"And when everyone's super, no one will be."
Syndrome, The Incredibles
Silence hung over the stadium as a burly otter strode out into the ring. On one upraised paw he carried a figure easily his own height, though thinner and more elegant. A sequined costume covered the elevated mammal to the extremities, with every inch catching the light and throwing it back a thousand different ways.
The otter strode up a ramp as the figure began to make light, almost airy movements; one leg up, then the other, arms spreading, even a pirouette on the paw which seemed to hold her with no effort at all. The onlookers stared at this improbable blend of strength and grace as the otter reached the top.
With a sudden heft, the otter tossed the figure upwards as if he were tossing a wiffle ball. She pivoted to horizontal in the air, stiffening legs and arms together until her shape resembled a javelin more than a living creature. He caught her accordingly, and like a harpoon he hurled her from the ramp.
Catching a cord almost invisible to the audience, Vanya Zarra whipped around three times before flinging herself upward towards the roof of the tent as the audience gasped at this surprising movement. Somersaulting in the air, she whipped out a pair of knives and hurled them through balloons to either side, neatly missing the paws that held them stringlessly. The bursts of glitter and confetti, coupled with the flashes of the blades, broke loose a wave of applause from the audience.
The act continued, with one stunt after another combining the grace of an acrobat and the devastating skill of a knife-thrower. No one had seen an act like this before…
"VANYA ZARRA!"
… and they never would. With a deafening thwack, a hoof slammed down on the top of Vanya's desk, yanking her mercilessly from her daydream. She was not in the spotlight or the big top at all. She was in a wretched dump of a high school in some hick town called Pine Forest, where her parents had been forced to move after labor issues closed the circus down forever.
Vanya looked up at the teacher. "Yes, ma'am?"
The llama clearly didn't accept her effort to be civil. "What is the main export of Batswana?" she asked.
It was hopeless trying to remember. How could anyone concentrate on the economy of some country none of them had any reason to care about? Why not focus on bigger questions in life, like how it could be 'equal opportunity' to abolish several dozen job sets because some mammals physically couldn't do them? Now her father was reduced to a short-order chef, and her mom was stuck playing secretary to some bum of an office manager who clearly hired her for her looks… and she was stuck in public school, of all places.
The teacher lifted her hoof, revealing a fly smashed on the desktop; perhaps merely incidental, or perhaps a fitting reminder of Vanya's life at that point.
She sighed and looked the teacher dead in the face.
"If they have justice there," she replied cynically, "they should export it here."
"So would you mind telling me why you got detention again?" asked Mrs. Zarra that evening. It was only her and Vanya that night. Ivan had to work late again.
Vanya was making her reluctance to talk loud and clear by focusing on walking on her hands. "Because… I said what was on my mind."
"Which wasn't the class at hand," Catherine remonstrated.
Vanya snorted. "Mom, the class was about countries none of us will ever visit and half of us can't even pronounce. Trust me, I'll never need to know that stuff. Our traveling days are over."
Catherine caught her by one back paw, arresting her movement. "That doesn't justify ignoring the class – or disrespecting the teacher. You need to apply yourself."
"I apply myself to important things!" Vanya snapped, trying to wriggle free. "World economics isn't important. Why we had to lose our home and or jobs because elephants can't use trapezes is important."
Sighing, Catherine took Vanya's other ankle and gently, but firmly, brought her feet back to the floor. She too was hurt, and angry, that even some of their former friends among the joeys had taken the circus to court over equipment no one could afford. It was an unfathomable injustice that few had wanted and from which none had benefitted. Vanya, however, seemed to have taken it harder than anyone. Her bitterness was so intense that not even her friendship with Nangi, who'd been fine with staying a joey, had survived intact.
"I'm sorry, dear," said Catherine, trying to soothe her daughter, "but the truth is no society is perfectly just."
"You're telling me," Vanya snapped. It was bad enough that her parents' careers had been ruined; careers they'd learned from their parents and grandparents; acts they had practiced all their lives. As for herself, she had only just begun to get her paws in the water! She'd finally gotten to do a few acts on the highwire, do a few stunts with her mom; start to get a feel for what she could do and what the crowds would think, and then it was over. Everything she'd ever worked for; all she'd ever dreamed… gone.
