Chapter 78: Victory

Victoria was concentrating hard as ever on the track she would be run in some minutes while she sat on the bench. Her eyes were closed and she breathed calmly while she replayed her last run in training on the very same track. She could still remember the feeling of the ground beneath her and as she opened her eyes again, she knew that she could run it without seeing anything for her ability to remember every step she had taken the day before. She had her long hair bound to bouncy twin tails and as usually, she wore purple ribbons. She also wore a violet shirt, black pants and black knee-length socks. She seemed tiny in comparison to the taller and older girls which surrounded her.

"Who's the little girl?" an over-ambitious mother asked while she straightened her daughter's shirt.

"Victoria Hamilton," the daughter replied. "She has the reputation of being incredibly fast – the fastest girl in Central … but I don't think that she is really had brilliant. She is – after all – very young."

The red-haired girl barely smirked as she got up from her place on the bench. She walked over to the track and stopped behind the sign which labelled her track as the first one which meant that she was the best runner in the field. She stretched her legs one last time before she got into position while she threw a gaze towards her rivals. Some of them did she know and none of them was fast enough to beat her. With another smile, she relaxed. On the track, there was no one who was as fast as her. There was no one who could beat her. She was too athletic to be beaten by another girl.

Laila and Elicia were out of breath as they stormed towards the stadium while Nick and Cai as football players had more endurance than them and dragged them along. They headed towards the entrance and groaned in frustration when the security man told them that they couldn't go in.

"Have you any idea who we are?" Laila hissed at him. "I am Laila Hawkeye, the great-granddaughter of Fuhrer Grumman, and you refuse to let me watch my sister's competition?"

"And I am Cai Yao!" the Xingese prince exclaimed. "My older brother is Ling Yao, the emperor of Xing!"

"Listen, my friend," Nick said while he looked at the man like his father would have looked at him: honest and with a burning determination. "The girl we want to watch is my twin sister. I just ran away from the party Olivier Armstrong gives for the opening of an orphanage she dedicated to my mother. Elicia and Laila ditched their last training before the great show at the opera. Cai ditched his guardian who wanted to tutor him all day – and now you don't allow us to go in?"

Usually, he was the calmest among them but he seemed willed to murder the man if the man would continue to keep him from his older twin sister. Under other circumstances, it wouldn't have been a problem: they would have called someone like Charlotte who would have dealt with everything but the former first lady attended her duties in the Western Area at the moment.

"…you see, young man, the kids are with me," a slow and somehow aristocratic sounding female voice sounded through the dark entrance and the eyes of the security man became huge as he stared at the young woman. She was small and petite but she still radiated huge power and an attitude that told everyone that it wasn't wise at all to mess with her because she could get dangerous. The woman had long black hair that was beautifully styled and held up with a hairclip which resembled a butterfly. Her face was partially hidden behind a red fan which gave an interesting contrast to the black dress with the golden ornaments she was wearing.

"Um…" the young man blushed. "Do I … um … know you? You seem familiar?"

"She is … my step-grandmother!" Cai said hastily. "She was married with my grandfather, emperor Jun Yao, that's why you probably know her. She was in many newspapers, even here!"

"Yes – and after my … um … husband's tragic death, I moved to Amestris," Jun Li said with a deep sigh. "I couldn't stand to stay in Xing where everything reminded me of him…"

"…you need to run a new record, Vicky," Coach Walker said while he handed a white towel to his best runner who seemed to be a little bit tired. "I know that you are faster – and you proved it in the training more than once. I just want you to go out and to run like the prize are eight kilos of lemons."

She nodded while she rubbed her temples. "I will do my best," she said while she drank from her bottle with lemon-flavoured water. "I won't disappoint you, coach. I will try to make a new record."

He patted her head before he turned to leave. "Just don't get hurt," he said. "Your guardians weren't happy when you got hurt the last time around."

She rolled her eyes. "I know what I am doing, coach," she said calmly. "Could I have, um, a moment for myself … I need to focus on the task in front of me."

"Of course, little star," he said and left.

Laila made a point out of glaring at any potential opponent of Victoria with passion. The little blonde was already very good at glaring and even though she knew that it was mean, she started to drop discouraging comments on the other girls. Laila wanted Victoria to win because she knew how much her little sister needed this victory.

"…I really don't see a reason why you are so mean, Laila," Elicia stated. "Vicky is the best – that's a fact – and you don't need to attack the other girls this hard. It is not their fault that they have to go up against our favourite runner. And honestly, Vicky is strong enough to make it on her own."

"I am still worried," Nick said while he pushed his way through the crowd. "Vicky is a great runner but if her nerves don't play along she might get serious trouble with her concentration which could cause her to trip again. The last time, the stupid brat pushed her but this time…"

"When do we tell her that we are here?" Cai asked. The little Xingese boy carried a heavy banner in purple and black, Victoria's favourite colours. They had made the banner in secrecy and it read 'Go for gold, Vicky! We believe in you, your biggest fans: Cai, Elicia, Frederic, Gregor, Helena, Laila, Nick and Rachel!' because they had assumed that their little siblings would support the redhead too.

