Hello! This was originally a drabble I did awhile back in a drabble tag, which was a quiet introspective piece. Then I decided to throw in Izzy and some prompts and...well, I'll get to that later. What I ended up with was this fic, which...kinda mutated on me. But hey, that's part of the fun :P.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon. A Digmon would be nice for tilling a garden though XP

Ensnared

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -Oscar Wilde

Cody mostly came back to prove he wasn't scared anymore. But perhaps that was an excuse too. There was no one to witness his apparent bravery, except Armadillomon. His normally chatty companion sat by his side quietly, pretending to examine the digital fish outside. Was it worth examining them? Did they possess a real spark of life, or were they just automations, yet another attempt by the Digital World to be real?

It had been years since Cody had been here. The underwater oil platform looked about the same, but things aged differently in the Digital World. Things did not rust or crumble, they flickered and disappeared, occasionally getting the fragments displaced in an unrelated location. Cody saw a bit of flickering, but that was all. Yet somehow it seemed so changed. It was like looking at a abandoned movie set instead of a real location. Yeah, abandoned, that was the word. Abandoned and forgotten. Some part of Cody was both relieved and saddened by that.

So why was he here? Did he expect to find some hidden letters stuffed in bottles, sent from specters of the past, or perhaps even from the future? What Izzy had told him…

"The Digital World influences our world even more than we ever thought," the redheaded one had told him, when Cody met him over at the library after school. Cody wondered why he decided to meet him there instead of at either of their houses. He was even more puzzled, and uneasy, when Cody realized that he was the only one called. The strange, somber look in Izzy's dark eyes made him even more apprehensive. It was a haunted stare that Cody had never seen from Izzy before.

Cody sat crossed-legged on the floor, with Armadillomon plopping less gracefully beside him. They studied the sea outside the glass. Back then, there had been a massive sea serpent Digimon. Now there was nothing but still water. No letters tucked away in bottles bumping against the glass. Even the fish were gone. Perhaps they were nothing but illusions after all.

"Cody…" Armadillomon began, but the conversation was dead on arrival. The silence carried on, unheeded by the brief interruption.

Cody petted the armadillo's head and rubbed his feather-like ears, to let him know that he acknowledged his presence. But he couldn't speak back, not right now. He could barely process anything beside what he had just heard a couple hours ago.

"My parents' death…wasn't an accident," said Izzy, looking at the computer screen. Cody supposed it was easier to speak of such a thing to an inanimate object. "The car wreck…I found footage of it, when I was looking into…other things." Cody wondered what he was investigating that could have led to something like that. "And…there was a Gazimon there, hidden in the alley. Hit the car with an Electric Stun Blast. Dashed off on all fours like it was pretending be a cat. No one noticed during the chaos of the crash."

Cody stood frozen, perhaps even fearing the darkness in Izzy's quiet gaze as well as the horrible implications. "But why? And you said the Gazimon was caught on tape, right? Even if they didn't know what it was, shouldn't it have been suspicious enough for there to have been a further investigation?"

Izzy didn't answer at first. "I found this under a certain file of classified government documents, involving suspicious encounters with unknown dimensional creatures. Almost all of them are in regards to Digimon, and almost all of these cases have been secretly reopened since the events of MaloMyotismon. And almost all of them are in some way related to current Digidestined all over the world. Including you."

Cody and Armadillomon were well-known Digidestined, legends even, but more and more people were becoming chosen every day. It was estimated that roughly a quarter of Japan alone were now with Digimon partners. Such a massive wave of new Digidestined was unprecedented, each year's numbers surpassing the last.

Cody wasn't complaining exactly. Being a Digidestined was a wonderful, if sometimes perilous, thing. But if everything was safe, and the Digidestined were chosen to help the Digital World, then why were so many new people becoming Digidestined at such a unbelievable rate?

"Including me? How?" Cody had a sickening suspicion of the answer.

"Your father was shot by a Digimon," said Izzy. "An Andromon."

Cody still felt stunned, even though he had braced himself for that possibility. "But how did they cover that up? That was an assassination attempt caught on tape! Andromon doesn't look that human! And why would they cover it up? If they felt like-"

"At the time, they didn't know what they were dealing with," Izzy replied, though even he didn't look happy about that answer. He didn't look happy about anything. "Most likely the tapes were doctored, and anyone knowing better was bribed to keep quiet. More importantly…"

To think this submerged ruin, of all places, was one of the last original pieces of the Digital World Cody knew. To think this terrible place was almost nostalgic. The Digital World was changing, as it always was. Many of the places he knew during his first adventures had been reformatted or deleted. Several new islands were forming in the sky, as if the ocean was too good for them. Digimon that knew him well were forgetting their early days, due to the speeded-up time flow of the Digital World and multiple rebirths. The Digimon Emperor was a boogeyman story told to young Digimon to keep them in line.

"Why?" Cody muttered to himself, as he and Izzy spent hours watching forbidden footage, including the true deaths of his father and Izzy's original parents. Including many other deaths and injuries done by Digimon. Cody forced himself to watch for the sake of figuring out what was going on, and to make himself accept the truth of what happened to his father. That would be what his father wanted, right? For him to know the truth? Izzy remained silent except for explaining technical details. In these grainy videos and explanations he seemed to find almost…solace? Maybe it was because he was no longer watching them alone?