Catherine tried to think how to address the matter to her daughter. This was, admittedly, a problem she herself had never faced or even really thought about. Her parents had been circus performers, and theirs before them. She had always grown up anticipating life in a circus, and had naturally led her daughter to expect the same. To have that expectation – one's entire plan for the future – snatched away was unthinkable in every sense of the word.
"I hate those stupid elephants," Vanya snapped.
This last remark provoked Catherine to near outrage. "Hate has no place in this family," she shot back. Though she had never subscribed to the faith which maintained 'bless those who persecute you,' she had in some sense always seen it as a valid creed and worked to instill it in her daughter. "They may have changed things for us, but they are still family. We don't turn on our own even if they do."
"They didn't just 'change' anything," Vanya shot back, literally bristling. "They ruined everything. It's easy for you. At least you had your chance."
"Then make your own chances," Catherine rebounded. "We'll look for a gymnastics team you can join. You could compete; even go professional. There is nothing to be gained in bitterness."
Vanya was about to shoot down this idea, but it suddenly struck her that it was a good one; great, in fact. She'd watched little TV in her younger years, but she had seen occasional shows of professional ice skaters, dancers, gymnasts, and even some kind of pawkour show called ninja something once. Even as a cub she had thought she could do at least as well as some; maybe better. And why shouldn't she? She was good. Heck, she was better than even her parents knew.
Heck, maybe some of those wannabes who sank the circus would see her on TV one day, enjoying the career their jealousy had tried to destroy.
"Maybe I will," she replied.
Catherine's prediction could hardly have been more timely. It took only a little asking around to learn that there was a gymnastics team for the school, and that in just a couple of weeks they would be holding tryouts. At her parents' urging – not that she needed much outside herself – Vanya poured herself into getting ready. She dove into her homework each night, racing through it to get every assignment done as quickly as possible so she could spend more time practicing. She brought out her circus tights, cleaned them up, and even fixed a rip or two she had left unattended after the circus closed. At school, she made an absolute pest of herself finding out all the particulars of the school's equipment, the requirements for the team and who was on it, and even watching them practice at one point. They were all decent, at least for girls who had only been at it half their lives or so. The best one was a hare named Patricia, but the most confident – and, as it turned out, the team captain – was Hannah, a she-goat from the 'in' crowd. She had drive, obvious organizational skills, and a powerful stage presence, the sum of which overshadowed her slightly inferior skills. Vanya was impressed. She thought she might get along well with Hannah, as long as she didn't mind now having two more talented athletes on the team.
As the team wrapped up their routines, Vanya thought to introduce herself with some polite applause. Hannah and one or two other girls turned to her.
"Oh. I didn't realize we had a visitor," Hannah remarked. This was rather ironic, as a well-groomed he-goat named William Cudd had been watching her diligently throughout the performance. Even now his attention was on her, but she seemed to take satisfaction in not meeting his obvious admiration.
"Yes. Vanya Zarra," Vanya greeted, introducing herself. She gave a deep bow as she would have when opening or closing an act. "I heard you were holding tryouts soon and thought I'd check it out."
Hannah smirked. "Well, if you're looking to try out, I hope you can keep up," she replied, jerking a thumb behind her to indicate all that had just transpired on the gym's apparatus.
Further conversation was forestalled as an older she-goat – evidently Hannah's mother – called for her to hurry up and get changed. Hanna called back that she was coming, then looked back at Vanya. "See you later," she sing-songed as she and her posse sauntered off to the girls' locker rooms.
Vanya looked after them. If they had any doubts about her 'keeping up,' just wait until they saw her step into the light.
On the appointed day, Vanya found herself at the end of the list, which had been arranged alphabetically. Nearly a dozen girls, as well as a pawful of boys, had come to try their mettle. Most of them were, even in the fairest of judgements, clumsy. The majority of the males seemed to have auditioned more to check out girls in gym tights than out of any talent or drive. About a fourth of the applicants were decent, at least for someone who hadn't been literally born and bred for gymnastics. One or two were even a little good.
