Mistral
Ten days before events of Brewing Storm
Lauren loved the way that Mistral’s breeze felt against her skin.
It was cool and crisp at nights, much more invigorating than the arid, scorched air of Vacuo; though the city was relatively modernized, it also lacked the overbearing Big Brother air that the young woman had always felt beating down on her in Atlas. The wind felt so good that Lauren often left the windows in her apartment halfway open when she was hanging around the place, just to help avoid the cost of temp control during some of the warmer months. It was a trick she had learned on her first sojourn to the eastern kingdom, when she was around thirteen or fourteen – little more than a plucky charmer who could never pass for a licensed driver, fresh off a bad string of luck with the Atlesian Bratva. This time, she had come by way of Vale, where she’d spent the better part of the last year scrounging for work. But it wasn’t like Remnant’s quaintest kingdom had exactly buried her up to her sculpted ass in luxury sports cars – which, for one of Remnant’s best young high-end car thieves, was a little bit more important than
“visit[ing] Vale, a rustic glimpse into humanity’s past! Vytal! Patch! Beacon Academy, where the pinnacles of humanity rub elbows!”Talk about fucking prissy.
Lauren Negasi had better things to do than rub elbows with schoolkids. It was why she had spent the winter in Mistral, and was looking forward to spending the spring as well – outside of the aluminum towers of Atlas, there was nowhere that she had a better chance of making fun money fast, and there was nowhere in all of Remnant with as many beautiful places (or people) to spend around. She had spent the better part of the week scoping out – and ganking – a beauty out of Atlas, one of the newest models of Igneous Burn Uncut Roadsters. It was currently sitting in the garage of one
“Sparky,” a crotchety, disheveled Mistralian mechanic without many friends, scruples, or relation to the other Sparky who had been in Lauren’s life growing up. Lauren would have preferred to drive it around herself until the buyer came, but she had learned long ago the virtues of taking care.
Letting it sit in a garage – even if it was the garage of a septuagenarian asshole who wielded drills like pistols and was only friends with her for her cleavage – was safer money. Plus she could do her little ‘babe at a car show’ routine, show off exactly how to handle the thing until such time as you could pull some strings and get your own insurance and license registered to the car. It was the little things that people believed brought the bill up. Just like how Lauren would often sucker punch the buyer, knowing full well he had brought lien to spare for an expensive dinner or a romp at a gentleman’s club that night, and ask for upwards of a thousand lien extra.
Douche move, sure. But it had paid for a second bedroom for her place, and it was looking like she could rent in Mistral all the way through summer if she wanted. As she sealed up her apartment’s windows and bounded out into the cool Mistralian night in search of a cab to Sparky’s, she was already done focusing on the cold and busy focusing on the bikinis she would cop for come summer.
Now, Sparky’s wasn’t in as rough a part of town as you’d think (Mistral didn’t really have many
truly rough parts of town, not for someone who had grown up in Vacuo and the less gilded parts of Atlas) and Lauren had never had many problems with crime in the area. So exiting a taxi and walking into a small wasteland of chipped concrete and scattered weapons. Sparky had never really been one for cleanliness, but clearly there had been a scrap here, not just some heated work on an old whip - as opposed to the usual ratchets and greasy towels cast about, there were actual chunks torn from the concrete, singes in the grass, and some light blood spatter that could only have come from broken noses. The sounds of a fight were still echoing inside the garage, so Lauren went around and through the front desk area.
There was only one guy here – an unconscious Atlesian with bleached hair and a cheap suit, the shaft of a fire axe still slackly gripped in his hand. The sounds of projectile fire echoed through the adjoining door to the garage, and Lauren bit her lip nervously before pulling the axe from the beaten man’s hand. The slow trudge up to the door felt like the longest march of her life, and as the sounds of a struggle began to grow dimmer through the door, the wound be jack booted thug stretched out her right leg and then threw it back into the door. It went flying open, and Lauren whirled around to pounce through the door with the axe—
—and nearly dropped it where she stood.
