piedmon raced outside, leaving the keychains behind. the boy was already far away, but piedmon could catch up soon enough. he wondered which one this was. ken had told him that three new digidestined had emerged since piedmon had last fought them. this must have been davis, the one that seemed to be the new leader. he wasn't going to get that far and he remembered that the kaiser had told him this new leader had a weakness. piedmon had time. he turned around to fetch a certain keychain.

what he didn't know was that he was helping the remaining digidestined carry out their own plan. davis had intended to arrive much sooner than he did.

~~~~~

izzy had managed to catch the three newer digidestined before they had reached a computer.

'you can't go in there straight away. you won't stand a chance against piedmon even if the others haven't already been captured.' he had warned. davis was still impatient

'i don't care! kari's in trouble and i'm going to help her!'

'look, davis, you can go in if you like, but just do one thing. waste piedmon's time. just draw him out until cody and yolei are ready with my plan.' izzy told him. davis left shortly after.

~~~~~

piedmon had been right that he would catch up, but the forests made it easy to lose sight. piedmon didn't take long in finding davis and flamedramon again, but davis had done as izzy had asked and was wasting time. davis then recived a message that told him yolei and cody were ready and would be there soon. davis just had to keep piedmon distracted in one place.

'izzy's wasting our time as well, flamedramon. this clown doesn't look so tough.' davis said as piedmon neared

'so the little vandal has stopped running. is your house near here so i can smash your windows? maybe turn your parents into keychains?' piedmon asked.

'flamedramon, attack!' davis shouted.

'i was going to!' the digimon replied.

'well, why aren't you attacking then?!'

piedmon sighed.

'look, i'll even stand still, just attack already.' piedmon said. he didn't have all day.

'fire rocket!' flamdramon yelled, flying forward. piedmon simply raised a hand and fladramon collided with it harmlessly. at least for piedmon. davis had to duck as his partner bounced back.

'you said you'd stand still!' davis found himself protesting.

'i did. i didn't say i was going to let him actually attack. but i'll just hold up a hankercheif, see if he can hit it.'

piedmon was correct in guessing neither of them knew what this actually meant. davis soon found out when flamedramon vanished and pidemon was now holding a keychain

'what happened to flamedramon?' davis asked.

'he's hanging around here.'

davis saw what the keychain actually was and turned pale.

'yes, all your friends are like this too. mimi, kari, sora, tk, tai, matt, and their digimon. i left most of them in the shed.'

'what kind of weirdo are you?'

'oh great, you don't even have your own lines. are all three of you new digidestined just copies of older ones?' pidemon sighed.

'huh?' davis asked

'who are the other two?' piedmon moved on.

'yolei and cody.' davis responded. he was counting on piedmon wasting as much time as possible and if he thought he could get answers, he might keep asking questions. maybe before he got turned into a keychain as well, if piedmon wasn't lying about having done so already to everyone else.

'the kaiser said there were three new ones. which one is the girl? the new girl, not kari, i know her.' was the next question from the evil digmon

'yolei.' was the response.

'kaiser says she's cute. you think so?' piedmon asked

'she's just loud and annoying.' davis said

'i see. keychains aren't loud and annoying. maybe we could swap. your girl for the loud one?'

davis was seriously considering it, piedmon thought. but this wasn't going anywhere. before the human could respond he decided to play a game. he decided knowing about the digidestined was pointless since keychains didn't have much of a personality he had found.

'actually, no. i have this cute little keychain here.' piedmon said, producing and dangling kari. this made davis visibly angry.

'let her go.'

'and drop her? some hero you are. she'd get covered in all this dirt. no, the game is a guessing game. i'm going to put kari in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. guess which one she is and she goes free.'

piedmon put his hands behind his back and shuffled kari and the handkerchief between them.

'now guess.' he said, holding his closed hands out.

'she's on the right.' davis said. piedmon revealed a handkerchief which he threw at davis. he barely yelled out before he had become a figurine with stick legs and a painted face.

'good guess, but they were both handkercheifs. the right answer was in my pocket. and that's where you'll be going in a second.

~~~~~

no, she hasn't said anything at all yet. tk told tai. when kari had suddenly gone quiet it had alarmed her brother and tk. tk was worried about her and also worried about where matt was now. matt had been trying to talk to no one for the time kari had been off the loop, since he was lying seperately from the rest.

on the other side, mimi was still ignoring everything and sora was convinced piedmon had lied to her.