"This is going to be uncontested," her father, who had managed to break away from his job for the occasion, whispered. He patted Vanya on the back. "Not a true acrobat among them… though that tod over there would make a good fire dancer, I think, eh?" He chuckled and nudged his daughter.
She smiled, but she wasn't there to check out boys, even if they were cute. She was there for the place on the team.
At long last, Vanya's turn came. She stilled herself with quiet breaths as she walked up to the apparatus, filtering out everything in the room but herself and the miniature circus ahead of her. She pushed aside the heat of the gymnasium and lights, unaccustomed to one of her species; the smells of sweat and musk; the annoying lingering smell of old popcorn from spectators of games past. She had trained for hours – days in total – on these obstacles. She knew every piece, every pin, and even most of the all but unnoticeable nicks and scratches left by countless claws and hooves.
The coach blew her whistle, and Vanya threw herself into her routine. To say she pushed herself would be an understatement. Every obstacle she completed with perfection, and few passed without some added flair. A one-eighty spin of her body as she wove like a shuttlecock through the uneven parallel bars. A seemingly physics-defying pause on the hanging paw-rings. Three somersaults on the balance beam, one so close as to make it seem impossible for her not to tumble off the end… but she did.
The applause at the end was all she had dreamed of, even from her competitors – most of whom wore crestfallen looks as they saw artistry they could never hope to match. It was cathartic in a way, seeing even those already on the team look a little nervous at this talent beyond even their aspirations.
In the midst of it all her father clapped wildly. "That's my daughter!" he shouted, grabbing nearby strangers and pointing. "That's my little circus acrobat!"
It was all she could have hoped for, except for a slight sneer on the lips of that she-goat.
Her father was quick to come and congratulate her after her performance, and kept whispering commendations to her throughout the coach's brief wrap-up speech. Something, however, kept tugging at the back of Vanya's mind, especially as the gymnastics team headed for the weight room to deliberate.
"I forgot my water bottle," she excused herself, slipping from her father's grasp at the first chance. She made her way around the corner of the bleachers and looked around. No one in sight.
Once during a training session she had found herself accidentally locked in the weight room, and had to loosen a grate from the ductwork to get out. She hoped the custodian hadn't noticed it was missing its screws.
Luck was with her. With a slight tug, she pulled the vent loose and slipped inside, stepping carefully so as not to pick up any telltale dust. She pricked her ears and listened to the talk at the other end. It didn't take long for her name to come up.
"We've got to include Vanya," said someone. Vanya was fairly sure it was Patricia.
"What?!" demanded a sharp, shrill voice that could only be Hannah. "That kit? You're joking, right?"
"Why would she be joking?" someone else joined in. "You saw her moves, right? She's practically pro material already."
The voice that had first objected scoffed, joined by several others. A fourth mammal argued back, "She's also a fox. We can't have that kind of trash on our team. It would totally wreck our standing."
The argument went predictably from there, and in the end it simply came down to arithmetic. Three were solidly in favor of letting her join. Five were solidly against, and of those the she-goat Hannah was one. Since she was by far the most dominating voice in the group, the four undecided voters ultimately swayed in her favor; nine to three. Vanya would not be making the gymnastics team. Yet, not content with that, the naysayers added another layer of insult. They elected to let her on as a non-performing member… managing the team's equipment.
As Vanya slipped away, she wasn't angry or wounded as one might expect a high school girl in her position to be. Nor was she planning, as some girls might have, on going at once to the teacher and objecting to this flagrant prejudice. She was confident, and if anything a little bit smug. They should have either let her in to take her rightful place at the top of the pyramid, or else kept her out altogether. Anything in the world would be better than making her their equipment handler.
