The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Fifty-Five

Ekko stared at the accumulated mess that he had made of the wall behind his desk throughout the last six months. While the many sketches of Momo remained, there were now various notes, maps, and drawings of Starley and Zuke added to the mix, a maze of red wool connecting locations and times of certain events.

Ekko wasn't mentally present when Zuke disappeared, but he got caught up on the details by Scar once he was (somewhat) back on his feet again. According to him, Zuke had vanished a day after the incident with the Vatalia occurred. No one saw him leave, which wasn't surprising since the hideout had a sudden elevation of confusion and sorrow, brought on by newcomers who were trying to make sense of losing everything all at once.

While Momo hadn't been able to further research how the corpse fungus in their crystal bombs messed with their chemical reaction, the fact that they had been tampered with remained. While Ekko didn't want to place blame on anyone until there was proof, finding Zuke guarding a shimmer export one day was all the confirmation he needed.

Things escalated further when Starley was discovered amongst Daunter's goons, donning Pitch's bejeweled gauntlets.

The traitors had been revealed, the dragged suspense ending like the final strike of lightning during a thunderstorm.

Since then, Ekko had been collecting information from the remaining Vatalia members. He recorded everything they had to say—the dates and times Petra and Runo had died, where they had been found, their cause of death, and who had found them. He made notes on things they mentioned about Starley, jotting down a rough outline of her apparent schedule, which involved a lot of child care. Belladonna revealed that Starley hadn't shown any signs of being the traitor, and she hadn't suspected the green-haired woman of anything.

Ekko thought Starley's behaviour was suspicious, especially when Belladonna said that the woman had hardly any close friends that she interacted with. She also wasn't able to tell him much about her personality traits, since most of her time was spent taking care of the children in their community and not with the fighters.

Ekko pinned the most recent sketch he made next to Starley's, comparing the similarities in their appearance.

It was a drawing of Pitch.

Green hair, eyes so dark it looked like they didn't have pupils. It was something he thought he should've picked up on sooner. He had only considered their visual similarities after seeing her wearing Pitch's gauntlets.

Ekko didn't have to guess or assume that they were related. It was obvious that they were.

With Pitch gone, he wondered if Starley had taken his place as Daunter's second in command.

As for Zuke, his betrayal wasn't an outlandish concept. He had been one of Singed's test subjects, and as far as he knew, Daunter and Singed were working together. Zuke's involvement when he had such connections wasn't surprising, but that didn't eliminate the lingering frustration from his treachery.

Embedded in their ranks, the pair worked in calculated silence, meddling with the lives surrounding them as if they were players of a game of chess and those they deceived were chess pieces on their board.

A game that ended with an impossible double checkmate.

The cruelest part was that they had succeeded.

The Vatalia was no more.

Momo was dead.

And as a consequence, the scape of Ekko's life had been eternally altered.

Though Momo was no longer here with him, his love for her remained a constant. His undying devotion to her ensured she remained alive in his mind, the memories of her bleeding from his thoughts and decorating his physical body in the form of her clothes.