"The first stage of my plan was to capture you, Maggot. Luring your friends in is the third part...." The Digimon Emperor gloated.

His prisoner, however, was not in a huge mood for taking him seriously.

"Was the second part four question marks?"

"What? No, fool, this has nothing to do with Underpants Gnomes! I've told you a dozen times, they don't exist!"

Davis merely stared at the Digimon Emperor in confusion, not even bothering to struggle with the ropes that tied him to a chair

The captured Digidestined sat in a control room one of the Emperor's many random hidden bases, this one looking down into a massive chamber containing another random strange machine that probably did something evil. Davis had correctly guessed the evil machine was part of the plan. It was a fairly standard random machine of random evil. Hughe, clunky, flashing lights, a strange platform in the middle and no doubt something on there span for no good reason.

"So it's the big machine thing then? What's it do?"

"Why should I tell you?" The Digimon Emperor snapped back.

"Because it's part two of your plan..."

"It's the second stage, fool!"

"Wow, that's just nitpicky..." Davis noted

"Pedantic!"

"Irony?"

The Emperor fumed and reached for his whip... Which he had left in his other jacket.

"Curses! Wormmon, take a memo! Remind me to buy a whip for every jacket!"

The small green Digimon did so.

"Anyway, stage two is to use my Genesis... Argh, never mind, if I give you the full name you'll just make some idiot comments! I should gag you next time." The Digimon Emperor paused.

"Wormmon! Take a memo!"

"Yes, yes, gag all captured Digidestined..."

"So, what does it do?" Davis interrupted.

"This machine, will create a powerful Digimon, and then unleash it upon the world!"

Davis waited for the evil laughter to stop.

"How do you know it'll work?" He then asked.

"What? How do I know it'll work? Because I'm a genius, fool! A maggot like you could never create something like this!" Came the angry response.

Davis merely shrugged.

"Well, fine. I'll activate it, and we'll see who shrugs then!"

The Digimon Emperor walked over to his machine, and activated it. It began to hum gently, and a glowing light emerged above the pad. Davis tried to look for the spinning part, and noticed it was the pad itself.

And then, with a strange half metallic groan, half burping noise, the light became bright as the sun. When it faded, the pad was slowing to a halt, and sitting in the centre of the huge pad...

...A small scaly green creature.

"Wow, scary. It's got six legs. Shame it's tiny" Davis noted.

"Size isn't everything!" The Digimon Emperor shot back.

The creature tried to walk, and tripped over its own tongue.

"Did you mean to make that thing?"

"No! Wormmon, have something capture that thing and drown it or something while I try to make something useful!"

However, at this point the small creature stood up, and said one strange noise.

"Bahb?"

It then began urinating.

"Oh no! Pee attacks!" Davis said in sarcastic horror. The Digimon Emperor was primed to explode.

However, it was the machine that began to actually do so, as the stream of liquid began to quickly seep into the electronics. In as bright a flash as it appeared, the small green creature vanished.

And then the whole machine exploded, springs, cogs, wires, and metal flying everywhere in the chamber.

As the last of the explosions stopped, the Digimon Emperor trembled with rage. The ensuing power surge was already starting to cause lights to fail, and other machines throughout the hidden lair to start their own similar explosive ends.

"Hey, at least it blew itself up in the process..." Davis found himself trying to console the angry lunatic in case this caused said lunatic to change plans to something other than leaving his prisoner as bait for the others.

"Er, I'm afraid it didn't. The readings show he activated the teleporter on the machine with his... Accident." Wormmon reported nervously.

The Digimon Emperor stood simmering in silence, the effect somewhat ruined by the crackles and pops of machines shorting out and shutting down, until he spoke once more.

"Wormmon. Untie this fool and show him the door. I cannot play around with him and his maggot friends, because thanks to that retarded creature I have to rebuild many, many machines!" He raged.

Wormmon undid the ropes, and pointed at a door,

"This is a sliding door. It's mechanical, but there's a safety manual lock, which is lucky because..." The Digimon began, only for his irate master to interrupt.

"Take him outside you idiot! Blindfold him, take his eyes out, knock him out, I don't care, get him out of my sight, out of my base, and don't let him know where we are in the process!"

"I'll see myself out. Thanks for the fireworks." Davis remarked, and went out the door, which he of course had to open manually. He was running before the angry so-called genius realised that his prisoner was about to walk out the door without any blindfold and learn exactly where this base was...

But meanwhile, a far more interesting escapee found himself hurtling through time and space as a result of the accident...

Exactly why is for other people to ponder, though, and so, for Bob, it was simply a case of wondering what was going on, and if there would be any sparrows...