To several mammals' surprise, Vanya took readily to her role. In fact, Hannah's reaction suggested she had never actually expected the vixen to take the job, but only suggested the selection as a final slap in the face. She was the more disappointed as Vanya, without complaint or so much as a sour look, readily welcomed the task of sanitizing, degreasing, and doing everything else one would expect a good equipment handler to do. Her detractors tried to crack her willing acceptance of her fate by adding extra inconveniences here and there; extra practice on the equipment just after she had cleaned, 'accidentally' knocking things over while she organized, and so on. Vanya took it stoically, secretly enjoying their hidden frustration at her continual passivity and even continuing, despite their dismissal, to practice on her own whenever possible. Inside they were intimidated, and that itself was a victory… for now.
Through dozens of practices and a few intramural meets, she faithfully managed all of their gear without complaint… waiting for her opportunity and gathering what she needed.
All of that changed one night when the gymnastics club was preparing to compete with a high school from over in Meadowlands. Their hopes teetered on a razor's edge, as the competition that year had been fierce and close. In terms of wins, they were one competition away from a shot at the annual state title for high school gymnastics. In terms of more meticulous statistics, however, all their wins had been narrow, and the Meadowlands team that year was outstanding.
With this in mind it was no wonder that the girls worked their hardest through every maneuver and on every apparatus, and none with more fervor than Hannah. She threw every muscle and every last atom of skill into each maneuver, up until the first routine of practice a week before the meet with Meadowlands.
It began like any other practice. Hannah went into her routine on the parallel bars, pumping her legs, swinging her body, and arching her legs up high.
The upper bar bent sharply under her weight, throwing her through the air. No one watching would ever forget the shriek which pierced the air, giving way to an agonized cry as she landed very inelegantly on the mat.
Vanya had deliberately been looking away when the mishap occurred, and whipped around acting as surprised as anyone as Hannah lay groaning on the mat. The others swarmed around her to inspect the damage, and Vanya grabbed the first aid kit to follow.
Hannah lay on the mat, one hand on her thigh and the other on her jaw. Blood was leaking out of her mouth.
"What happened?" she asked.
"The bar broke!" exclaimed Ms. Mountoya, shooing the girls back. "Hannah? Hannah, don't move. Patricia, go get the nurse and call 9-1-1!"
It wasn't until the next day, during an emergency meeting of the gymnastics team, that word got around. Hannah had broken her right hip and bitten partway through her tongue. She would survive, but she was unequivocally out of the meet; she might never even manage gymnastics again.
Vanya felt a little sick. She hadn't expected the tongue bite, and the sight of all that blood had turned her stomach. She wanted Hannah out of action, but was this…?
Ms. Mountoya finished assuring the girls that Hannah would eventually recover, then clasped her hooves.
"I know you all worked hard this season," she announced, "and it isn't fair that you should lose out on the competition because of an accident. However, without Hannah on the team we don't have enough to go up against Meadowlands."
Silence fell all around as the kids reflected on this turn of events. Vanya struggled with her conscience, wondering how – or if – she could go through with her plan.
"What if we pulled Rachel off of academic suspension?" asked an ocelot.
Ms. Mountoya shook her head. "Rules are rules," she answered. "I'm sorry girls, but I'm putting in notice that we are canceling our meet with Meadowlands."
Patricia raised a paw. "Wait a minute. What about Vanya?"
The instructor raised her eyebrows. "Vanya?"
"She's a great gymnast," Patricia argued. "She did great in tryouts. I'm sure she can get caught up in time."
"With only a week to go?"
Vanya swallowed. If she choked now, it would all be wasted! "I was trained to be a circus acrobat," she managed, raising a paw. "I'm not as good as my parents, but I know a few tricks. Might even take the judges by surprise."
"The circus?" asked Ms. Mountoya, clearly intrigued.
Murmurs went around the class, with a rising number and volume calling for Vanya to be added to the roster. Even those who doubted a last-minute sub, or had been skeptical of Vanya at first, found it hard to dispute the team's one chance at competition.
"Wait a minute!" one of the girls shouted, standing up. "I'll bet she did this to get on the team! She cut partway through the pipes or something!"