~~~~~

'time to go back on the loops, kari.' piedmon told the keychain in his hand. he reconnected her to tk and matt, not wanting to ruin the fun of how annoyed they were getting trying to fix the mess of a conversation that had been going on. but putting davis anywhere near kari wasn't fun at all so he found himself linked to sora. piedmon decided to listen in.

i can't believe i was stupid enough to believe piedmon... sora complained to herself, letting davis hear.

sora?

davis? okay, maybe i'm not making this up in my head. she thought.

huh?

no offence davis, but you're not the first person i'd want to imagine was talking to me,

i don't know what you mean. davis said in confusion

do you even know what's happened?

uh, no. i just came here when izzy was talking to yolei and cody.

did izzy warn them about piedmon? sora asked.

yeah. he had some kind of plan.

oh. phew.

is that good?

very good. best case, we're back to normal soon, worst case, i'm not trapped forever with mimi ignoring me and only you to talk to. sora responded.

wait a second... i don't get it. davis said. sora sighed in her mind.

~~~~

in fact cody and yolei had just arrived outside the shack.

'okay, what do we do now?' yolei asked.

'you heard izzy's plan...' cody replied.

'i don't like it though. what if he got this thing wrong?'

'what thing wrong?' someone else asked. yolei and cody turned to see piedmon standing behind them dangling hawkmon and armadillomon off one hand and another set of keyrings off the other.

'so you're the last two apart from joe and izzy, eh? well, i'd love to chat, but i hear you're loud and annoying.' piedmon said to yolei.

'what?! who told you that?!' yolei yelled, forgetting who had just said it to her. piedmon sighed and simply threw the two handkechiefs. cody and yolei both cringed, but it was piedmon who was in trouble. izzy's plan had worked. the attack had transferred from the handkerchiefs to their digivices and was now going back to piedmon. izzy had explained it as putting a mirror around them that would reflect an attack back at the user. it had been something he'd hoped to use later since it seemed to only have one use per digivice, but it had worked.

'wait, why am i getting smaller?' piedmon asked in confusion, dropping the other keychains. yolei and cody watched as the evil digimon grew smaller and smaller and then began to change slightly. his limbs seemed to be getting thinner and his face was twisting to look painted. a few seconds later, he was a keychain too.

'wait, what about...' cody began, but the pile of the other keychains began to glow. each one grew larger and slowly took the shape of the person they had been before piedmon had transformed them. unfortunatley for them they were in a pile, which was especially unlucky for davis, who had been at the bottom.

'...never mind.' cody said as yolei laughed at her friends, tangled together and trying to get free as davis protested the fact they were all sitting on him.

~~~~~

after standing up and first agreeing never to mention the pile up again through mutual consent, they went into the shack to find the digimon there had largely come to the same conclusion regarding a similar incident. they had one small problem left. the only keychain remaining.

'i say we smash him.' sora said.

'we don't know what will happen. besides, he doesn't look like he's turning back soon.' kari pointed out.

'we could bury him.' yolei suggested

'and ken could dig him up.' tai noted.

'i know what we'll do. izzy beat him by reversing his attack on him, right?' davis said.

'pretty much.' cody said.

'so, we just reverse what he was doing to us.'

'what do you mean?' tk asked. davis had a simple response. he produced his house keys and clipped the keychain on.

'it means we can keep a close eye on him i suppose.' tai said.

'davis, don't you keep losing your keys?' yolei said.

'yeah, so?'

'well, if we're going to keep a close eye on him shouldn't we have him on someones keys who isn't going to flush him down the toilet or something?'

'oh come on, i only did that once! and they weren't even my keys, they were juns!' davis protested.

'how does that make it any better?' matt wondered.

'it doesn't. davis, just give the keychain to someone else.'

'i'll take it. i don't lose things easily.' tai said. davis had no objections. kari was about to speak, but paused and then didn't say anything.

~~~~~

trapped once more, unable to free himself, piedmon had gone back to where he was before. except he had been in a pocket of the digital world alone for nearly four years. now he was in a different pocket. tai's pocket. with no light or sound. only his mind and his thoughts to keep him at the same level of sane he had been. and tai  had told the truth when he said he didn't lose things, but he had forgotten to mention he sometimes left his keys in his pocket when things went in the washing machine. kari had already realised what this had meant when he decided not to comment on it, and she had a feeling tai was well aware of the fact his keys were cleaned every few weeks. on the plus side, it would be the cleanest pidemon would become for quite some time when it inevitably happened.