Francis Wheeler ( 1st Instance )

"This is the article for the original, first Instance of Francis Wheeler. For the Otlan Cultist, see Francis Wheeler ( 2nd Instance ). For the Paradise Agent, see Francis Wheeler ( 3rd Instance )."Francis Wheeler ( or 009 Noontide ) is an employee of the Paradise Association. He works under Ghiris Janulis as his trainee. He is also one of the people who was subject to the splicing effects of the Cardinal Break.

He resides with Ghiris instead of in the barracks like usual trainees, making him difficult to track, though he is never too far from his superior.

Background
Francis is one of the several hundred trainees within Paradise, and is one of the few who seems to be having such a hard time with his regimen. In his previous life, before his career began, he was the child of an affair between his father and a mistress. He was raised with the mistress, who was an obscure mage and psychic  who was trying to begin her own career in the mysticism field. Through her, Francis inherited a strong affinity for psychic and destruction magic. His own ability was stronger than his mothers, but began to hinder him in several ways. His psychic prowess left him vulnerable to his emotions as well as that of those around him, living or dead, and any powerful emotion is enough to break control of his destruction magic.

When he was thirteen, he and his mother were caught up in a bank robbery, both being used as hostages among 17 others. His mother was the fifth to be executed by the band of criminals, though in that moment, Francis had lost control of his own ability, and the outburst had eliminated the criminals, though three of the hostages were caught in the blast. Himself and the surviving hostages were escorted out, but he was quick to take responsibility for the deaths of the criminals. During his trial, he lived with his father, who sought help from an Eolen he also looked after, Polo'tlil. Polo'tlil was tasked with hiding Francis, much to the child's dismay. Both fled into the Fringe Dimension, by way of a corrupt agent. As time passed from this event, the case went cold, and Francis was presumed dead after being missing for months.

Here, he was taken in by Paradise, as they were thought to be trustworthy. He immediately began training, believing it to be his redemption for what he had done, as it still weighs heavily on his heart. However, he has been, and is being, slowly conditioned to repress and eventually forget his past life.

With his magic, he has made some amount of progress. He can use his psychic ability with no consequence and minimal energy drain, thus he uses it often for various day-to-day tasks and often without much thought. His destruction magic has been focused into entirely electrical magic, keeping in line with Paradise’s elemental focus. Even after months of training, he still loses control of his destructive forces whenever he’s too emotionally charged in any direction, and if he actively uses it for too long or too intensely, it takes a negative toll on his body. This usually manifests as his left eye being blinded, and the parts of his body controlling his magic to be hurt.

Personality
Francis, despite being young and seemingly optimistic, is quite self-loathing and pessimistic. He often puts himself down and has little-to-no self-esteem when it comes to handling anything thrown at him. This, in combination with his irrational and overpowering fear of many common things, makes life as a trainee exceptionally difficult. His primary fears are small spaces, wide open spaces, heights, depths/holes, bright lights, the dark, and strangers.

He is very self-conscious, especially when it comes to his reputation among other Paradise employees, and is rather critical of himself. Often, he will judge himself to a much, much harder standard than he would judge others. This stems from a subconsious need to please everyone over himself, and he takes into account the wants and needs of those around him when crafting his own standard.

He tends to be irritated when he underperforms or disappoints himself, or when things don't go his way immediately, leading to somewhat snappish behaviour, but typical to any 14 year old, this comes from more of an attitude. Things that tend to lead to his own self-hatred are issues created from his gullibility or his trusting nature, as well as those from his often panicked and anxious reactions to multiple things.

When it comes to socialising with others, he can be ignorant in his wording or behaviour, though he tries to fit himself into social circles of the time period he's in. At his best, when he's comfortable and in an environment where he is free of fear, he can be a social butterfly, and genuinely has interesting thoughts and ideas that he rarely gets to express. Aside from his work, which he dedicates 98% of his time to, he enjoys hiking and spending his time outside.

Appearance
Standing at around 5'2'', Francis is particularly shaky and frail. His clothes, despite being the right size, seem to hang from his body loosely. His hair is about chin length, and while it was originally brown, his stress seems to have caused some of his hair to grey early. This makes it appear lighter than it is, with greyish streaks and stray strands. His eyes are hazel. One of the more notable features of Francis is his headset and collar. Around his neck is a silver-plated electronic collar, which is equipped with a tracking device, as well as an electric reconditioning feature. His headset is also silver, with green accented rings over the sides. From each side of the headset is a black wire that trails out from the headset and meets at the nape of his neck. The wires seem to be grafted in and sturdy so he doesn’t accidentally (or purposefully) rip them off.

Trivia

 * On occasion, Francis works as a traffic director in 12th Landing.
 * He has vague memories of Bash, though he fails to recognise him regularly.
 * Francis looks up to plenty of his mentors, though he aims to be a pilot for Justice.