“Oh fuck.”The Roadster she had put so much work into stealing was still untouched, but the garage around it had slipped into hell. Tools and toolboxes were strewn as wildly as the bodies, lying in various states of unconsciousness or helplessness, nursing broken bones or drooling on the floor. Only two things were left standing – her client, a physically powerful man in his own right who could hardly fit all his Southern Mistralian bulk into his baby blue suit…and
him.Physically powerful the buyer might have been, but next to the man fighting him, all his muscle was about as lean as Lauren’s – no, lean as
Sparky’s, who Lauren noted was slumped peacefully inside the chair with a wrench still in his hand. Sloan must have taken him down with just a touch; it wouldn’t have surprised her. The Huntsman was 6’8, or at least a hair away from it, and built solidly to match. He was so fucking huge that Lauren’s little kid eyes used to go unfocused looking him up and down, becoming one kaleidoscope swirl of red, black, and mocha colors who would favor you with the rare glimpse of a white half-smile upon filling the boxes on some hidden checklist. There was no smile on his face right now, but that had never really fazed Lauren. His happiness with her, she knew, had always been as mercurial as she was.
“Lorena.” Sloan’s voice was hoarse from disuse, as though he hadn’t bothered speaking to anyone during the fight. He had his shovel gripped in his right hand, holding it in a reverse grip behind him, but he didn’t need to bludgeon the buyer any further. Lifting her buyer by his neck and tossing him into the wall behind her in the same errant way that Lauren tossed a burger wrapper, her brother’s eyes locked on her and he let out a long, satisfied
whoosh of a breath.
“Hey.”“God damn it, Sloan.”“I see there’s no need to stand on ceremony here,” her brother said dryly.
“We should go.”“Hell fuck—Sloan, do you know how much lien this was gonna net me? I was gonna get satellite, fam! Satellite! No more flirting with the nerdy girl in my apartment complex who lets me pirate her signal! Just—“ Lauren was at a loss for words, even though this wasn’t the first time he’d done this. Somehow, at an age when she was legally old enough to drink, fuck, and make her own mistakes, he was still here, digging into her life with that ugly transforming spade of his.
“Just—do you know how many lien you just cost me?”“Probably a lot. Fire Dust turbocharger, durable tires, probably would fetch a better deal if you stripped it and sold it piecemeal.” Sloan continued speaking right over his sister’s shocked gasp at the suggestion.
“The Mistralian police will be here in ninety seconds. I called them during the fight. I’m sure they’ll run up a full accounting of your would-be paycheck in court.”Lauren wanted to scream.
“Or,” her brother said,
“you can get in the car with me.”“I’m not having another one of the talks, Sloan.”“This is important, Lorena. Something has to change.”“Yeah, you! You have your own life, you have—“whoop whoop“That’s the sound of the police,” Sloan rapped playfully, ignoring Lauren’s protests as he walked over and placed his shovel under the heavy metal door of the garage. The massive elder Negasi put his foot on the handle and slammed down hard, sending the door shooting up. Sloan reached up with a hand and held it open, turning over his shoulder to Lauren. He made it look effortless, whereas Lauren would have struggled.
It was hard not to feel like shit watching it. Always had been.
“Get in the driver’s seat and pull the car out into the driveway, Lorena,” he commanded.
“Then slide into shotgun. We need to talk.”Lauren would have argued, but this was no bluff; she could hear the sirens coming fast, so she vault over the hood and threw herself into the driver’s seat of the car. It fired up like a dream, and she eased it out into the pitted driveway for Sloan to hop in.
“You heard me. Slide into shotgun.”“Slo—““Now.”There was no time. She quickly slid over the shift and settled into shotgun as Sloan vaulted over the hood in the same fashion she had and through the open driver’s door. He barely fit, and the leather seat fit him snugly, but he seemed to adjust fast enough as he slammed the door shut and turned the car right onto the road, following the path into the heart of Mistral that her taxi had blazed just a couple minutes prior. As they hauled ass, the vague blue-and-red kaleidoscopes of police sirens were sidling into Sparky’s.
Lauren wanted to scream her lungs out at him, but she was too tired and she had hit her leg in a few places trying to jump from seat to seat like a rowdy toddler. Her thigh and calf throbbed; her gaze tilted over to Sloan. Even in a roadster as small as this, he was the picture of casual grace – handsome, but more captivating in his physical size than in his sister’s type of beauty. His usual red leather jacket was cast in the back seat over his spade and the stolen fire axe, and without the spot of color he was one big blend of dark – dark skin, dark shirt, dark pants, dark leather seat, dark stare.
“You can have the aux cord if you want.” It wasn’t an olive branch she had expected her brother to offer her.
“Just keep it low. We need to talk.”Lauren thought about it for a second before she shrugged and hooked up her music player to her brother’s aux cord. The car’s serene sound system thrummed to life around them, and Lauren found solace in the moment of silence as they both identified the first song that played.