Ms. Mountoya turned her gaze on the objector, then looked warily at Vanya. For a moment she seemed ready to call the kit out, but then she shook her head.
"I examined the pipes after we got Hannah to the hospital," she answered. "There was no sabotage. The bars were rusted inside, and I found leaky pipes in the store room."
"But I dried them off after every practice," Vanya objected dutifully.
"The outsides. You couldn't have known the insides were rotting out. No, this was an accident. Nothing more."
It took all of Vanya's skill not to tip her paw. Some weeks ago, a pawful of chemicals had been 'misplaced' in the science lab. No one had found any evidence of ill intent, and as long as they didn't look too closely at the corroded metal they never would.
"There's nothing to do but vote on it," said Alice, one of the newcomers to the team.
With the championship in the balance, there was no contest. Vanya was granted a retrial of her audition, and before she was halfway through her feelings of guilt had evaporated.
She was back in the spotlight. Back where she belonged. Yes, she had bent the rules to get what she wanted, but so what? Hannah had been wrong, and besides that she was an inferior gymnast. The bigot was out, and the star was in.
Justice had been served.
That night was not Vanya's last grapple with guilt over what she had done to Hannah, but it was the strongest. Over the week leading up to the competition, she proved the worth of her training and heritage. Her parents, surprised at the turn of events, came to practice on the third night and actually wept at the sight of their daughter spinning, twisting, and somersaulting through her mother's old routine coupled with her own additions. On the way home, her parnets boasted gleefully that the circus lived on in their daughter.
On the night of the competition, Ms. Mountoya held Vanya until the tail end of the performance due to her place as a last-minute substitution, putting Alice, the team's second-stringer, up front. Vanya didn't mind. Instead she used the time to encourage and advise the other girls. As one after the other put on the shows of their lives, she smiled inwardly knowing she had won the spot as their favorite teammate. Then when her turn came, she stepped out and outshone them as the sun outshines the moon.
By the time the judges made their decision, Hannah was already a thing of the past. By a nearly unanimous vote, Vanya Zarra had taken her place as the new team captain. She made a show of accepting the position modestly, but inside she was almost glowing. Through cunning and a pawful of particular talents, she had claimed her rightful place in school and deposed a fraud to boot.
And if justice were ever in question again, well… accidents could happen.
Once again, I had an interesting – and very unsettling – time writing this chapter. Because Vanya goes so far back in my fics and has proven to be such a popular, complex character, it wasn't enough to simply have her graduate to a higher level of evil. I had to give her a development on the inside worthy of the escalation of her actions, rather than simply painting her as if she had no conscience against which to struggle. The idea of making her an antihero in her own mind struck me as both fitting and ironic. Whether it's too on the nose these days, what with some groups openly condoning the assault and robbery of innocent people in the name of "justice," I guess I'll have to let the reader think over.
Injecting a canon character – other than referencing Vanya's former friendship with Nangi – didn't really fall into place here. However, after making Hannah a goat I almost had to throw in a nod to William Cudd, Olivia Poisson's business foil in Something Stinks. I realize there's some fair question about the respective ages of the characters, but as none of their exact ages are all that important to the plot here, I leave it to the reader's imagination whether Cudd is just younger than he comes across as in Something Stinks, or if Hannah is considerably older than Vanya (which in my opinion would only enhance their rivalry and its outcome), or whether Cudd is just a real creep in this context for eyeing a student some grades younger than himself. The last one makes me cringe, but then so does Cudd… and so do Hannah and Vanya, to some extent.
Anyway, thanks for reading. As always, don't forget to Fave, Follow, and Feedback!
Easter Egg Answers:
Vanya's recollection of her mother walking the tightrope in a Grim Reaper costume is a nod to when Danny Phantom did the same act while spellbound at the Circus Gothica.
"Someone must have waylaid Mr. Sandmammal" is a near-quote from Bill Watterson's famed comic character, Calvin.
Vanya's drinking glass trick hails from the Adventures of the Great Brain books, a series about two fairly average boys and one budding con artist growing up in Utah in the 1890s.