Chapter Text
Chloe took a deep breath. She stood stock still. She was in position, squatted down with her saber out in her right hand. Her left arm was raised in the air behind her. This was her moment. Just one more point and she was golden. Or at least, on track to be golden.
She was tied with her opponent. This was what she needed, not just break the tie but to make her dreams come true. It was down to the final point, the final strike. The last few seconds. All she had to do was wait for the words.
“En guarde.”
“Ready.”
“Fence.”
She knew she was going to play this last round on the defensive first, mainly because her opponent had the right of way but also because she had a strategy. She knew her opponent would be desperate to break their tie. They had been aggressive from the start, getting ahead of Chloe at a 5-0. Chloe had let her opponent wear herself down for the first thirty seconds, then Chloe had quickly made a comeback. There had been two double touches, but Chloe had managed to get to the 7-7 tie she was at now.
Her opponent lunged at her, saber aimed just above her hip. Chloe did a quinte parry and swung her blade to her opponents shoulder. The other fencer ducked from the attack and parried immediately followed by a lunge at Chloe’s side. Chloe quickly stepped back and hit her opponent’s saber. Now claiming the right of way with the touch of their swords, Chloe lunged and hit her opponent directly in the chest.
A beep went off as it signaled the pressure signal that marked Chloe’s point. The referee held up a green flag and confirmed Chloe’s success. She looked at the clock, only five seconds left. While that wasn’t a long time, those few seconds could result in another tie and an extension of the match. Chloe didn’t want that. She wanted to get this over with while she had the advantage.
She got back into position and waited for the call.
“En guarde.”
“Ready.”
“Fence.”
The opponent charged Chloe, almost running her off the mat. Chloe shuffled back until there was no more room on the mat, but just as she was about to have to parry a move from her opponent, the clock struck zero.
Chloe took off her helmet and shook hands with her opponent, “Good game.”
Once she had the pressure sensors taken off, her sword away, and her hair down, she ran over to her parents. Her father ran to her as well, and they met in a grand hug. He picked up his daughter and swung her around, “I can’t believe it! My daughter is going to the Olympics!”
Once she was put down, Chloe smiled at her dad, “I mean, it runs in my blood. You literally have, like, four gold medals.”
Chloe’s dad playfully shrugged, “What can I say? It’s my color.”
“Well no matter what, Chloe, we’re still very proud of you,” Chloe’s mother gave her daughter a soft hug.
“But a gold medal would probably make them prouder,” Chloe’s brother, Chad, added in, nudging Chloe’s shoulder.
“I’ll try my best,” Chloe laughed. The truth was, though, she was nervous out of her mind. She had an Olympic dad to live up to, plus she had all of the money her family had put into her fencing career that loomed over her.
While money hadn’t come short to her family, her mother had constantly told Chloe how important it was to be grateful. Chloe’s mother, Ella, had come from basically nothing, being forced to work for her stepmother after her father’s passing. Any time Chloe heard the story she shuddered. She could never wrap her head around how somebody so kind and nice could have grown up with such awful people.
Her father, on the other hand, had always grown up with money. He came from a lineage of CEOs of Charming Wine, a luxury wine company. The company had gotten so big that her great-great-great grandfather had gone ahead and changed his last name to Charming to make sure it stayed in the family. Charming wasn’t just a name, it was a namesake.
At least it had been. After Ella and Charming met, Ella had convinced him to turn his fencing hobby into a career. He was already a prodigy, and his father had invested lots of time and money into it. At the time it was to keep his son well-rounded by having him do a prestigious sport, but then it became something more. Charming kept a large share in the company, but after winning his first gold, he left the company.
He and Ella started a local community center where her father gave fencing lessons and her mother provided a place for kids to go when they didn’t want to be at home. They invested in their community and their community loved them.
It didn’t help that her brother was a star football player that was expected to be in a Super Bowl at some point, so Chloe had a ton of expectations on her. Of course, she knew her parents would be proud no matter what, but she needed to be proud of herself. In order to do that, she needed to win, to be as good as them inside and out. But she didn't just have to prove herself to her parents, she had to prove herself to the world. She would no longer be faced with the doubts of others who believed she was where she was in the fencing world because of her father. She was going to show the world that it was her skill as well, that she belonged with the greats not because she was a Charming, but because she was Chloe Charming.