Lauren sighed.
“Do you need directions to my apartment?”“No,” Sloan replied brusquely.
“You’re not staying in Mistral.”“Sloan, for fuck’s sake, man, you can't just uproot my whole lif—““Don’t you belittle your actions to me. Not after the crowd I saw you ready to sell that car to.” Sloan’s left arm was crooked at the elbow on the driver’s door handle, one finger outside as though testing the Mistral breeze. His right hand was choking the steering wheel, as angrily as it was ergonomic.
“What would you have done if someone had called those cops and I hadn’t blown the element of surprise, huh?”“Gotten out of it.”“Oh, I see. Negasi charm, huh? What would you have done, huh, Lorena? Scammed and charmed some poor girl into posting your bond for you and then left her cry—““Hey, fuck you!”“Am I wrong?”“Yes!”“Really.”“Yes!”“Good.” Sloan was responding to her fiery answers, baritone voice gaining in timbre and heat.
“That’s good, Lauren, because it keeps me up at nights thinking that I’m not the only one who keeps falling for your sell-water-to-a-well bullshit. The fact that I’m the only one in Remnant stupid enough to keep believing that you’ll change until you face consequences is a comfort.”Neither was wearing a seatbelt; it would be an easy thing for her to leap over and attack him, but Lauren knew all too well the dangers of attacking the driver of a car. Her forehead settled against the car window.
“Were you following me?” she finally asked, voice nary above a whisper. She wanted to cry.
“From Vale?”Sloan’s head tilted towards her in surprise.
“No, all my tips about you were local. Saeva and I are vacationing here.”“Oh yeah? How’s that going?”Sloan, as though testing for a trap, answered warily:
“Alright. We were a little rocky for a while, Huntsmen schedules and all. But I think the move was good for us.”“Move?”“Back to Vale. We’re teaching at Signal for the next couple semesters.”Lauren laughed aloud.
“You? Teach? But you’re so…so…and Saeva’s…”“Hyper? Yeah.” Sloan had slowly grown a fake smile. Saeva Sareta was leader of Team SEST, the quartet of trainees that had ruled Vale as brawler-barons from the age of thirteen. Lauren used to look up to each of them. Now they were all twenty-eight and the Huntsman job had brought them on different courses, but Sloan, ever chivalrous, had stuck to following Saeva’s lead. Eventually it had blossomed into something more. Lauren could never remember being so happy for her. Saeva was practically a third Negasi – like Lauren in temperament, like Sloan in drive, and always able to mediate between either with easy charm. The young Negasi doted on her, and vice versa. One of the few things she'd always had in common with her brother.
“But there are a few old fuckers who are being reactivated for active duty. They needed teachers, we volunteered. It’s easy money.”“I suppose. So Mistral’s…”“Our last hurrah for the year, yeah. We’re going home tomorrow.”“…Oh.” The gravity of the statement sunk in.
“Oh.”“Yeah.” Lauren focused on the bass. It was keeping her headache at bay.
“Lauren, I have an out for you. From all this.”“But Sloan, I—““—like this. I know you do, babe.” Her brother took a deep breath, and Lauren realized the car was shooting
through the heart of Mistral. Her eyes roved for a sign and found one –
Docks 10. “Why are we going to the docks?”“I’ve arranged for you to enroll in Beacon.”A howl filled the car. Sloan jumped in his seat, however imperceptibly, and turned to look at his breathless sister.
“Me. Me?” Lauren cackled.
“A Huntress? No no no, fuck that, that’s your scheme. I like what I got.”“Lauren, what you got will put you in prison. A place we both know—““I’d be fine in prison.”“No, you wouldn’t, don’t bullshit me sis. Being a thief doesn’t make you a bad person. I know who you are, Lorena. You’re charming and you’re funny and you’re sweet, and in a prison those things aren’t going to survive. I don’t want to see some toughened up version of you, and Beacon—““—is for pricks.”Docks 5.“It’s an opportunity.”“Your opportunity. I’d just be following in your footsteps again.”“So you’d rather follow in Dad’s?”Briefly, Lauren remembered the ills that came of attacking the driver of a car.
“I pulled some strings when taking the Signal job. It was one of my conditions.” Sloan fished two Scrolls out of his pocket and handed both to Lauren.
