Born to an unassuming family in Vermont, Francis fit in well with his normal family. Really, he was nothing out of the ordinary when it came to children of middle-class families. That is, until his younger brother, Matthew was born.
For years Francis had been comfortable coasting through life, having more fun than studying, just like many other children his age. At the start, Francis was happy with having a younger brother. But after a few years, Matthew began to show that he was much better at most everything than his brother, which he gloated about endlessly.
It was this that started a sibling rivalry that would last well into the boys' later teenager years. When Matthew showed that he was better intellectually than his brother, Francis instead decided to focus on sports. It was here that Frank truly showed his worth; having near boundless determination to better himself and his performance. Not that he was bad at other things in school, he just wasn't nearly as good Matthew.
Now, while a sibling rivalry is rarely so bad, in Holloway brothers' case, it most surely was. The state of their relationship had festered for too long, and Matthew's infuriatingly nice attitude infuriated Francis. In truth, the younger brother had not considered the rivalry to be anything bad, just a way to push his brother to better himself. His ignorance was born of their parents' assurance that it was nothing serious.
But it was serious. There was something twisted in young Francis Holloway; he never felt himself to be good enough, and blamed his brother for that. And perhaps there was some kind of further mental problem behind this, but no one in the family would ever find out about it. Especially not Matthew.
It had been a warm afternoon during July 1989, when the two brothers had been walking home after school, arguing about which hero and villain was the strongest. They had been crossing a road, when Francis had spotted an oncoming car coming down the road erratically. His younger had not noticed the car, due to listening to music on his Walkman.
It was this moment that would define the rest of Francis' life, as he willingly let his brother walk across the road, patiently waiting for the car to end his brother's life. Matthew had turned to look at Francis with confusion, after having noticing that he had lagged behind by quite a bit. He took his headphones off, to address his older brother, only to finally notice the Cadillac, as it was only a few meters away from him.
The driver tried his best to avoid hitting the young teenager, but due to that effort, he only managed to kill himself alongside the boy. The car veered to the side, as the side of the car crushed Matthew's chest. The car then crashed into a nearby pole, sending the drug addled driver through his window, due to not wearing a seatbelt.
Francis witnessed all of this. In only a few moments, his brother's and another man's lives were ended in an instant. He saw it all, in grisly detail, with silent horror painting his face. For a few moments, all was quiet, right up until he screamed. Rushing over to his brother's mangled body, attempting CPR while all the while yelling for someone to call 911.
.
Matthew did not survive, despite the best efforts of Francis and later the paramedics. He was dead before they arrived to the hospital. Later, Francis was questioned as gently as possible by the police. They did not know what he had done, did not even suspect it.
And so, he answered all of their questions as best he could, with the proper amount of shock and sadness in his voice. They left him behind, and put the blame on the driver who had been on drugs. And yes, it had been at least partially the driver's fault, but Francis who was more at fault. He would always know.
The Holloway family held a big funeral, Matthew's death had affected many different people. And in that moment, Francis still felt a bit of envy, but quickly crushed it. His little brother was dead, and he had killed him. He mulled over this fact, after raiding his parents' liquor cabinet. He had killed his own brother, over a petty rivalry.
He had done something unforgiveable, and yet he found that he could live with that. For better or worse. But he could not let that be the end of him, his brother would have found that pathetic, ever the perfectionist that he was. So, Francis resolved to carry for brother's sake and his own.
He carried on as normal with high school after a few weeks of mourning, as was proper. He got a girlfriend, who he liked and he did fairly well in school. He prospered in sports, as if nothing had happened.
This fact would haunt him in his dreams, that he could hide his involvement and carry on as if nothing happened, but he squashed those worries every time they popped up. He had no time for such petty things.
Francis joined the Army at the age of twenty one, and was sent out to the Middle East and later Africa, as many wars were started by superpowered warlords and for a myriad of other reasons. His years in the Marines hardened him further, as he progressed with his career. His competence as a leader on the battlefield carried him far, not to even his proficiency with marksmanship.
He left the Marine Corps after six years of leal service, and returned to civilian life. He stayed in Vermont with his family for a few short months, before deciding to move to New York. He portrayed this as an opportunity for him to find new job opportunities, to his family. But in truth, he simply wanted to get away from his family. Everytime he was in their home, he could feel Matthew's presence, and sometimes he could swear he could feel the accusing eyes of his parents burning a hole in his back.
After moving to New York, he quickly found a job within the NYPD. He served proudly for a few short years, getting all the way up to the rank of Police Sergeant, with frightening efficiency backing him up. However, New York had found itself to be a major gathering place for parahuman criminal activity. The police department found itself constantly going after gangs led by parahumans, or gangs solely composed of parahumans. Though their investigations and arrests were almost always snubbed or taken off their hands, by the PRT, Parahuman Response Team.
The paramilitary organisation was almost always better suited to deal with any parahuman threats, and Francis could do nothing but grudgingly accept this. And so when a higher ranking member of the PRT offered him a place within the organisation, he could do naught but accept.
And so, Francis worked for the PRT for a lengthy period of over nine years, being involved in the taking down of many different parahuman organisations and gangs. His time in the PRT was marred largely by tragedy, as many of the friends he made along the way, lost their lives to the powerful parahumans they faced. They only sometimes had the support of the Protectorate, and even when they did, it rarely stopped the parahuman "supervillains" from killing members of his team. His team eventually even got the name of the "Death Squad" as many of its members perished, as the team was sent against threats clearly far above its paygrade.
Eventually, he asked for a transfer away from New York. And of course, he got sent to Brockton Bay, a hellhole infested by an unnaturally large number of parahuman criminal organisations, like the Empire 88 or the Azn Bad Boys. This was not slightly close to what Francis had wanted from his new posting, it was far worse in fact. But yet, he decided to still work there, maybe it was due to the fact that he despised parahumans or that he was hopelessly unwilling to give up.
After a few months the reality of the city's situation became clear to Francis; the PRT nor the Protectorate could touch the Capes, as they far outnumbered their number of parahumans. It was so bad in fact that the organisation was so desperate as to use the junior version of the Protectorate, the Wards. Children who were less than sixteen year old, were being pushed to fight against monsters like Lung or Hookwolf. He wasn't sure if this disgusted him, or made him strangely proud of the organisations pragmatism.
Regardless, in Brockton Bay he could do even less then in New York. The PRT was largely unable to touch ABB nor the Empire Eighty-Eight, though they could always rough up the druggies known as the Archers Bridge Merchants. This frustrated Francis immensely; they could not truly go after literal Nazis, but they could beat down and arrest druggies? He nearly got fired after going on a tirade during a mission briefing.
However, despite of his frustration at the PRT for their stance on crime in Brockton Bay, he remained working as a PRT agent. However, soon after his tirade, he was scouted out by a mysterious private military organisation, who supposedly worked in Brockton Bay. Francis was obviously unbelieving of this at the start, but after he agreed to be brought to their base of operations under blinds, he quickly changed his mind.
They offered him a job as a security contractor, protecting the parahuman known as Coil. He agreed, perhaps out of sheer pragmatism or due to being more then done with law enforcement. They swore him to secrecy on what he saw and did under the PMC, and he agreed without a second thought. The pay was more than satisfactory, and who had he been fooling by looking for justice when working with an organisation that refused to arrest Nazis?
And so, Francis Holloway's life carried on as normal, working as a PRT agent by day, and as security for a mysterious parahuman by night . He did morally questionable things, and as it became clear that he did not care, they gave him more and more morally black tasks. And he did not care.
This was his life up until one faithful day in January 2011.
