Silence ruled the dark hallway leading along the uppermost level of the basement, punctuated rarely and intermittently with the echo of a distant scream or the slamming of a door. A bare metal chair sat in the shadows between two of the bare bulbs. The gray woman sat comfortably upon it, faded deeply into the shadows such that her unnatural skin tone was hidden from any sent down the stairs leading to the rest of the campus.
The gentle clink of china lifted into the air as she set her teacup back on its saucer with a pleased sigh from the woman. The hallway always held promise of a fresh student sent down for some punishment or another, or the occasional naive explorer, and Steel had decided to take her turn waiting for one or the other to pass her way. The tea once more rose to her lips for a delicate sip, a pleasant distraction from the otherwise droll waiting.

Curiosity had filled the caster of the place after her now first two odd incidents with creatures of the school. Despite it happening it really didn't detour her from going on her own anywhere to get a bearing of Shoko. The raven haired woman tilted her head as she came to the basement when she thought she heard the gentle clink from a dish and blinked. Someone was in there? More curious than catious now the woman made her way in, making her way down the stairs carefully as her eyes took it in.

The shadowy form of a woman rose from the chair she had been sitting in and turned to place the cup back on the seat. The outline of her tall frame stood out against the harsh light behind her, but the only color reflected towards the student was the faintest hint of yellow from her eyes.
"Well, come along then. I've a room prepared just off this way," she said, her voice a soft slice through the still air. Her arm gestured back over her left side to a bare metal door standing ajar a few yards back as her feet slid her smoothly aside. "After you, young lady."

She blinked. Startled but managing to hide it well as well as to keep from jumping at the femme voice, she gazed at the strange colored eyes which seemed to hold her. The common sense part of her was screaming for her to turn back quickly while the curious part of her wondered what was beyond the other door.

Curiosity won.

As she headed to the door as instructed she stopped and gave the woman a curious look. "Are you always down here when students venture down here?"

"Someone is, usually. Can't have you wandering around down here on your own, can we?" Her arm once again gestured towards the waiting door. As the girl approached it, she saw through the frame a simple, concrete room with at least one side door, almost certainly connecting it to the next room over but now shut tight against inquisitive eyes. The left wall held three pairs of shackles dangling at a height that no one would find comfortable, and a plain metal cart sat in the middle of the room adorned with a large, black leather bag.
"Now go on in and we'll get started. We have much to do and not much time to get it done in," she said with a smooth voice. Her command was punctuated with a gray hand, piercingly cold as frostbitten metal, settling on the student's shoulder and pressing her forward.

A shiver at the touch ran through her body. So cold... Before she could say or react any further she was ushered beyond the threshold of the door. She hasn't been here long and already she was experiencing the strange things that happened. Hell she hadn't even had a class yet.

The rest of the room matched what could be seen from the other side of the doorway, all harshly lit by a single bare bulb dangling menacingly from the smooth concrete ceiling. The gray woman strode past the student and dropped the saucer onto the cart beside the large bag with a clatter of porcelain. Her skin caught and reflected the light perturbingly, her shorts clung to a form that would have been attractive if not wrapped in such gray, and her hands resettled the open vest over her shoulders as she turned back to the student and fixed her with cold, slit pupils.
"Now, why don't you go ahead and step on over there against the wall and tell me what you did to get sent down here," she said, pausing suddenly to allow her eyes to glide over Melissa's form. "Especially since it looks like it happened outside of class. I do intend to have your punishment fit your crime." The yellow-green eyes flicked up over her prey's shoulder at the still ajar door, then returned to lock with the young woman's.

"What?" Oh crap. Apparently the basement was the detention area where students got punished in some manner. Alarm bells went off, this strange woman thinking she had been sent down here thinking she was to be taught a lesson like other students who had been sent this way. Apparently she didn't get her 'venture down' meaning.

"I wasn't sent!" she flexed her fingers as if to call her fire element to her despite finding that her casting ability was slightly weakened. "I was getting myself oriented with the place before I started any classes!"

