Lt. JG Natasha Cole - Then We’re Finally Being Honest
Natasha Schell
((Security Training Facilities - Combat Mat Room - USS Artemis-A))
Nat was too busy defending to strike back. She had to remind herself in spite of Vitor’s youthful appearance, he was about a decade more experienced, and a lifetime of lived experiences.
He had managed to land a few glancing hits, and she was going to feel every one of them later. He wasn’t that much larger than her in height or weight, but that experience was his advantage. Hers was a lifetime of being underestimated.
Sometimes that had been a wound. Sometimes it had been a weapon.
Silveira: You disappoint me… I was expecting better…
oO Really, mind games? Oo
Vitor shifted from punches to a low kick aimed at her left knee, which she leaned into, forcing the strike to land higher on her thigh where she could recover from it.
Cole: You’re starting to sound like the Commander.
Silveira: Well I am a Commander…
He wanted her off-balance, not just physically. Talking was part of the attack. Fine. He could try to unsettle her. Plenty of people had tried. Some of them had even gotten close.
This wasn’t cruelty. It was worse. It was deliberate. He was showing her exactly how easily technique fell apart when emotion got invited onto the mat.
It was irritating how quickly the old instinct surfaced — prove it, prove it, prove it — as if every hard voice still needed surviving.
Natasha gave ground on purpose for the first time, not retreating so much as widening the space enough to read his movements, how his shoulders shifted slightly before committing to a strike.
Cole: So the lesson’s pressure, not form… noted.
Silveira: This isn’t a lesson.
This time when he came in, Natasha didn’t just block. She caught the line of his shoulder turning and stepped inside the arc of the strike, forcing the exchange closer than he had intended. Her forearm drove sharply into his centerline as she pivoted off her back foot, testing whether she had finally found the rhythm beneath his pressure.
Cole: Underestimate me properly, sir.
At that moment, Vitor stopped being her interim boss, her mentor, or even her friend. On the mat, he was only the problem in front of her. Whether she won or not had stopped being the point. If he wanted pressure, she could be pressure too.
Natasha followed through by catching the line of his arm and shoulder, turning hard through her hips instead of trying to overpower him. Her foot slid behind his lead leg at just the right moment, and with his balance already broken, the reap didn’t have to be dramatic to work. It only had to be precise.
Vitor hit the mat with more surprise than grace.
Silveira: That works both ways Lieutenant…
This time Natasha didn’t give him the clean range he wanted. She kept her guard tighter and her movement smaller, making him work harder for every angle.
Cole: Then at least we’re finally being honest with each other.
He’d changed strategies the moment he realized she was reading his hands. Good. That meant she’d made him adjust.
Silveira: I see why your a Security officer
Cole: That almost sounded like praise.
Nat prepared herself as Vitor raised his arm, presuming another punch, but he quickly grabbed her arm, tugging her towards him.
Silveira: You can do better than this…
Cole: Bold of you to assume this is the best part.
Natasha used the pull against him. She turned with it, rose fast, and hooked her legs up high, trying to drag his balance out from under him before he could reset.
Silveira: Response
She hit the mat hard, rolled through the impact, and came up low on one hand and one knee, breath sharp, eyes already back on him with something close to a grin.
Cole: Good counter.
Silveira: Response
Cole: My turn.
No more measuring. No more waiting to see what lesson he intended. If he wanted pressure, she would make him earn every inch of it.
Then Natasha closed. Not recklessly, but with intent, stepping inside his reach, crowding his angles, forcing the exchange into forearms, shoulders, hips, and short, punishing contact where clean punches had less room to matter.
Silveira: Response
Tags/TBC
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Lt. JG Natasha Cole
Security Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205NC4