Difference between revisions of "Ajax"

My name is Ajax. All my life, all I've wanted to do is save people. That's just how I was raised. I don't have a tragic past, lost parents, or a vengeful arch nemesis. I've had a great life, to be honest.

This is what I wanted to write, what everyone would want to hear. However, you all deserve to know the truth. I know at this point I will have been gone for many years. After all this time, you all deserve to know this. I am not the real Ajax.

My real name is Ralph Valetti. The real Ajax is dead and buried somewhere on one of the islands off of Talos. Given when this letter will be read, he will have been buried there for nearly fifteen years.

I killed Ajax. I shot him and he died. I don't know how - he was supposed to be invulnerable. I didn't even mean to do it. I was scared, I was petty - I was a coward. Ajax stared into my eyes before the life left his body. In that moment his power was somehow transferred to me.

I buried Ajax and ran. I was terrified. I stayed in hiding for weeks, testing these new powers. I really couldn't be hurt - believe me, I tried. But how then did I kill Ajax? This is something that I still have not figured out.

It was in my fourth week of hiding that I saw on the news people were searching for Ajax, wondering about his disappearance.

I returned to where I buried Ajax and took his outfit. He always wore a helmet, so no one knew his identity. We both had a similar look in the outfit - anyone would have, really. I looked at his body one last time before burying him. Maybe I did it out of fear of being discovered. Or maybe I really wanted to be a hero. I still don't know.

I took Ajax's life, his powers, and then finally, I took his name.

I can only hope those reading this now can forgive me for what I've done, for who I was. I did everything I could to redeem myself, to fill in Ajax's shoes. I even forced my way into the Omega Team. I was one of the few who found Hero 1 and told him I was going to join.

Hero 1 told me that this mission will be one that we will not be coming back from. I knew that from the start. My one wish is that when this begins, I will be able to save as many lives as possible - as an indestructible man going in with a team of magicians, it's the one thing I'm there to do.

If everything goes according to plan, the rest of the Omega Team will be reading this now, with myself stuck somewhere on the Rikti Homeworld. Whatever you do, please do not come looking for me. No more heroes should die on my behalf.

No matter what happens, just please keep living your lives, even if it is as the forfeit of my own. That's what the original Ajax would have wanted. It's what I would want.