Chapter 5: Tunnels

The sense of foreboding that plagued Sienna only seemed to intensify as her rag tag group descended further into Sunken Tunnel. She had written it off at first, blaming it on the events that had led up to this moment. From the sudden regress of champion and higher digimon, Dorugamon included, to the city wide blackout and then suddenly being whisked off on a mission with two other tamers. However, the feeling refused to leave her and with every passing minute she was buying into the feeling more and more. It had even gotten to the point that she had suggested to Kimberly and Allen that they travel through the tunnels at an even slower pace than before, making their progress slow to a crawl.

The brick tunnels themselves were not innately ominous despite the darker atmosphere and the always prevalent stench of sewage and rot. The stench was bearable to some degree but the truly ominous part of the tunnels could be awarded to the murky water that the ever present stench originated from. Most of the dank tunnels were flooded with the filthy water, save for a passageway on the edge on the tunnel. The passageway was only wide enough to allow one person, forcing the tamers and digimon to walk in a line. The narrow passageway was almost level with the trash laden water, standing only a few centimeters higher. It would be easy enough to make a misstep and fall into the fast moving river of filth and disappear underneath. The water and narrow passageways where only part of the danger that Sunken Tunnel presented, the tunnels where a haven for criminals, human and digital alike. Unsuspecting tamers and digimon could easily get jumped and with the limited space it would be difficult to fight back.

In order to try and distract herself she let her thoughts drift and ended up thinking about what had lead up to this moment. After the sudden blackout and emergency meeting that had been called by Chief Julia. The meeting had been mostly successful in stemming the chaos and panic but the problem still remained of the sudden lack of communication out of the city. There were dozens of tamers and digimon outside the city when the blackout hit and there current situations where unknown. The extent and range of the blackout wasn't clear so for safety measure Chief Julia sent out tamers to check on the ones still unaccounted for. The only problem being no digimon where currently capable of digivolving any higher than their rookie forms, so groups of two and threes had been sent out. Which put Sienna in her current position and back to her creeping anxiety about the tunnels.

The only thing currently keeping Sienna from devolving into a panicked mess was her partner, Dorumon. Despite the fact that he was only at the rookie level now his ever present presence was soothing her nerves and helping her keep her head somewhat clear. Even so , it didn't stop the never ending what-if's her head constantly threw at her. What if the river surged and dragged them away? What if one of them slipped on the wet concrete and fell into the river? What if a rogue digimon attacked them? She knew thinking like this didn't alleviate her stress but she couldn't help it, the thoughts just bubbled up on their own.

What she needed was a distraction. Something to keep her mind off of all the chaos that had happened in the last 6 hours. So she directed her eyes forward on to the team she was supposed to be leading, something she hadn't been very successful at so far.

Despite the looming atmosphere it didn't seem to affect her teammates one bit, unlike her. Kimberly stood in the front with Gazimon behind her. They were chatting animatedly and loud enough for their echos to mute the sound of the river. Allen, on the other hand, was dead silent but it wasn't to be mistaken for worry or nervousness. While she couldn't see his face she could tell from his loose stance he was calm, maybe even relaxed. Not quite as relaxed as his partner, Tsukaimon, who was sound asleep on his shoulder, oblivious to the world. One might even thought her as dead if there wasn't an occasional twitch of her ears.

Thankfully, since she had refocused on her team she was able to see when Kimberly suddenly came to a stop. It saved her the embarrassment of colliding into the much taller Allen and helped her keep the illusion of a focused leader, even though she didn't think her team was buying it.

It was pretty clear to see why Kimberly had suddenly stopped. The path they had been walking on had ended with the river following a bend and continuing into two separate tunnels on the opposite side. It appeared their had once been a metal ramp that went across but the only pieces intact where the ends connected to the narrow pathways. They were too far apart to jump across but even if they where closer the remaining pieces looked far to rusted to be safe, looking like they would disintegrate if touched.

Kimberly was the first to speak up, "Well if we want to go any farther it looks like we're going to have to get are feet wet."

"Be my guest but when you get swept away I'm not jumping in after you." Allen said, breaking the silence that he had maintained the entire trek.

Kimberly just shrugged her shoulders in dismissal.

"I don't see any better options."

That left them at a stand still. While they could turn back that would deem this mission a failure and leave the tamers they were sent after stranded but Night Crow was already stretched thin and the last thing it needed was more missing tamers.

The group fell into silence, no one quite sure how to move on. The only sound being the scrapping of trash in the river on the brick walls. Without Kimberly's chatter to block out the sound Sienna became aware of how annoying it truly was. The distracting noise kept her unable to focus on anything else but the scratching of plastic on stone. It wasn't even a small amount of trash either, the bend in the river caused most of the trash that flowed down it to be caught against the wall, left behind as the river continued down one of the tunnels. The amount of trash piled up was even wider than the path they had been walking down to get her.

That gave her an idea. The path of trash followed the wall all the way to the nearest tunnel and in easy jumping distance of the path that continued on the opposite side.

"What if we," Sienna paused as she pointed at the trash, "what if we walk across on that."

She got a skeptical look from Allen but Kimberly seemed intrigued by the idea.

"The trash looks built up enough that it should hold our weight as we go across and it leads right to the other pathway." Sienna tried to project confidence in her reasoning but Allen didn't seem convinced and she couldn't blame him. She thought this was a longshot herself but it was their only option at this point. However, Kimberly and Gazimon where sold.

"It's worth a shot." Kimberly said as she tested the trash pile with her foot. Confident it would hold she fully walked on to it. Other than a slight bob as the pile took her weight it surprisingly held. Allen and Sienna held back as they watched her cross. As she got to the other pathway her partner followed her footsteps and just as quickly made it to the other side with no issue.

Sienna let out a sigh of relief as soon as those two made it safely across. The last thing she needed was for them to be hurt on her suggestion. Knowing that she quickly followed after them with Dorumon trailing after her. Allen still seemed skeptical but he crossed nonetheless joining the four of them on the other side.
The pathway on this side was noticeably wider than the previous, allowing them to actually walk side by side with their partners. The pathway wasn't the only thing that got wider, the tunnel did as well. Even the river was different as it had visibly slowed now that it was less confined and it appeared that the water level had dropped. Either that or the pathway on this side was just higher up than the previous one. Sienna was unable to tell but it was something she didn't have the time to focus on.

Kimberly took the lead again and Sienna followed behind her with Allen taking up the rear. The six continued deeper into Sunken Tunnels.

A/N

So this chapter is going to be split in half with the second half going up within this week. Hopefully in the next two days. I ended up splitting it in half because I was tired of sitting on it and it's been like 6 months since I last updated, which I feel bad about. So I know this part might be a little boring but just bare with me because it should get interesting next chapter.

Anyways, thanks for reading!