“A team recently opened up one slot. A team member of theirs plead family illness and came home to check on them. Team Bastion. Files are in my gallery, don’t swipe too far right.”What Lauren discovered (after swiping too far right and surreptitiously forwarding her discovery to her own Scroll) were the faces of three earnestly attractive people – a particularly pretty boy
(hello!) and two red-headed girls that were a bit older than the prototypical Beacon first-year
(hellooooooo!) Lauren tried to picture her face next to theirs in a dossier for four years. Quietly, her gut was roiling. She forwarded the dossier to her Scroll.
“Sloan…being a Huntress…”“It’s not what you wanted. I know. But you’d be good at it, Lauren. You’re resourceful, tough, a demon in a fight. You could probably reassemble this engine block from memory if I tore it to scrap right now. You speak two dialects of Mistralian my tongue could never get past, and your grasp of Mantle's old language is nearly flawless. You know enough practical math to know when a buyer is fucking you. You’re smart…smarter than me. Don’t waste it.”Lauren’s lips pursed in thought. It was the biggest compliment Sloan had shot across her bow in three years.
“That and you’re being required to go for at least a year to avoid jail time for this.”She groaned.
“We were having a momeeeent!”“We still are. It’s just a moment tempered with reality. I love you, Lorena, but bailing my sister out can’t be a bigger pillar of my life than my sister, period. We’re here.” There was an airship waiting on the dock. She reluctantly looked to her brother.
“The car…?”“I’ll wipe it before returning it. Don’t worry. Your weapon’s in the back.”Lauren’s jaw went slack and she looked at him incredulously.
“The fire axe?”“Should have gone to combat school, Lorena. You could have built your own weapon.” Sloan’s grin turned playful.
“I remember watching you fight off kids who called you ‘dyke’ in Vacuo with a baseball bat. You’ll send Grimm running with something that chops.”“Yeah, running right to the nearest fucking clearly marked exit!” Her brother laughed and shook his head.
“Sloaaaan!” “No buts, missy. My new contact info is already in that Scroll. Call me when you get to Beacon – or I’ll call you.”The airship was looming in the distance, representing a future Lauren hadn’t expected to ever befall her – or expected herself to even want. Most of her still didn’t. But Sloan always had an eye for talent, and if he thought she’d be good…and it got her out of jail free…
“Is Goodwitch still teaching?”“Don’t hit on Goodwitch, Lauren.”“I’m just sayin’—““Better men than us tried.”“I’m not a good man,” the younger Negasi purred playfully. Sloan looked at her for a long time before closing his eyes to disguise their rolling motion, reaching out, and ruffling Lauren’s soft black hair.
“No you’re not,” her brother said, and he leaned over to plant a small kiss on her left temple.
“Now get out of here. I have one night left in Mistral and I’m not wasting it on a hugfest. At least, not with you.”“Wouldn’t expect you to.” Sloan rolled his eyes again – openly this time – and kissed Lauren’s temple again before slipping back into the driver’s seat.
“Take the fire axe, Lauren. Make me prouder. And take care.”After a second to let that sink in, Lauren unplugged her music player, stacked it underneath her Scroll, and hefted the fire axe in her left hand. The now-tinny sounds of her music followed her out the passenger’s side door, which she could now irreverently slam with her foot without the fear of losing a bonus. She heard Sloan’s muffled laugh from inside the car and turned to say something to him.
But he was already throwing her a goodbye salute, and before she could even open her mouth to say something the car had revved up again.
Whatever.
Something corny would probably slip out anyway.
On her way to the docks, Lauren pocketed her music player and hooked the axe on her belt, but she kept the Scroll in her hand and called up her gallery. Slowly, a less conflicted, more impish grin spread across her face.
Sloan, you hypocrite bastard. What kind of monk would have THESE on his Scroll?Hey, though, she reflected, casting a glance towards the path the Roadster had cut back into deeper Mistral.
Saeva’s aging pretty well.If she could hack it, Lauren could. Sloan wasn't wrong on that count.
Almost regretfully, she swiped right after taking her seat on the airship. BAS’ faces greeted her, and she stared into them, imagining personalities and quirks for each. Whether they would like her, whether they would clash with her, whether she would find someone to chill her out the way that Saeva and Sloan had chilled each other. Benjamin Lloyd. Amaranth Desire (god damn, what a name.) Sangue Naga.
Benjamin Lloyd, Amaranth Desire, Sangue Naga, and…
…Lauren Negasi?BASL.
Basil.
Basalt.
Bas…Bas…
Bastion…
Bastille? Bastille had a ring to it.
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