They were an odd grouping of humans. A redheaded girl in a heart-pattern shirt, two gogglehead boys, an older girl in a green school uniform, and a purple-haired girl in red baggy pants.
The odd part was, they were not only from two other dimensions, they weren't even in their relative presents - in this universe, this digital world, they'd been flung back in time after defeating a thread across many dimensions.
They and their partners, a Renamon, Guilmon, Veemon, female Gotsumon, and Hawkmon respectively, stood speaking to a (for once) friendly but shy Kokatorimon, with his Wizardmon and Clockmon friends, who had explained everything about where they were.
"...We're stuck? In 1987?! None of us were even born in our own dimensions!" Jun fretted.
"Well,not quite, we can get you as far as December 31st, 1999 with my help! After that the Digital World is reformatted so I can't get past it, a millennium bug." Clockmon smiled.
"That's fine, but we're from a bit past that," Ruki sighed.
"Yeah, Davis, Jun, and Yolei are from 2002!" Takato said.
"...Again, Takatomon, their names are Daisuke and Miyako. I don't get how you keep getting their names wrong," Guilmon sighed.
Renamon gave her fellow Tamers-partner a funny look, but everyone else ignored the hypocrisy.
"Actually... I think whatever weird version of our world became an anime in yours is like some alternate universe even to us, we're from the late 2010s," Yol... er, Miyako, corrected.
"And none of it matters because the only gates back to our home dimensions exist in the 2021 of this universe, so we can't go home for over thirty years! I'll be an old woman by then, wrinkly and grey!" Jun sobbed.
"You're already wrinkly!" Daisuke fumed, then realised his error.
"...At least she's not crying," Gotsumon noted as the now furious Jun chased her brother.
"Attempted fratricide aside, we're gonna need a plan B," Hawkmon spoke up.
Kokatorimon gave a 'hmmm' noise, then whispered to Wizardmon.
"...it could work. Let's run it past them," Wizardmon said.
"We're all ears, sort of... HEY, JUN, STOP STRANGLING DAISUKE A SECOND, WE MIGHT HAVE A PLAN!" Ruki yelled.
The gasping gogglehead and his still irate sister returned.
"So, Kokatorimon suggests something to let you skip the time a bit. Clockmon moves us to 1999, just before the Digital World will be reformatted..."
"Yeah, but, we're humans. We won't survive a reformat," Miyako pointed out.
"True. But, if you're Digimon, you will survive."
"....But then we need to wait around for twenty one years." Takato said.
"That's where I come in. I petrify you, we go back to our own time here, you guys wait it out, then someone depetrifies you!"
"Or my time-delayed spell cures them so there's a backup," Wizardmon noted.
"Right, so... we turn into Digimon. How?" Ruki asked.
"Well, I can't do it, but Piedmon can!" Wizardmon smiled.
"...Sorry, Piedmon, the one that turns people into keychains?" Takato said.
"Well, ours can do that I guess, but they're nice!" Clockmon said.
"Not a Dark Master?" Hawkmon pressed.
"Nah. Trust us!"
"It's all we have, isn't it?" Jun sighed.
They met Piedmon, who was indeed quite different from the one Takeru and Hikari had described to Daisuke and Miyako, as well as the similar one that had been in the anime of Takato and Ruki's world. For a start, she was female in appearance.
"Well, that sounds like a good plan, though you could have a point there, me or a descendant might be who becomes that Dark Master Piedmon," She noted.
"Maybe not you exactly, the ones we're worried about looked male," Takato said.
"So, best go hide somewhere I don't know about either way. Oh,and I don't want to go to the future myself though, so how about I turn you into the Digimon here, then you go forward with Clockmon and Kokatorimon..."
"And me!" Wizardmon interjected
"...to finish your trip home?"
"Sure. Might as well turn us into copies of our own Digimon partners for simplicity," Ruki said.
"Uh, can I be a Lillymon, no offense, Hawkmon, but, you're a guy... I'm not," Miyako said.
"I can make you a female Hawkmon!" Piedmon said.
"Oh, cool."
"Can you make Daisuke into a female Veemon, I always wanted a little sister..." Jun joked.
"No!"
The transformations were done, a simple wave of the handkerchief over each of them, and where the humans had stood, were now copies of the Digimon.
"All right, I'm a female Hawkmon!" Miyako cheered.
Her actual Hawkmon blushed at the sight, mortified to find his transformed partner so cute.
"Hah, Hawkmon's in love!" Gotsumon teased.
"Never mind that, we need to get going," Ruki said.
"I know a good spot to hide you guys in the future, we'll go to where it is now and shift forward," Clockmon said.
"Here we are, 1999!" Clockmon said happily.
He had brought them to a cave, fairly isolated, but a quick walk would reach a nearby village, and from there, it would be easy to locate the others in the future, and their tickets home.
"Well, Kokatorimon, you're up, buddy!" Wizardmon said.
"Ooh, lemme get a good pose with Gotsumon!" Jun said, hugging her partner before being turned into inanimate rock.
Kokatorimon whispered to Wizardmon.
"...Anyone else wanting to pose?"
"Nah, we're good here," Daisuke and Veemon said before their petrification.
Ruki declined as did Renamon, but Takato and Guilmon had themselves petrified side by side, making fake bunny ears on the other with their claws, sticking their tongues out. Miyako hugged a still-blushing Hawkmon as they were also petrified.
"Right, now... spell to release the petrification, best get it ready to cast as soon as that reformat hits," Wizardmon said.
It was twenty-one years later, and in the cave, the ten statues (technically seven since six of them were arguably the same statue) began to come back to to life.
And the two Guilmons discovered a drawback to their pose, coughing up twenty-one years of dust as they turned back.
"Alright, we're back to normal! Anyone else have weird dreams?" Miyako said.
"Yup..." Ruki groaned.
"Ooh, spill!"
"I kept chasing my tail."
"Oh, I have that dream too," the real Renamon shrugged.
"Wait a second, guys, I think we have a small problem... all us humans, are still Digimon!" Jun noted.
"...We have a bigger one. Look at the date!" Gotsumon gasped, as did all the actual Digimon.
"...We don't know how?" Takato said.
"It's 2221!" Hawkmon fainted, followed shortly by Jun-the-Gotsumon and the real Gotsumon. Even Ruki, Daisuke, and Miyako felt wobbly on their feet.
"Oh, hello in there? Are you back to normal?" A voice shouted from outside, and was soon revealed to belong to a Clockmon, a female-sounding one.
"...You're not the Clockmon we met," Renamon managed to say.
"Actually, I am, been a digi-egg a few dozen times, figured I'd try a female appearance again this time around. Anyway,Witchmon... er, Wizardmon, says sorry, but he accidentally got the time wrong on the spell to revert you,BUT! Don't worry, I can take you back to 2021! Post-hyperquantum computing Clockmon can go as far back as the reformat in 2000!"
"Oh, okay, so, we're not trapped in the future," Jun awoke with a relieved sigh.
"Yup!"
"...We are still Digimon, though," Takato noted.
"...Ah, yeah. I guess you guys need to fix that in 2021, Piedmon don't exist any more in this timeline, all those remakes of It over the centuries saw them replaced by Pennywisemon."
"...Yeah, that sounds so much worse, please take us back to the past now," Daisuke said.