The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Twenty

That night, the scavengers met up with the Firelights and set off to Piltover as planned.

During the explanation with the scavengers, Derora was present and didn't hesitate to express her distaste for the matter. To her, the Firelights weren't trustworthy, and it annoyed her to no end that Six was willing to work with them. She wished Six came to her to discuss their issues with food supply, knowing that she probably didn't because she was still injured and didn't want to cause her any stress during her recovery.

After the discussion, Derora followed Six to her room.

Six knew she was being followed, and who was following her, so she didn't bother turning to look. Once inside, she sat at her desk.

Derora stood behind the beanbag chairs, refusing to sit in them as always. "I don't trust them," she declared, her stance naturally stiff and daunting.

Six wasn't intimidated. She was used to Derora's domineer (both intentional and unintentional) by now.

"You don't have to," Six said, opening her notebook and starting to study her notes from her last lesson with Ekko at the same time.

"What if they screw us over? They've already fucked up some of our missions."

Six looked up from her notes and sighed. She was grateful that she hadn't revealed her deal with Ekko to Derora. If she had, Derora would have scolded her to no end.

"They won't. Besides, that's for me to worry about, not you."

Derora huffed in frustration. Her statement did nothing to console her concerns. If anything, the responsibility of making such a decision resting solely on Six brought her even more stress.

"We should've discussed it first. I could've helped—"

"You were injured, and we were in a crisis. I didn't have the luxury of being picky with who I received help from."

Derora grumbled and pressed the soles of her palms to her eyes, trying to nip her frustration enough that she didn't say something she would regret later.

"What are the terms of this... arrangement?" she asked, dropping her hands from her eyes.

"It's like a trading system. They help us get food and we provide them with some of our herbal medicines," Six explained.

Derora went quiet for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she was okay with their giving away some of their herbs.

"Can't we just steal more shimmer to sell and buy our food like we always do?"

Six's grip on her notebook tightened. She should have expected that she'd bring that up. "No, we can't. It's too dangerous now. Danter's mixed up with sex traffickers, and he's got those runt things now. Our attacks are useless against them. I'm not sending our fighters out there to fight another losing battle. We have to improvise until we're able to find another method of income."

When Pitch joined the fight in seventeenth avenue, they discovered that Daunter must've teamed up with sex traffickers for some reason. Six and the fighters had embarked on a mission to save the girls that were being kept in the gear carriage, having received the location from their usual informant. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful due to Pitch's and the runts' involvement.

Derora stared at her and eventually nodded. She'd almost forgotten about how ineffective their combat methods had become.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about," Six said before Derora had the chance to respond to her.

Derora could already tell based on Six's continued tense-filled tone that whatever this was, it wasn't going to be anything good.

"One of our members is a traitor," Six revealed abruptly, getting straight to the point.