Iel felt like a king as he held a warm form in the dark. His 100th prospective experiment was finally under his spell, and he managed to lure the lithe Japanese girl into one of Shokushu’s old gyms, the one that was currently being closed for renovation.

It was a test of patience for him. Like all others the girl seemed to like the chocolate shelled marshmallow effect, the whole tough-loud-obnoxious-bad-boy-who-has-a-soft-spot-and-unrealized-gentleness bit worked perfectly for him again. Still a month was spent with him being the sweet ordinary boyfriend, a month spent protecting his little ‘girlfriend’ from the monsters of SHS, helping her with her homework, meeting in between breaks and singing for her.

Like with all others those he deemed his crowning glory were those girls who fell in love with him. Tempted by the heated kisses they shared during the time together it wasn’t hard that he asked her to meet him in that gym. Now they were inside, sitting on the dusty benches with her straddling him, kissing and petting so passionately e was just waiting for the moment when the girl asks to be truly his.

It was perfect in his case. It seemed like something out of a rated teen movie, and he knew that the girl would probably be envisioning dirty thoughts in her mind. Still the irony of the way the girl would scream for him to stop one she realized his real form made him grin inside, and her pulled his mouth away from her. The time has come for him to free her lips to ask that question he was waiting for.

Miss Steel felt rather pleased with herself as well. She'd been so close, so many times, to screwing it all up and blowing the disguise early, but patience had won out in the end. This path was slow and tedious, but she'd learned a lot about human courtship through the endeavor.

Still, having to fake up homework and little 'dates' for them for a whole month had been insane. This Iel, whatever he was, was so intensely plodding with the whole thing, and obviously took most of the students for a fool. After all, the one male human, an elligible bachelor at that, on the whole island just happens to fall for some young woman he runs into on her way out of the gym one evening? Any of the old-timers would smell that trap a mile off. Father wouldn't have let him get in a single word before going for the knife.

But no, that wasn't what the gray woman was after. She wanted to wait until he made his move. She wanted to see, truly, how another monster went about ensnaring prey, and she'd certainly chosen a proper mentor in a widely different style of such. Thankfully for her, 'awkward, violent, and naive' seemed to be an acceptable disguise to keep her complete confusion about the process from setting off Iel's alarms.

Now, as she straddled him and slid gently back of the kiss, she smiled wickedly. The eyes he'd stared so tenderly into were no longer their soft, shy brown. Yellow-green orbs glowed softly in the darkness, slit in half by long pupils.

"Gotcha," Steel whispered, predatory hunger written all across her face. The body of the Japanese girl erupted beneath the uniform into a swirling mass of chains that coated her from head to toe. Dozens of smaller lengths of linked metal snapped out into the air, seeking to bind the other predator beneath the gray woman. Miss Steel's true form was gradually revealed as the chains melted back into her skin. She was taller and heavier than she'd been a moment ago and much, much stronger.

For a brief flicker of a moment, the gray woman regretted that Iel would likely never sing for her again.