Once Upon a Time in Unova…
Alexa is the older daughter of Joshua and Luanne Romero, born in the small town of Anville Town in northwest Unova. Her father was a worker at the city’s rail yard, while their mother ran a bakery. Unlike her sistser, Alexa remembers Anville Town a little bit. She remembers playing with a bunch of other children and a Lillipup in a green field; maybe a park. She remembers eating wild raspberries. She remembers watching the trains down at the railyard from atop a nearby hill. There were so many trains she couldn’t count them all.
Their family was happy and her early childhood was almost idyllic. They weren’t wealthy, but the family was close and they were members of a tight-knit community.
The Bombs Drop
Their idyllic life was destroyed when the Great War broke out in winter of 2002, before Viola was even a year old. The Unovan army pushed into Kalos, and given that Kalos sat to the northwest, Anville Town became a center for militatry involvement; hundreds of soldiers came to town, using the trains to help deploy troops and establish supply lines.
Alexa and the other children would watch the troops moving, and tried to sneak as close as they could to the soldiers’ tents before they were caught and shooed away.
Only four months into the war, a joint Kalos-Galar bombing operation was launched, targeting Unovan supply lines. Anville Town was among the targets. Her father was killed in the bombs, having been out working at the yard when the bombs dropped.
Of course while civilians weren’t targeted, there was still collateral damage when several of the bombs struck areas across town. The fountain in the town square was demolished, a busy street with some of the shops was struck (including their bakery), and even a few homes were affected. While the Romero house wasn’t directly damaged, many of the family’s dear friends were injured or killed.
Alex can still remember the sounds of the planes overhead, how it had felt like the end of the world. But the smell is the most vivid part to her. She still has nightmares about the smell.
The Unovan military sent aid as soon as they could, but a second bombing on the area only a few weeks later convinced Luanne that it wasn’t safe to stay there. She managed to contact a Kalosian outrunner, who was smuggling Unovan refugees into his home country. Luanne managed to get the money together, and in the middle of the night, vanished into the night with her daughters.
Romero Refugees
It was an arduous, difficult journey made almost entirely on foot through wartorn forests and, eventually, through precarious, rocky mountain passes in the middle of rainy season. They only walked a few hours a day, and always at night. They didn’t light fires or even use flashlights most of the time, as those were “unnecessary risks”.
The sounds and flashes of the fighting were near-constant, and the sight of planes flying overhead always made the group feel a bit uneasy. If they ever saw headlights or flashlights at night, the group stopped and hid until the outrunner gave the signal.
Because of baby Viola, it was a trip Alexa had to make mostly on foot. It was extremely hard on her. About halfway through the journey, the Outrunner let her ride his Gogoat while they marched. She was so grateful for Gogoat. It was hard not to fall asleep while riding him.
Alexa had to help her mom keep an eye on Viola. When the group settled in for the night, Alexa slept right next to her. She grew extremely irate with the baby, who never seemed to be able to sleep.
After two weeks of grueling hiking, they crossed the border into Kalos, where they were led to a small farm about thirty miles out from Kiloude City. The farmers were a kindly couple, and gave the refugees a place to sleep out in their barn, as well as access to warm showers and hot food. The couple must have taken pity on the widowed mother, as they offered to drive her into the city and help her get a bus ticket anywhere else in Kalos.
Luanne and the girls would eventually head to Dendemille Town, where she rented a cheap room without any questions. She got a job waiting tables for a few weeks, before she got job at the Showcase Theater. She was pretty and desperate for the work, and it was steadier hours than waiting tables.
A Marriage of Convenience
Life in Dendemille Town was hard. It was cold and they had to be secretive; she couldn’t speak or read the language, meaning that she couldn’t play with the other children. Her mother warned her early on not to tell anybody where they came from. So Alexa was just stuck in their awful, cold flat and she was tasked with watching the baby while Luanne was at work. Which was often, considering she was a single mother who worked double shifts to pay rent and provide food for her daughters. Alexa resented Viola a little bit and she had little patience for her.
Around Christmastime, their mother met a wealthy artist while working at the Showcase Theater. He came over once. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a beard. He was friendly but Alexa didn’t like him. That wouldn’t be helped when, after a month, their mother announced that they were moving to Lumiose City.
Alexa understood that they had married when she was a bit older, and she understood why they were married not long after. Alexa never called Boris “dad”, nor did he ask her to. To his credit, Boris never took advantage of the situation or of their mother; both adults knew what the arrangement was.
A welcome result of the marriage, though, was Luanne and her daughters moving into Boris’ comfortable townhouse in Lumiose City. It was spacious, especially to the Unovan country girl, and it was safe. Boris wasn’t there often; he spent most of his time at his actual house in Camphrier Town where hew had his painting studio. Boris promised to send money to support them. He made good on that promise, sending them enough money every month that they never wanted for anything.
Alex had a hard time settling in. The house was too big, the beds too soft. She hated how quiet it got at night, but she also hated the sounds of cars passing by outside. She acted out often and turned to reading to try to fill the void still in her heart.
