Miyako and Ken both rode on the back of Halsemon, racing to where Wormmon had sent a distress signal. Ken's partner had simply gone into the digital world to fetch something from one of the Kaiser's old bases, only to have requested help.

"So much for thinking everything was quiet," Miyako grumbled.

"We really should have realised as soon as everyone else was busy something was going wrong," Ken agreed.

"We should be close now, right?" Halsemon asked, to which Ken confirmed.

Landing outside the small hut that concealed the entrance, Ken jumped down.

"The door down is still closed, so I guess Wormmon might have sealed it behind him and gone in?" He asked, only for a new voice to interrupt with two words.

"Petra-fire!"

Ken span around to see a green beam shooting from the trees, catching Halsemon, with Miyako still on his back. The pair let out a cry of surprise as they turned into stone.

Ken barely had time to react to this when a second beam struck him. He was turned into a startled statue of himself in seconds.

Emerging from the woods, clucking with laughter, was a Kokatorimon.

"That was almost too easy! So much for Chosen humans being tough." 

He studied his victims for a second, frowning.

"Hmm, you three don't seem like you'll be as light to move as the Wormmon... I could use some help! And if I'm not wrong, you used to be the Digimon Kaiser, didn't you?" The digimon said, flicking Ken's stone nose with a feather.

Focusing on Ken, the Cockatrice digimon now shot out a grey beam. As it struck the human male, his form began stone shifting, a tail growing, becoming taller and wider, his body merging with his clothing into a feathery coat, his nose stretching out into a beak. After a moment, Ken's statuefied form had become a perfect granite form of a Kokatorimon.

"Hah, now for some irony - you put Digimon under your control, now you are one - and going under my control!" 

At that, the Kokatorimon fired white beams at the transformed Ken, making the stone fade into the white and red of a Kokatorimon - but his blank eyes did not turn red, remaining grey like granite.

"You should be under my control now. Are you?"

"Yes," The grey-eyed cockatrice said in a monotone.

"Pick that human off the Halsemon, she'll make a good helper too. You do the honours of fixing her look."

Ken obeyed, pulling the petrified form of Yolei off Halsemon's stone back. Gazing at the statue he held, the grey beams shifted her like Kokatorimon had shifted him.

"And my turn," the original red-eyed Kokatorimon said, hitting the new shape with the white beams. Like Ken, Yolei was now just a grey-eyed Kokatorimon, ready to obey.

"Alright, you two, drag that big dumb flyer down into my new gallery.... You humans had friends and they'll be coming, so we'd better be ready to expand my collection... and our flock!"

The two controlled and transformed humans obeyed.