[PKMN FULL] Poke-Ronpa: Year One - Despair

The first thing anyone notices about Cooper is that he seems to dye his hair and paint his nails to the point any punk might look on in jealousy. But no, that's not really what he does. In reality, he's been a bit of a labrat for his scientist parents ever since he was born and there may have been an accident with some kind of keratin-enhancing substance which leaves patches of his hair, irises, and nails prone to growing in a bizarre, bright, almost glowing green color, like a sort of radioactive vitiligo. It's probably a good thing he's not the most self-conscious type. Otherwise, there's not much unusual about him. He's on the shorter side, standing at 5'5", his face youthful yet maturing. His olive skin is almost unfairly smooth and clear; he's overheard girls playfully griping about it behind his back.

His attire is... eclectic. He tends to be drawn to whatever he thinks looks "cool", though in reality it tends to make him seem like a bit of a dork. The colors black, green, and grey feature heavily in his wardrobe, all the way from his dumb customized trenchcoat to his pajamas. Even more goofily, he's attracted to anything with LEDs or glow-in-the dark capabilities, both of which his dumb trenchcoat feature (at the press of a button for the LEDs, naturally). He even has light-up shoes. This probably isn't the best attire for someone about to be tossed into the world of murder-mystery, but it's not like he knew about that, anyway. He defends his wardrobe choice to anyone who criticizes it.


Cooper is an exciteable dork, a trait which he gets from his exciteable dork parents. Growing up watching movies and anime, he seeks to emulate cyberpunk protagonists in all but setting. He tries to act moody and mysterious, but he's a sucker for attention. To most people, he seems like a little kid trying to make himself look older than he really is. However, this belies his intelligence. He's a whiz when it comes to doing anything with his hands - building, sewing, cooking, you name it and he's good at it. He has a particular interest in bulding machinery and creating items to enhance Pokemon beyond their natural limits, such as by teaching them normally impossible moves - which is what he's added to his own Pokemon. He can be a bit of a show-off when it comes to anything he made, somewhat desperate for an ego boost. The thing he craves most in life is a more solid parental or older sibling figure, as his parents weren't exactly mature and attentive.


Little Cooper was born in Canalave City, Hoenn, to two parents who were absent-minded enough when it came to their own bodies that they forgot contraception. Despite still being in college and working at the library, the two parents doted on their little boy... but more in a way that an aunt or uncle would dote on their new nephew. There was an odd sense of unattachment between the whole family, even if his parents were in love like newlyweds.

His parents were scientists, mainly working in genetics and bio-engineering to cure certain diseases (like cancers and malaria) and genetic malformities (such as Downs Syndrome). They occasionally used their son as a labrat, though thankfully nothing bad came from it - his "radioactive vitiligo" was an attempt at treating skin cancers with marking dye to see how it worked. It just so happened that the marking dye reacted strangely with the treatment and as such hasn't faded.

Cooper wasn't so bitter about his parents being more into their study than being into him. He grew up with a decent group of friends and interesting Pokemon... though he did have a bad habit of trying to steal attention from others (well, maybe he was subconsciously bitter). When left alone at home after school, he developed a habit of going out and wandering around and usually ending up in weird places like dumps and ship graveyards. He honestly had a lot of fun in those places, trying to build stuff out of junk metal and usually ending up with something that looked surprisingly cool but had no use. As he got a bit older, he spent afternoons after school in the library, reading up on engineering and mechanics and math, which he found all surprisingly intuitive for someone his age. Inspired, he sought out people who had experience in these areas - actual mechanics, architects, electricians and so on, and asked to shadow them. Of course, they were all skeptical about an eight-year-old trying to learn this sort of thing, but again he picked up everything surprisingly quickly and applied his new knowledge to his found-object creations. And despite lots of injury and failure, over the years he became adept and almost savant-like at his skill.

He found most of his Pokemon wandering around scrapyards and junkyards. Klefki was his first find, at the age of ten - it was pretty much doing the same thing he was, rummaging around for cool stuff. Instead, it found itself in a Pokeball when it wasn't paying attention. Despite this rude interruption, the two became quick friends. His Magnemite and Aron followed quickly in much the same way. His Escavalier was a gift from an online friend of his in Unova, as the friend was tricked into trading his Shelmet. Cooper soon put his tinkering abilities to the test by attaching enhancements to his Pokemon team - when someone noticed the flamethrower on his now-Magnezone, it erupted into a controversy as to whether it counted as abuse or a unique form of teaching Pokemon abilities that they usually wouldn't have. The controversy has died down since, but he still gets dirty looks whenever he uses these enhancements.

But it was the controversy which put him onto Hope's Peak's radar - with his unique outlook on training and what constitutes as fair play and how to effectively utilise everything in battle, and the fact he created all the enhancements by himself, made the school reach out the moment he graduated middle school. Naturally, both he and his parents were thrilled at the opportunity and immediately enrolled him.

• Klefki - He has added a few keys with odd uses, though ones that wouldn't seem out of place on a keychain... mostly. One can be used as an LED flashlight and/or a (harmless) green laser. Another can be used like a makeshift hand saw. Another can work like a tazer (would only be akin to a Thunder Wave to other Pokemon, but rather effective against humans).
• Escavalier - He has added an air-based jetpack, to allow it to move faster than usual... but only in quick spurts and without the ability to turn well.
• Magnezone - He has attached a flamethrower to Magnezone. It seems to like it. However, there's only enough fuel for about three uses.
• Lairon - Lairon eats anything Cooper tries to attach to it, so it's unaltered. It's a little bit bulkier than most because Cooper did try really hard and lost a lot of metal creations in the process.

• The whole thing about him being good with anything to do with his fingers? A lie. He can't play music to save his life. He's oddly sensitive about this fact.
• He's much better at making his own kludged-together creations than fixing something broken. He can usually still fix things, but it takes longer than creating something unique.
• He's more adept at making weaponry than something passive like a walkie-talkie. He can't quite make guns, though.