Simon Francium — Kill the Sun

Simon Francium is an Aegis Protector whose investigation of Envy brings him into contact with Nick. He combines institutional authority with personal judgment: instead of executing Nick for possessing the Null's power, Simon creates a lethal safeguard and entrusts Nick with a mission against Envy. His decisions save Nick, help expose Envy's servants, and connect Nick to Aegis, while their later conflict over Nick's crimes tests Simon's belief that humanity can still benefit from him. (Chapters 231–236 and 487–502)

Biography

Entrusting humanity's danger to an unknown Extractor

Simon arrives in Crimson Fungus City as a Protector investigating Nick's contact with an Envy relay. He initially treats Nick as a low-ranking witness and prepares to dismiss him, but notices that fear alone does not explain his refusal to leave. Simon clears the room, cuts power to the Containment Unit so the exchange will not be recorded, and listens when Nick reveals the Null-derived ability that makes him a target. His knowledge of a previous orphan with a related power lets him assess the claim as a genuine strategic danger rather than an implausible boast. (Chapters 231–232)

The danger gives Simon a brutal choice: Nick's death would deny Envy an Eternal-derived ability, yet Nick has voluntarily accepted that possibility to protect a city that treated him poorly. Simon interprets that willingness as the selflessness Aegis needs and rejects immediate execution. He embeds foreign Zephyx near Nick's Synchronizer instead, trusting him to trigger an instantaneous fiery death if captured. This choice preserves a valuable life while making Nick personally responsible for preventing Envy from taking his power, and the concealed charge remains in place for years. (Chapters 232–234, 251, and 318)

Simon then turns trust into responsibility. Because a greater relay implies that a powerful servant of Envy is secretly contained in the city, he asks Nick to identify the Manufacturer hiding it. Simon explicitly distrusts the Governor and powerful Manufacturers, whose financial interests could suppress an honest investigation, whereas Nick has already put humanity before himself. He also uses Aegis's authority to prevent Nick's quiet assassination and forces the city to give him both the wealth-producing Specter he helped capture and a second equivalent reward, demonstrating that sacrifice for humanity should receive material protection rather than empty praise. (Chapters 235–236)

Returning to judge Nick and reshape Crimson City

Years later, Nick removes Simon's Zephyx charge to signal an emergency while Julian Winter is about to consume him. Simon senses the removal immediately, reaches Crimson City with extraordinary speed, shields Nick in white fire, and easily suppresses the Fanatic. His interrogation is not automatic absolution: he challenges Nick for withholding the Sea King's allegiance and allowing hundreds of Extractors to be enslaved, questions his readiness to kill people who know his ability, and detects gaps in his account. Yet Nick's discovery of the Nightmare is important enough that Simon accepts the risk of taking him to Aegis for verification. (Chapters 487–489)

The journey changes their relationship from investigator and asset into something briefly resembling friendship. Simon carries Nick across continents, explains Aegis's geography, ranks, enemies, treasury, and Zephyx-Manipulation manuals, and carefully limits what he reports to his superior. After the old Champion accepts Nick and names him Dusk, Simon escorts him through induction and explains the ancient meaning of the name. Their shared allegiance to humanity creates camaraderie even though Simon dislikes Nick's secrecy and hardline methods; Simon can recognize conviction without agreeing with every means used to express it. (Chapters 489–497)

That camaraderie fractures when Nick openly admits releasing the Crimson Sea, cooperating with Julian, and causing thousands of innocent deaths. Simon believes such crimes ordinarily deserve execution, but he also defers to the judgment of the Old Champion and Left Arm, whose confidence in Nick now exceeds his own. He executes Julian with an inferno, helps remove the corrupt Governor, validates Aria Light's appointment, and carries the new government's contracts and orders into effect. He leaves coldly, hoping Nick succeeds for his victims rather than for himself and promising to hold him to his willingness to die if the experiment fails. (Chapters 499–502)

Five years of results soften that judgment without erasing it. Returning as one of the inspectors of the Liaison experiment, Simon examines Crimson City rather than accepting a staged presentation. He sees that malnutrition and desperate poverty have sharply declined, identifies remaining failures involving mental illness, and judges those gaps against the unprecedented overall improvement. When Nick explains that power must serve Aegis and humanity, Simon accepts that his heart remains directed toward the right goal. He joins the favorable verdict, praises the truth of Nick's earlier claims, and parts from him with professional warmth. (Chapters 554–557)