A dark chuckle lifted from the gray woman's lips to echo lightly in the chamber. "Really? Do you have some misguided belief that I'm going to take your word for it?" Her face split with a toothsome grin as the second portion of the student's statement and the somatic workings of her hand settled into her own mind. "Well, I am feeling generous today, especially for someone new to school. Truly, this is all a mistake then, and I'll let you go on one condition." The heavy metal door slammed and latched shut apparently of its own volition behind Melissa. Something tingled in the air at the sealing, slightly raising the hair on the caster's neck. The pressure of the inhibitors subsided within the concrete box.
"I'll give you one blow, and only one. If I am incapacitated by it, you may leave. If not, you stay, and I repay you for it in full." The cold smile playing on her lips told clearly how poor she found the girl's odds of success.

She jumped at the door closing behind her and goosebumps formed over her arms as she felt the restriction on her casting abilities lift. The words from the woman seemed to slowly sunk in while at the same time she realised the woman was actually the same color as her clothing, she having thought the whole time that it was just the lighting.

Closing her eyes as she focused on the elements within and around her to see what she could possibly do to incapacitated this female. Eyes then shot open with her blue pupils growing to dominate the brown of her irises she concentrated on water which she gathered from the air. It danced and swieled around her form as she shaped it into a battering ram before crying out and flinging her arms forward to slam the hardened water into the golden eyed one hard into the wall. If that didn't work then she was a poor caster when it came to defending herself.

The moment the torrent struck the gray woman, the suppression crashed back into the room, returned by her broken concentration. With a horrid crunch, her frame dug into the far wall and hung there, half-embedded in concrete. The air in the room came slowly to still and a deep silence as Steel remained motionless, apparently beaten.
Then her eyes opened. Her hands flexed and reached slowly out of her thin tomb to pull her carefully free. Small chunks of the wall crumbled and scattered across the floor as one bare foor, then another, stepped free and onto the bits of rubble. Her hair and clothes clung to her form, matted heavily with the water, and small rivulets ran along her face and arms.
"An excellent effort," she said with a grin. "All this blasted water sticking and threatening to make me rust. Pity I can't take a quick dip in the furnace." She shrugged smoothly out of the vest, exposing a bare chest and areolas dark as coal, then dropped the heavy fabric on the floor. Her soaked shorts went next as a definitely reddish hue grew over her entire form. "Good thing I keep a little one inside. Let me just heat this off and we'll get to it," she continued. Her body glowed briefly like steel freshly snatched from the forge, and the remaining water wafted off her in wisps of steam.

The raven haired woman cursed herself softly as she stepped as far as she could from the woman, now seeing that it wasn't a play of the lights on her skin that made her gray. Melissa realised she should have used her ability over rock to lift and slam into the female creature but seeing as she was only allowing her one shot to put her out cold she still wasn't going to let her have her way without a fight.

Guessing that the door was locked she pressed against the wall with defiance in her odd colored eyes. Hispanic accent now at the front as she spoke. Something that happened sometimes when stressed or when she felt cornered. "What do you plan to do to me? Place me in chains? Whip me?"

The vertically-slit eyes flashed briefly, and lips curled into a broader and crueler grin. "Those do come to mind, yes," she said as her body ebbed softly red. Her foot kicked the soaked fabric back with a hiss of steam before she strode slowly towards Melissa. Her hands clenched and relaxed slowly with a strange creak and dropped blackened flakes of metal onto the floor besides herself.
"Alternatively, I could temper myself on your skin. If you promise not to squirm to much, I can even give you a lovely little decoration as I do so." Heat radiated from her and reached halfway across the room, though it was fading with each passing moment. The door beside the girl was latched, certainly, but not locked, and Steel appeared to be in no hurry to scar her prey despite the threat.

Not answering nor moving either as she watched Steel with her lids slitting a bit, she didn't let the woman know she was forming water over her head as a response to the woman, and when it was big and round as a beachball she let the water fall on her.

The alien woman gasped as the water hit her and immediately steamed completely off, returning her to her normal gray skin tone and stripping her of anything beyond a natural warmth.
"Well, that's clever. So be it, we'll go with your suggestion," she said with a more playful grin dancing on her lips. A thick, flat band of what appeared to be a sort of living metal snapped from her back and aimed at the girl's waist in an attempt to snare her.