They had planned on bringing their younger siblings too but it hadn't been possible because Elicia's father had taken Gregor and Frederic to the countryside along with Gracia while Riza had taken Helena and Rachel to Rebecca's party where nearly everyone was attending.

"We need to stay undercover until the finishing straight, alright?" Nick said. "That is usually the moment she starts to doubt herself and that's when we need to give her new power."

"I agree," Elicia said while she clung to his arm like Laila clung to Cai's.

"Alright –Mission 'Support Miss Lemonette' is on its way," Laila said before the four children disappeared into another crowd.

Victoria was a firm believer in mental training and before she left her changing room, she touched the necklace she always wore underneath her clothes. It was a double silver chain with two hearts on it: a bigger one and a small one above it. Nick had bought it her in EastCity half a year ago and she always wore it. "Alright," she whispered while she put it back underneath her shirt. "There is a title to win."

She left the changing room while the last few seconds of her favourite song played in the radio and she held her head high as she walked over to her opponents. She knew exactly who she was up against and she also knew that she had beaten half of them with bloody knees shortly before.

"Look who got up from her place in the dirt," the cheating brat from the last competition smirked.

Victoria barely bothered to look at her. "Look who was dense enough to believe that I would care what you say to me," she replied while her red hair shimmered in the sunlight.

"Aren't you a witty little girl?"

"In case you didn't notice: I am taller than you," the redhead said before she turned away from her.

"She is already out!" Laila exclaimed while her fingernails pierced Cai's upper arm while she bounced up and down. "Look, look! Can you see her too? She stands behind the sign which labels the first track!"

"It was clear that she would be the favourite," Nick said smugly while he looked proudly at his older twin sister. "Honestly, no one can beat her on eight hundred metres. She basically flies when she runs them! It was amazing!

"Technically, Vicky was always too tall to be a runner for the short distances," Elicia stated. "I am sure that she will stay on the longer distances forever to be more successful."

"She is the champion of the Central Area and when she can repeat her amazing achievements today, she will be the champion of whole Amestris!" Laila said euphorically. "Honestly, the girl is barely seven and has more trophies in her room than Aunty Liv decorations on her uniform!"

"Aren't you scared, Hamilton?" a girl hissed into Victoria's ear as they kneeled down.

The redhead just smirked at her. "I am never scared," she said. "Fear is something to overcome."

The starting signal rang out and the eight best runners in the age of seven from whole Amestris started to run. For Victoria, it wasn't as new as for some of the other girls. It was her stadium. It was her city. It was her audience. And it was her distance. Eight hundred metres requested a certain amount of something she liked to call 'intelligent running' and it was something she mastered. Since she knew the stadium like the back of her hand, she knew how the wind could influence her and stayed in the slipstream as long as possible before she left the field. She heard the distant drum of the cheerleaders from her school somewhere to her left and a faint smile appeared on her face. Fast enough, she brought fifty metres between her and her followers – and the gap between them grew with every passing second. She loved the feeling. She loved being alive.

To run … it was the burning passion flowing right on through her veins and even though she knew that it could get her hurt someday, she would never be able to stop. For her, it meant to be welcome somewhere and it was the feeling that she was always so glad that she came to make a new record. For her, running was the air she breathed, the element of fire which kept her warm on rainy days. Running meant overcoming fears.

Laila understood what running in this stadium in front of this audience meant to her younger sister. The applause and the beating drums were the soundtrack of Victoria's successful and usually happy life. The blonde had seen her running before and it had always seemed like Victoria's feet weren't really touching the ground. It looked like she was literally flying.

"Go, Vicky, go!" she yelled and she wondered if her sister could hear her.

Nick's knuckles were nearly white from the force he used to hold the banner. "She will win it!" he said enthusiastically. "She will win it for us and herself."

"C'mon, Vicky, c'mon!" Elicia shouted while her right hand held Laila's. "Please! For the love of everything, Vicky – you go, girl!"

Victoria was surprised as she suddenly heard people cheering her on but as she looked to the side where the audience sat, she spotted familiar faces that held up a banner. She would have yelled back at them but her breath was rare and she couldn't waste it away. But they were right: the sweat and the blood were what made her herself.

She focused on her last few metres and sped up one last time before she crossed the finishing line.

A breath she hadn't known that she had been holding it left her body as she slowly walked some metres to give her heart a fair chance to calm down a little bit before she found herself enveloped by a violet banner without anything written on it.

"Who is our champion?" Laila yelled while she lifted Victoria's fist into the air.

"Vicky!" the others chorused.

"Who won every run today?" Cai shouted while he hugged the redhead tightly.

Olivier patted Roy's shoulder. "Don't be worried, Nick knows this town like the back of his hand," she said, "and he is hardly the type to run away from home. He is surely just somewhere where we didn't check so far. He will reappear sooner or later."

Bendix tapped her shoulder. "You … um … need to see this," he said while he dragged both of them back to the empty entrance hall. The huge room was empty since all the guests were in the garden now. But before the three adults were downstairs, the door was opened and Cai and Nick carried Victoria into the room while Laila and Elicia carried the new trophies.

"Where were you, Nick?" Roy asked while he looked at the strange scene. "I was worried!"

"I needed to see Vicky today," the boy said while he looked down. "I am sorry, dad."