Guarding Envy, carrying secrets, and dying at his post

Simon's ordinary assignment remains the containment of Envy, not Nick's secret history. The information he gives Aegis is preserved as routine mission reporting, while the true meeting with the Old Champion remains known only to a very small group. When Nick later lives under another identity, Simon is one of the few surviving people who knows both his former name and primary ability. Nick considers him a possible disclosure risk because Simon does not know about Aegis's internal crisis, but he also believes Simon probably assumes that Nick died in the Maw and has no evidence that Simon betrayed the secret. (Chapters 673–674 and 708)

That long service ends when Envy escapes. Greed blocks the guards' communications and joins Envy in killing everyone at the containment site, including Simon and four other Protectors. Aegis learns of the disaster only after the fighting is over, leaving Simon no opportunity to warn the organization or retreat. Nick remembers him not merely as a powerful Protector but as the first person who proved that a powerful human could act for more than personal gain and as the person who once saved his life. (Chapters 732 and 774)

Simon's death also exposes the cost of treating Envy as effectively contained. His superior, Aurelia Icegem, had been reassigned before the breakout because her abilities were considered wasted at the site; she survives and later becomes the Shield known as Icestorm, while Simon and the replacement guard force die. The corpus identifies Greed's intervention and blocked communication as the immediate explanation found by investigators, but does not describe Simon's individual last actions or establish whether his fire could meaningfully counter the combined attackers. (Chapters 732 and 830)

A paper trail that outlives its author

Centuries later, Simon's unremarkable mission reports become a route back to the hidden history of Nick Dusk. The New Champion notices that Simon repeatedly visited Crimson City around Envy-related incidents, Anatomy's destruction, Nick's induction, and the sudden creation of the Liaison Program. Because Simon wrote ordinary reports rather than a complete secret account, the records do not directly reveal what happened; their timing instead supplies a chain of circumstantial connections that the Champion can compare against edited databases and other local histories. (Chapter 943)

The same records preserve Simon's restraint as an absence. The Champion concludes that Simon discovered Julian was a Specter and should also have recognized Nick's involvement, yet Simon neither executed Nick nor documented a conventional punishment. That gap helps the Champion distinguish Nick Nick, Nick Dusk, and the later Julian Winter as connected identities. By the time Nick reflects on the last human who personally knows him, Simon belongs to the long-dead generation whose choices still shape that reconstruction, making his early act of trust consequential far beyond his lifetime. (Chapters 943 and 956)

Appearance and personality

Simon is a tall man with bright red hair that resembles flame. Although he looks to be in his thirties when Nick first meets him, he has already lived long enough to possess centuries of experience by the Liaison inspection. He wears Aegis's white uniform, marked with the organization's shield, sun, and stars, and his status is immediately legible to city officials and Extractors. His calm hovering presence and deep voice reinforce the authority that lets him silence Governors without theatrics. (Chapters 231, 487, and 555)

He is observant, measured, and morally demanding. Simon notices Nick's concealed desperation, listens before deciding, and rewards genuine public service, but he does not excuse suffering merely because the person responsible claims good intentions. His loyalty is to humanity through Aegis, especially the Old Champion, and this can make him defer to senior judgment even when his personal opinion turns against Nick. He prefers less dangerous reform and peaceful cooperation, yet accepts severe force, secrecy, and personal sacrifice when he believes humanity's survival requires them. (Chapters 231–236, 488–502, and 554–557)

Abilities and Zephyx

Simon is a Protector and holds the Aegis office of Judge, placing him above Agents and below Justiciars and Shields. His base capabilities include Protector-level speed, flight, perception, Zephyx control, and durability; only Protectors are considered reliably safe on intercontinental journeys. The supplied corpus does not identify the Specter that granted his synchronized ability, describe how he first obtained it, or formally separate innate effects from advanced Zephyx Manipulation. (Chapters 231, 489, 496, and 557)

White fire

Simon's signature combat manifestation is white fire. When Julian is about to consume Nick, a storm of it surrounds Nick without burning him and converts Julian's attacking mouth into loose Zephyx. Simon then subdues the Fanatic with ease. During Julian's execution, he activates an overwhelming inferno with a finger snap; the flames consume the Containment Unit's interior and kill Julian so completely that even a Fallen is said not to have survived the attack. These uses show selective protection, area destruction, and extreme heat or disintegration, but the corpus does not explain the selection mechanism or maximum range. (Chapters 487–488 and 499–500)

