was faster going from tree to tree anyway. He was moving faster than them, so after a few minutes he couldn't hear them anymore. But there was no way that they weren't still following him, so he stopped for a moment. He needed to know who his pursurers were. A small pair of dark gray dots appeared in the distance. Matt slid his dagger into the handle of his sword as he spoke.

"Oh... just more scouts." He mumbled, willing his cocky attitude to stay down. Now wasn't the time. "I thought we were being chased by someone compitant." The scouts were getting closer. Matt was sure they had heard him. In fact, they actually attacked once they got close enough. At least these scouts weren't distracted like the last one. Matt jumped out of the the way, on to another tree. The two scouts stopped and looked at him silently. Probably planning a form of attack.

Matt studdied them both. There weapons were swords, and he could see the glint of more metal under on of there cloaks. Throwing knives, most likely. It didn't make sense... why were they running from mear scouts? ... Unless they were underestimating him! The actual assassins were probably concentrating on finding the others.
While Matt never liked to be underestimated, he did sigh with relief. He couldn't take an Elite on his own. And Matt was scared to meet the thing higher than the elites... what were they called? Shadow had only mentioned it once... crap, he couldn't remember.

Matt threw a throwing knife at one of the scouts, who only stepped to the side to avoid it. After a smirk, the same scout threw a throwing knife of his own. Matt's eyes widened and he jumped to a different tree, faking a small panic at the foreseen attack. The first scout glared at the second out of the corner of his eyes. Made sense. Not only had the scout revealed a hidden weapon, he also had shown his reflex skills by simply stepping out of the way of the first knife. In Matts mind, this was valuble knowledge. And he himself had acted like he had less skills than he actually did. Well, maybe it wouldn't fool them. Maybe it would. Who knew?

They both lunged at the same time, swords at the ready. Matt ducked and held his own sword up to block one while he twisted out of the way to avoid another. He kicked at ones shoulder , but it was blocked by the scouts free hand. Said hand twisted Matt's foot around by the ankle, and Matt spun around, his other foot lifting off the ground, to kick at his head this time. He jerked his head back but Matt stopped mid swing to replace the movement with a straight kick to the face. The scout was send back a few feet before Matt fell on the branch that served as the ground, which he did. Hard.

The second scout kicked at his shoulder, taking advantage of the thieves momentary opening. Matt tensed his shoulder to minimize the pain. Didn't help much. Even still, Matt arched his back and swung his legs backward to grab the blade of the scouts sword and pull hard. The scouts didn't relinquish his blade as hoped, but Matt still used the momentum to roll forward. This roll was a bad move however, as the branch wasn't THAT wide. Matt slipped and fell, falling down to the ground fifty feet below him.

He stabbed his sword into a tree trunk and hoped it would slow his fall. It did, but he was still falling rapidly. The sword was yanked out of the tree with the last ten feet, and he fell into a bush. He rolled out and shook up shakily, holding his right arm, which was limp. He picked up his sword and held it in his left hand, and faced the two scouts who had already come down onto the ground with him...