A few minutes ago, it had been a busy shopping mall. Now, it was a statue garden. In the middle of a once busy but now silent food court. A queue of statues stood waiting to be served, but the granite shapes behind the counter were in no hurry. Others sat frozen in mid conversation, mid-bite. A young couple stayed locked in a kiss, a mother was trying to reassure a now silent child, a young woman was triumphantly stealing a fry from a friend, and a waitress was now to be emptying an already emptied tray into the trash for eternity, or so it seemed.

Of course, beyond the mall nothing moved either, at least, from the perspective of any patrons, had any existed. The first spell cast had been to disjoint the area from the real timeline. In the process, every normal living thing was disconnected from normal time and had frozen in place. The second spell had merely made them into actual statues.

The reasons why life had been frozen in stone and in time here stood leaning on one of her victims, arm resting on the unresisting head of a girl frozen reading a book. The title of the book, and any ability to read it, was obscured by it also being stone. Besides, the girl's glasses had become less than transparent with their petrification.

Yuki Trusdale smirked, her blonde hair and blue dress a sharp contrast to the world of grey she had created. Every living thing and anything in direct contact with it had been petrified by her spell, but everything was impossible to destroy... unless she did the destroying herself.

"So... How do you expect to stop me?" She challenged the only other thing not petrified in this mall.

"The same way I always stop you, Yuki." Danee smirked.

"Oh, even after my little spell petrified all your silly little guns?"

"I can still fight you without them."

Yuki's smirk did not fade as she stole some fries from her leaning post's tray.

"That's what you think, of course. But, you came here to be the hero so... What about this? You give up, drop your little immunity to my magic and get petrified for my collection and I let most of this mall go. I just pick out a few cute ones... like this little nerdy girl I'm leaning on..."

"And if I don't give up?" Danee countered and interrupted.

"I still petrify you and I take all the cute ones of course. I'll turn the rest back, still, I don't want any more meddlers like you putting two and two together."

Danee considered this.

"So, if I beat you?"

Yuki sighed.

"I suppose if you defeat me I'll turn them all back, but where is the fun in that?"

"It's not about fun, Yuki!" Danee growled and charged... only to freeze in place.

"What... What's happening?"

Yuki laughed.

"Just a new trick of mine, Danee. You being immune to my normal magic and all I decided to try expand my power. You can't fight the paralysis spell at least... but can you fight this one?"

With this, Yuki raised her hand, with a glowing grey ball of energy in her palm. She aimed it at the trapped Danee, and smiled.

The ball became a beam of light, bathing Danee and a few other statues in itself. The beam fired with a roar that drowned out the startled cry from Danee, as well as the sound of crackling, and of something snapping.

As the light faded, the statues from before were unharmed. But Danee was not.

She now stood as petrified as them, solid from head to toe, her face frozen in shock as cracks spread over her. Small segments of her clothing crumbled, a line formed from the edge of her eye like a teardrop making its way down, and her pigtails gave up their fight as they cracked, fell, and shattered on the floor. One of her arms began to crack, but Yuki caught the falling limb.

"Oh dear. Seems the spell is a little too strong for casual petrification. Oh well, Danee, we can just fix you up later with a nice powerful cure spell, but for now... I'd better go shopping..." She said, carrying the arm with her,

And ten minutes later in the mall, though barely a blink of an eye for the shoppers and the rest of the world, almost a hundred shoppers that had made particularly attractive statues vanished into thin air... Leaving behind the restored others, many of who stunned to see friends and family, or even just people in front of them, disappear.

The only evidence anything had occurred other than this, was two piles of stone dust, the ignored remains of Danee's pigtails...