Reaching the Summit

By Snowy Snivy

A Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Gijinka Nuzlocke

Prologue

Her Hero Is a Cross

"As we all know, today is the day that Sinnoh recognizes as National Hero's Day."

A young woman with frazzled brown hair stands at the front of the class room, staring at a spot on the wall opposite her with a tired, almost angry, expression. Just under her brooding gaze were around thirty or so children, all around the age of ten. Some stared at her blankly while a few others doodled something onto their desk. One little boy had made a paper airplane and let it sail all the way across the room to his friend sitting on the other side. A group of girls giggled.

The teacher closed her eyes in frustration, and an eyebrow twitched downwards dangerously.

"And now, as much as I dread your pitiful answers, I am obligated by my contract to this stupid school to have an hour-long discussion with you brats about who your hero is."

She hadn't really said all of this, but, as far as the children were concerned, she might as well have.

Nobody responded to her. The teacher scowled and looked down at the children.

In the middle of the classroom, a girl with an obnoxiously long, pointed nose and lightly colored blonde hair was forcibly scribbling something onto her desk, humming quietly. She had been one of the girls that giggled at the airplane.

This was the first child that the teacher laid eyes on, and so she decided to call her out. "Ms. Stone, how about you?"

The girl paused in her drawing and looked up. "Huh?"

The teacher stared blankly at the girl and jabbed her thumb behind her, pointing to the large white board with the words "hero's day," scribbled lazily in the corner in black marker. "Your hero, Rosetta."

Rosetta stared blankly for a moment and then blinked. She looked up at the ceiling, thinking. After a moment, she squealed excitedly and burst out with, "Hilda White!"

"Hilda White," the teacher deadpanned. "The cross who was pushing to sap all of the money out of poor Unova through taxes six months ago?"

The girl gasped. "Hilda doesn't want that!" She exclaimed. "Dad says she just wants free healthcare for cross registered in the league!"

"And how do you think she'd have gotten the money for that?" The woman grumbled.

Rosetta paid no mind, however, and reached into her desk, pulling out a hand full of cards with various pictures and names on them. "She's super cool," the girl breathed out. "She's a Serperior, so she has leaves all over her legs, and she's the youngest leader of any cross championship team known, second to only Red from Kanto! She was only seventeen when her team beat the league!" She finally found the card she was looking for and waved it around, the face of a young girl with wild brown hair pulled into a ponytail that puffed out over her pink cap. She stared out from the card with an awkward smile, bright blue eyes betraying the mischievous look she was obviously trying to go for with their bewilderment at having her picture taken for trading cards. "Her team managed to fend off Team Plasma all by itself, and they say that she talked to Reshiram! Isn't that amazing?"

The boy that sat in front of her looked at the card, displeased. "Leafy legs doesn't sound like a very cool mark," he muttered. "And isn't she, like, super short?"

A girl nearby laughed at the comment very loudly.

"Five feet isn't that short!" Rosetta argued, cheeks becoming rosy. "And Reshiram sure didn't seem to think so, either!"

A few boys rolled their heads back in laughter.

Rosetta scowled. "Hilda beat the league in only two years!"

"Red beat it in one, and he kept his position for more than just four months!" Another boy called out.

"Hilda never lost a battle, either." It was a different boy this time, calling out from the back of the classroom. "What happened wasn't her fault!"

"Well," said a girl from the back of the class, "Mama and Papa say that Hilda White's a fraud, and that she never really met Reshiram. They said that she was nothing but a dirty liar, and that she got what was coming to her!"

A few other children broke into an outcry against the statement along with Rosetta.

"That's not true!"

"You can't say that!"

Rosetta stood up from her desk and yelled at the girl. "And my Mom and Dad say that people like you are the reason she's in that coma!"

Even more children opened their mouths in outrage, ready to scream and shout.

"That's enough on the subject!" The teacher snapped. The class instantly quieted.

Their teacher almost never told them to stop anything. She never cared enough.

The teacher turned her gaze onto Rosetta. "I know, Ms. Stone, that your father in a gym leader and manager under the Hoenn Cross and Pokemon League and that your cousin is some sort of hot-shot in the cross community over there, as well." There was a loud rumble of whispers erupting from the class.

"Her cousin is a cross?"

"But I will not tolerate you bringing your family's propaganda into this classroom!"

Rosetta huffed, turning her long and pointed nose upward. "It's not perpoganda!" She didn't even know what the word was, but she didn't like the sound of it.

"It most certainly is," the teacher seethed, "and you'd best keep it out of school. Understood?"

Rosetta glowered, but did not respond.

The teacher scowled back at her. "I'm calling both your and Mr. Caldwell's parents, and they're going to have a long talk with the principal about what they tell you at home."

The other boy who had shouted in Hilda White's defense slumped back in his seat in silence.

Rosetta looked back at the boy and mouthed the words, "Thanks, and sorry."

Around ten minutes later, a paper airplane went sailing and came to a halt at Rosetta's desk. She looked at the thing, saw writing scribbled over its folded pages, and shoved it into her bag to look at later.