The Sketching Basilisks are a strange species. Like many beings with petrification powers they use it mainly for their own amusement, creating art from their power. Unlike the collecting catobplebas or the gallery gorgons, they do not collect their actual subjects. Instead, they merely use their petrified victims as life models for drawings and paintings. They also benefited from their species having control of the Great Rift, allowing them access to other worlds, other times, and other dimensions, vastly increasing their available subjects.
They were a mostly harmless species. Victims can usually expect to be delayed at most a few days as the basilisk scribbles away. But, of course, there are exceptions.
Elzy the basilisk was one such exception.
Renamon was on edge tonight. Something was out there, and it didn't feel like a Digimon. Careful not to attract attention herself she was moving around the Makino's residence, trying to find what it was, if there was anything.
"Aha, you'll do!" A voice suddenly said to her left.
Startled, she turned to get a face full of a green beam.
"What-" She protested for a moment, but she was already immobile and turning grey.
As she felt herself turn totally to stone, she worried she had been attacked by a Cockatrimon. The flightless overgrown chickens usually did two things to their victims: kept them as trophies, or consumed their data completely. Neither prospect seemed like fun.
However, she realised something else. The attack had come from some shadows, and yet, she hadn't smelled any sign of a Cockatrimon there. How had it...
...the odd green humanoid that emerged was not a Cockatrimon. He seemed to have a lizard's tail, and wore clothing like a human would.
"Hmm, pretty good pose, startled expression and posture..."
Oh great. This creature was some sort of collector too.
"...Got a few ideas of what to write about. Ooh, a Cockatrimon could have got you, or you could be cursed by a trap in some ancient temple somewhere!"
Elzy began writing his notes, as the bewildered stone Renamon could not help but listen.
She did not know of the Sketching Basilisks, of how they petrified to create drawn works. If she had, she would have been confused.
But the simple truth was, Elzy could not draw. Whether he could write was a matter for debate as well, but there was no disputing that he could not draw...
Still, like most of his kind he turned his subjects back. If he remembered, that was.
Some say the Renamon stands there to this day. Some say she was turned back after he realised he forgot and came back a couple of hours later. Some insist they didn't forget and totally turned her back as soon as he had all his notes and a clear escape route and he definitely didn't get caught and get his ass kicked. Some insist the bruises were an accident falling down some stairs, not being punched by an angry fox-like Digimon like some may tell you....