The Same Coin

A Skilled Mechanic

Meteor City was not what she had expected, and was unlike anything she had seen before. And it would be unlike anything she would ever see again. On occasion she'd heard the Troupe discuss it. She knew it was called a junkyard city, but the excessiveness of it left her breathless.

It was a wasteland of refuse. All manor of garbage lived there, piled high to surround her. Streets were carved through the hillside of rusted, broken things, curving and winding sweetly. The air smelt like blood; it was the iron wilting and sweating around her. It had its own pungent scent that she'd encountered before in small doses when someone would came in to have their rusted automail refurbished.

This was Chrollo's home.

So many questions that Winry had never consciously thought of, but had wondered were now answered. What he sought was the world he hadn't had. He wanted — coveted — a soft world. A world of velvet textures, smooth leather, rough canvas, and the warm scent of an ancient book. So he stole it all to take and have for himself. She imagined how indulgent it must feel to have left here and achieved those things, to lie down to sleep in a big, open room between sheets as crisp and clean and soft as a newborn from a fresh bath. To have those things. Winny's blue eyes turned to Chrollo and, as she had with Hisoka, in that moment she saw him for exactly who he was. And, as with Kimblee, she didn't feel fear. Only understanding.

Their eyes met, and Winry knew Chrollo saw all she had perceived in that moment, too.

That made her dangerous to him.

They sat side by side in the backseat of the car. Chrollo had not attempted to open the door, and Winry chose to follow his lead — although, in their ploy, she was to play the ringleader. He must have assumed the doors would be secured, but getting captured had been part of the plan from the beginning. Chrollo had planned this down to the most minute detail, and Winry's faith in him was implicit. Had she ever trusted Hisoka with no reservations? At first thought, no. But, thinking on it longer, she knew that would have been a lie. She'd trained with him. Laid with him in the most vulnerable way possible.

She trusted him, and still he would not call her a friend.

That thought blunted the worst of her guilt for what would happen next.

When they arrived at what Winry could only interpret as the Capitol, her head tilted back in awe at the mountain of garbage and refuse that was the center of this kingdom. It towered high over the trash that built the rest of Meteor City, and her eyes darted over its careful structure. She felt her mouth salivating as she surveyed the immaculate welds that pulled everything together into something stable, resistant, and strong.

The cars drove through an archway, pausing for the driver to roll down his window for the guards, before continuing into a courtyard. When it stopped again, the doors opened and a pair of guards waited for them to exit. Winry resisted the urge to glance back at Chrollo as she lithely slid her legs out, her dainty shoes unfamiliar and, frankly, uncomfortable to wear at all as she stood with as much grace as she could manage. She put a hand out expectantly and a guard didn't hesitate to offer her his arm to steady herself on as she stood. This would be her guise; she was an interloper, but not a dangerous one. She would lower their guard. Chrollo waited until she had stood and stepped away before he followed her out, immediately lowering himself to his knees and bowing before her submissively. A boy as fragile and demure as she, with his aura masked entirely with Zetsu. Behold us, we are not threats.

"Follow us," a guard commanded.

Chrollo rose to his feet and fell in line behind her, keeping his eyes on the backs of her heels. Winry could feel the weight of his gaze, and behind it the weight of what was at stake. He'd trusted her enough to bring her to Meteor City to help him steal a power. Already Neon Nostrade was dead and her stolen ability gone. So Chrollo was resorting to stealing a new, fresh ability from someone that Hisoka wouldn't find, and this was more trust than Winry had ever expected Chrollo to place in her. She was Hisoka's protege. If anyone might betray Chrollo to Hisoka, it would be her.

But Chrollo believed in her.

She wondered, not for the first time, if Chrollo considered her a friend the way Hisoka did not — would not.

The inside of the Capitol was as enthralling as the exterior. Even though the walls were painted to give the illusion of structure, she could see the faint lines of the welds from underneath the way she had the exterior. She would've given anything in that moment to have helped to build this place. The guards led them to a towering set of doors, glancing back at her — ignoring Chrollo's presence entirely. Good.

"Wait here," one instructed, before slipping inside. Winry resisted the urge to fidget as she waited, keeping her hands folded in front of her. At last the guard returned.

"The Council of Elders wishes to speak to you. It would do you well to show them the respect the deserve."

This Elder has abused their position for far too long.

She resisted the urge to cat back about the respect they deserved.

"It's a honor," she heard herself say instead.

The doors parted, and darkness crept out.

With their opening, a slither of cold air brushed out across her cheeks and down to her toes. Her heartbeat hiccuped with nerves. Gooseflesh rose over her skin as malice — Ren — wrapped itself around her. It wanted her to run away. Instead Winry inhaled it in deep, let the dark oxygen penetrate her lungs and thrum into her bloodstream. Inside of her. Then she squared her shoulders and stepped into it, Chrollo behind her.

A semi circle of chairs waited for her in the dark room, and each occupant was ghastlier than the last. Winry took a moment to let her eyes move from one to the next, memorizing their faces. Finding Chrollo's target was easy. He was swathed in rags, crowned with a single swatch of cloth tied around his head. She remembered what Chrollo had said — that people whispered, his limbs were rotting off one by one. Winry couldn't see his eyes. They were deep set, dark hollows under the shadows of his rags. A ventilator covered his nose and mouth. She could hear the gently rasp of his every breath. It was the ventilator that Chrollo had told her to look for. Winry didn't let her eyes linger there long.

"Who are you?" a tall, sturdy-looking woman on the opposite end demanded, and Winry recognized the small name on the breastplate of the woman's armor as a parts from the same brand stove as in her little cottage home near Heavens Arena.

"My name is Mina," Winry announced, raising her chin. "I'm a peddler from the Kakin Kingdom."

"A peddler?" the woman repeated, her skepticism clear.

Winry laughed, and even to herself the echo of the sound was a lovely lilt in the air.

"I have a generous inheritance," she admitted. "But I am also a skilled mechanic. I've been trained to replace lost limbs with mechanical ones—"

"Stop—" a low voice rasped breathlessly, "—talking."

Every head turned to look to the Chrollo's targeted elder, and Winry had to remind herself to breathe.

"Come — with — me."

He did not rise from his seat. It was then that Winry saw the wheels fixated to it. A cane snaked out from under his ragged robes and he used it as leverage to pull himself forward. One wheel squeaked quietly as his chair rolled toward her.

A guard came forward to walk at her side as they followed the elder into the next room, the darkness of his malicious Ren preceding them.