The fire can also surround other people while Simon carries or protects them, as Aria, the Governor, Mundus, and Zarren hover behind him inside white flames. This suggests a fine degree of control rather than an indiscriminate blaze. Its explicit counters are not fully tested on page: Simon warns that Envy can extinguish light and exploit the Nightmare's darkness, and he avoids bringing the much weaker Nick close to Envy's crater, but the corpus never depicts Simon directly fighting Envy with this ability. (Chapters 487 and 489)

Flight, speed, and perception

Simon can levitate other people with controlled Zephyx and carry Nick at roughly fifty kilometers per second, crossing sea and continent in moments while maintaining a conversation. He can conceal himself and Nick from ordinary notice during their inspection of Crimson City, and his senses are reliable enough that Julian cannot plausibly survive by deceiving him. These applications make him an effective responder and escort as well as a combatant. His speed is still strategically constrained by assignment and enemy positioning: he can answer Crimson City's emergency only because Envy remains nearby, while Aegis's stronger enemies restrict where Protectors and Shields can move. (Chapters 489, 498, and 500)

Embedded suicide failsafe

Simon's most consequential technical use of Zephyx is the charge he places near Nick's neck and Synchronizer. He transfers the warm foreign Zephyx by touching Nick's forehead; Nick can sense the danger and activate it through thought even if Envy prevents speech. Triggering it would make Nick's head and torso erupt instantly, incinerate the Synchronizer, and deny Envy the Null-derived blueprint. The charge persists for years without accidental activation and can be deliberately removed, which Simon immediately senses as an alarm. Its exact range, maintenance cost, construction method, and whether it could be neutralized by another Protector are not stated. (Chapters 233–234, 251, 318, and 487)

Zephyx knowledge and institutional expertise

Simon understands ability evolution, Specter communication relays, containment strategy, and high-level Zephyx Manipulation. He recognizes compatibility between Nick's abilities, explains that learned manipulation can reproduce ability-like effects, and has access to the rank-three manual reserved for Protectors. His expertise is practical rather than omniscient: he misjudges some of Nick's history, cannot verify the Nightmare alone, and submits extraordinary claims to Shields with better interrogation and research capabilities. This willingness to escalate evidence rather than claim certainty is a significant part of how his power functions within Aegis. (Chapters 232, 235, and 489–496)

Relationships

Nick: Simon begins as Nick's investigator, becomes the first powerful person to trust his willingness to sacrifice himself, and gives him both a failsafe and a mission. He later saves Nick from Julian, brings him into Aegis, and helps establish his Liaison authority. Nick's admissions destroy their brief friendship, but Simon ultimately accepts evidence that Nick's reforms genuinely help humanity, and Nick remembers him with gratitude after his death. (Chapters 231–236, 487–502, 554–557, and 732)
Old Champion: Simon reveres the Old Champion as humanity's wisest and most selfless leader. When his own judgment says Nick deserves execution, his trust in the Champion's endorsement prevents him from overriding the Shields and allows the Liaison experiment to proceed. (Chapters 381–382, 494, and 499–502)
Aurelia Icegem / Icestorm: Aurelia is Simon's Justiciar and long-time superior at the Envy containment site. Simon reports to her while keeping Shield-level secrets compartmentalized. Her reassignment saves her from the breakout that kills Simon, and she later becomes a Shield. (Chapters 490, 497, 732, and 830)
Envy: Simon spends much of his service helping contain Envy and counter its network. He investigates greater relays, creates the safeguard that would deny Envy Nick's ability, and ultimately dies when Greed helps Envy break the containment site's communications and defenses. (Chapters 231–235, 487–490, and 732)
Julian Winter: Simon rescues Nick from Julian, contains and interrogates the Fanatic, and later executes him under the Left Arm's order. Julian's final revelations reshape Simon's view of Nick even though they do not save Julian's life. (Chapters 487–500)

Items

No specific recurring inventory item is assigned to Simon in the supplied corpus. His Aegis uniform, access to a rank-three Zephyx-Manipulation manual, and use of institutional contracts mark his office and authority, but none is established as a distinctive personal possession carried through his arc. (Chapters 231, 495–496, and 501–502)