These were deliberate Digimon attacks, not just a Digimon lost and confused. But there was something robotic about their movements, a deadness in their eyes. Cody was reminded of the Dark Rings and Spirals used to control Digimon, but somehow this chilled Cody more. Victims of the rings and spirals still had life, but no choices in their actions. Even the fake Digimon created out of Dark Towers still mimicked life convincingly. These Digimon were just…puppets.

"But the thing is, look at this," Izzy went on, as they began to scroll through records of the affected DigiDestined he had assembled. Cody realized that Izzy must have been investigating this for months, if not years. "If Taki's mother hadn't died, he wouldn't have been in Tokyo and met his partner Elecmon. If Kyoko's father hadn't been disabled by the factory sabotage, she wouldn't have met her partner either. If I had known my real parents, I probably wouldn't have become such a computer genius, and I most definitely wouldn't have gone to camp with Tai and the others…"

"And if my father didn't pass away, I probably wouldn't have been on that plane that nearly crashed because of Digimon fighting," finished Cody, frowning. "Maybe being DigiDestined is hereditary, but more likely…"

"Something has been manipulating us to become DigiDestined, years before we even knew what Digimon were," said Izzy. "This is…beyond any Digimon, to plot and predict this that far ahead with this much detail…"

Izzy was talking about the Digital World itself, Cody realized. He knew that, though it didn't speak directly, the Digital World did have its own type of consciousness. It was this awareness that allowed it to choose the children that came to the Digital World, either directly or by using others such as Gennai. It was an enigmatic force that usually only acted when the Digital World was in danger, summoning new and old Digidestined alike to deal with the threats.

"And suddenly it seems like everyone's becoming Digidestined these days," Izzy muttered, chewing at his thumb. It was a new nervous tic that Cody had never seen in Izzy before. "Is it a safeguard, or…"

Cody stared out at the lifeless sea, heart racing. But it was not the water he feared.

"There's going to be a war," Cody said, the dreaded words finally falling from his lips like shriveled leaves.

He shouldn't be this uneasy. No, that wasn't quite right. He should be uneasy about the possibility of a foe or crisis that would require so many new Digidestined to be chosen. But that wasn't really the issue, was it? It was the way everyone was being chosen. Digidestined indeed: how much did the Digital World manipulate their paths both inside and outside it?

But he shouldn't be scared. The Digital World was a good force. It only acted to protect itself and its digital inhabitants, and sometimes the real world as well. The real world could sadly go one without the Digital World, but Digital World cannot exist without the real world. The Digital World cannot exist without the real world. The Digital World cannot exist…

And it knew this. The Digital World, itself its own intelligence of constant calculation, knew the real world didn't need it. So it was making the real world need it, integrating itself at every chance. Absorbing networks, taking data, weakening dimensional barriers and creating portals. Sending in Digimon, or taking away humans. Kids, the most impressionable, the easiest to connect to.

For the first time, Cody stared at his current location, suddenly becoming aware of just how not-real it was. Fake was too harsh a word: this world lived, but it was unlike any human, organic, or even Digimon life and mind. He was not in an underwater platform. He wasn't even underwater. He was inside a breathing, pulsing being, whose skin was the lands he and the others had traveled, but just beyond that was beeps and rings and pops and electricity and constantly shifting noise that set Cody's mind buzzing like a swarm of flies. His senses were afire with soft ocean tides rimmed by lightning tasting like sugarcane with the scent of lemongrass melting into the pungent odor of smoke trickling down his arm before rolling across the floor into little sky-blue marbles that circled circled circled-

"Cody?"

Everything was normal, or some facsimile of it, as Armadillomon looked at Cody.

Cody kept his gaze to the floor. He could still feel his brain tingling madly, still aware of the entity beyond his comprehension pulsing unseen. He dared not touch it, at least purposefully. "…Yeah?"

"I'm hungry. Can we get something to eat?"

Cody couldn't help but smile a little at that. He had been through so much as a Digidestined, and suddenly this…but he would do it all again for his Digimon partner. Any Digidestined could tell you that. "We have been here a while, haven't we? Sorry. I've just…got a lot on my mind."

Did Izzy know? Had he encountered the godly being too, and that was why his eyes and body had been charged with so many conflicting emotions? Cody own feelings were alien to him. Or was that just the shock of Izzy discovering his parents' true deaths, and the overwhelming ties they all had to the Digital World?

Did anyone else know? If they didn't, they would, in time. Someday, there wouldn't be a distinction between worlds at all. Wasn't that what Kari wanted, equality between human and Digimon? Wasn't that what everyone wanted?

"It's a lot to take in, ain't it partner?" said Armadillomon as he got up. "Don't worry Cody, we're all here for you. And we'll always be here for you. Isn't that what you've always wanted? To never be alone?"

And then Cody knew it wasn't Armadillomon talking. It didn't chill him like he expected it to. "Yeah. What I always wanted."

He didn't feel afraid anymore, even as he felt the entity skirt around the edge of his consciousness. That lack of fear scared some distant part of him, but not enough to leave the Digital World, or his partner, with any urgency.

In time, in time…there was all the time in this world, much less the other one.

IIIIII

So...yeah, it went from introspective to utter mindscrew XD. Poor Cody, he thought he was going to be in a semi-normal fic. Do the theories make sense at all?

The prompts used were for the Bingo Challenge (prompt: underwater oil platform) and the following What-ifs from the What-If Challenge ("What if Izzy's birth parents' death was Digimon related?" and "What if Digimon were why Cody's father died?") Both sets of challenges are from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges forum.

Well, hope you liked this (hot mess) of a fic! Let me know what you think!