Anastasia Zagova (who goes by Anna for short) is the middle of three children born to a poor factory worker and his wife from Rustboro City in the Hoenn region. Things were never easy for their family and they've struggled since day one just to get by. Anna's older brother followed their father in factory work and it was assumed that Anna would take up that or a similar career as prospects for their family were few and far between.

However that would change when a battle arena trainer happened to watch the young zigzagoon doing battle during a routine gym class at her grade school. He asked Anna's teacher if he could have Anna demonstrate more of her ability, which she was happy to do. It was quite rare for such a trainer to make an appearance at Anna's small school, let alone show an interest in one of their students. While Anna was always one of the better students in gym class, she never thought she had any sort of ability beyond grade school scraps. The trainer, however, felt differently.

After some more evaluations the trainer made a call back to his corporate headquarters. Within a few days a representative was dispatched to meet with Anna and her parents and make them an offer. Fortune, it seemed, had finally smiled upon the Zagova family as Anna was being offered a scholarship to the prestigious Poke-Combat Academy of Higher Learning in the overseas Kanto region. After a hurried discussion, as the deadline for application was mere days away, the Zagova family decided to accept the offer and send their only daughter overseas to take advantage of an opportunity that could change her life for the better.

Anna passed the school's entrance exams with flying colors and was admitted to the academy with a full scholarship. She was very studious when it came to academics, driven to make a better life not for herself but for her family. She was just as dedicated to training in the battle arts, but her style was very chaotic, unorthodox, and undisciplined. Many others, both students and faculty alike, believed that she won many of her matches by virtue of sheer luck. A number of teachers tried to get her to approach her battles with more discipline and focus but she never would, continuing to "luck out" in a lot of her matches.

Finally one of her coaches had a flash of insight - what if she wasn't just getting lucky? What if her seemingly random and chaotic style was nothing of the sort? After some careful observation and consultation with some of the administration it was discovered that Anna possessed a rather unique ability, likely related to the nature of her species, to skew chaos in her favor. Her style of battle was subconsciously taking advantage of this fact. Anna's peculiar ability earned her a lot of attention from the administration but unfortunately not so much from her fellow students, at least not the good kind. She has spent several years at the academy being a constant thorn in the side of every 'mon who's competed in the solo division, where she exclusively fought. Some of the more mystically-minded 'mon insist that she's hexed or cursed, as her odd ability seems to extend beyond the arena, causing some amount of misfortune wherever she goes. As a result Anna has spent most of her time at the P.C.A. feeling like a lonely outcast, but it's a sacrifice she's willing to make for her family.

Recently it came to the attention of Anna and her parents that the terms of her scholarship require her to compete as part of a team, which is a problem since most of the senior-level teams had a roster that they were quite comfortable with and nobody wanted to deal with Anna and her bizarre style of battle, not to mention her reputation as a living, walking jinx (the curse, not the species). Enter Joshua Garkirl. Tired of being an independent and wanting a taste of the team environment, the gallade went looking for some noble-minded and skilled teammates and decided to take a chance on Anna. For one he was sympathetic to her noble intentions of wanting to become a great arena battler in order to lift her family out from their downtrodden state, and for another, as he has said, "I don't believe in luck." Accepting his invitation, Anna has become the "loose cog" on Team Clockwork.

Anna's personality is a mixed bag of contradictions. In the arena she's very aggressive, courageous, and confident, but outside of it she's very shy and somewhat withdrawn. She would like to get to know people and make friends, but she's been taken in by the idea that she's unlucky to be around and so doesn't much like to socialize. Joshua feels that the problem is that she doesn't truly understand how to control her unique ability, and that by believing herself to be a curse, her ability makes it true. He feels that if he can get her to believe otherwise that it will help her control her ability, and his interest in adding her to his team is also a personal one - he sees a chance to help someone in need.

In a battle Anna never makes any sort of plan or follows any sort of strategy. In her words, "I don't need a plan, just a goal, the rest takes care of itself." Her training, moves, and skills are based on pure disruption. She wreaks havoc on the plans, abilities, and moves of her opponent and does everything she can to throw a match into complete mayhem, counting on the fact that she's better suited to deal with such conditions than her opponent. Her ability to counter, disrupt, or otherwise screw up her opponents' every move and strategy makes her one of the most frustrating opponents to battle in the entire school. Her ability to use her own moves and techniques makes her one of the more effective. How this will work in a team environment however remains to be seen.