***

Sitting at the side of the pool in a yellow-pink two piece swimsuit, Meer Campbell sighed, for it was all she could do. It was hard to pose as her idol, and with some time off she was trying to relax. But most of the day at the pool had been less than relaxing, people "recognising" her, people being loud...

And now as the day was drawing to a close, it was virtually empty, just her and a few people milling around the changing rooms.  She had taken a drink over to a table, and had taken a large sip of it before she found she had ordered the wrong thing. Drink abandoned and mood melancholic, she sighed again.

Until a strange crackling noise began. It was followed by a less than impressive light, and with a halfhearted thunderclap that sounded closer to flatulence than the roar of the sky cracking, the small green thing landed beside her table.

Meer tensed, and then wondered what exactly she had ordered. Now she was hallucinating?

Rather strangely given her situation, she simply slumped forward slightly and sighed. Again.

"Bahb?" The creature said, and her eyes flickered towards it. The eyes, and the creature, were not glowing. Meer wondered exactly why as it vanished, and was briefly relieved at the fact her hallucination was gone. She tried to sit back

It was at that point she realised she couldn't move. Her eyes were transfixed on the spot where the thing had been, and she couldn't will a single muscle in her body to move.

Sitting at the side of the pool, she didn't know she was now a granite statue wearing her yellow-pink two piece swimsuit, the colours clashing slightly with her now dark grey skin, she screamed in her mind, for it was all she could now do.

She was unaware that in less than twelve hours, the gaze would wear off, lucky that she had only had a fleeting look at his petrifying eyes before he vanished. But for now, she was stuck by the poolside...

***

Café Relish had closed for the day, and a single waitress was cleaning up. Quite cheerfully, Lizlet L. Chelsie had swept the floors before she realised that a single tray, teapot, cup had somehow been left out.

She was just picking it up, and taking it away, when the crackling began. Spinning around, but careful not to drop the tray, she saw a strange creature appear from nowhere.

Most normal waitresses would have screamed and dropped the tray, but as a tsukumogami and self-described spirit of tea, Lizlet wasn't a normal waitress. It didn't stop her feeling alarm at seeing the creature, knowing what it was.

"A Basilisk?" She said, gripping the tray tighter.

"Bahb?" It replied. She cringed as its eyes began to glow, felt herself stiffen for a second, then relaxed as nothing happened. Her illusory human form was immune to its gaze, only turning to stone for the briefest of seconds.

If the creature was upset by this, it made no showing of it, and instead began staring around the room. It seemed to be mentally challenged, she thought to herself.

Lizlet relaxed, and was about to put the tray down to try and figure out what to do with the strange apparition when it caught sight of a teacup sitting on a shelf. An antique one. Lizlet tensed.

"No, don't stare at that!" She cried out, realising the danger as the glow began. She tried to rush into blocking the gaze, her care for the tray forgotten as it began to fall, but even before the tea had started escaping the falling cup, she froze in place, grey and granite-hard. The teacup the Basilisk had gazed at was the same now.

It then vanished away in a crackle and raspberry, as it had arrived, leaving a quite alarmed statue in a maid's uniform, and a petrified teacup in his wake.

Oh, and a smashed one, a dented tray, a smashed teapot, and a large puddle of what Lizlet  hoped was tea...

***

Anri Hiiragi regarded the odd creature unlike his previous two victims, but was like the last unfortunate statue, well aware of the risks.

But still, having seen the creature just pop out of nowhere in front of her, the mage in training's first response had been to stare right at it. It was lucky for her, she thought, that it wasn't the sharpest stone gazer in the forest. Any other Basilisk would have just petrified her and fled, but this one seemed to have little control of bodily functions. It was still urinating as it had arrived.

She vaguely recalled a spell to let herself communicate with animals, and used it.

"Bahb?" The creature said.

"What did you just do there? What's that funny feeling in my head? Ooh, is that a sparrow?" She heard.

She giggled.

"A lot of meaning in just one word!"

Not unexpected, she recalled. Animals could vocalise a lot more in one word than humans could in many, the spell had claimed. There was something else it also had said about this spell... Something about minds.

Oh yeah. It made your mind link with the mind of the animal for a brief moment, so you might think like it for an...

Ooh, sparrow!

The hapless bird had landed between Basilisk and mage, and Bob had whooped with joy, his eyes glowing. Anri, slightly stupefied by the link, merely grinned unaware that she was about to be collateral petrification.

Bob reached out to grab the newly-made Sparrow statue, only to wail in displeasure as he vanished away. For a few seconds, Anri felt his displeasure, but gleefully realised she could take it now...

...And then the link faded, and she realised what had happened.

She sighed in her mind. Someone would come along and turn her back, assuming the gaze didn't wear off... Did they wear off? Either way, she wasn't too concerned about being a statue.

What did concern her was that, when she was found, she would be found looking at a stone sparrow like a complete idiot...