37New Employ
9. The New You
Disclaimer: I do not own Helluva Boss
Ajax, the now recently turned young man, lets out a breath of air as he proceeds to do some push-ups in the middle of the office floor. After his actions from earlier and what he did, it was like a wave washed over him with new invigorated energy that practically slammed into him first. Once he grabbed some items and came back, he didn't have much time to truly get used to his new self.
Which is why Ajax is currently putting himself through his paces by doing push ups in front of everyone.
As it stands, no longer does he have the look and features of an old grizzled war veteran, but instead Ajax has a young fair, unblemished face with no scaring or advanced aging to speak up, his skin is a slightly less tanned shade from what he had before due to not having to spend several decades outside in every combat engagement known to mankind, his hair black with no graying and eyes as red as always. He's a few inches shorter than what he was before but that doesn't seem like a concern for him at the moment all things considered.
"Man, this is what youth feels like?" Ajax mutters questioningly with a smile on his face as he chuckles while doing his push-ups. "I feel incredible. I noticed the difference but holy fuck!" He almost laughs at this.
"Considering how slowly you were before, I guess I can imagine." Loona smirks as she watches the spectacle in front of her as she leans against her desk.
"Still doesn't this seem a little… much?" Moxxie asks from his current position.
"Aww c'mon Mox. Let the guy live a little. I'm liking this." Millie comments as she kisses her husband, making him have a dopey smile for a second before he has to make sure not to fall off. Why?
Because M are currently sitting on Ajax's back as the human does his push-ups, adding their combined weight to get him to make it more challenging, and because he mentioned it was too easy at first.
"Really going all in, aren't you?" Loona mutters to him with a smile as she watches the spectacle in front of her. Before Ajax was pretty laid back and just lazed about really, not to mention him looking through the grimoire constantly to satisfy his boredom. Now seeing him means he may find other activities to distract himself that isn't messing with her desk.
"I have to… huff… got to get used to being fit and active again. Man… it's been so long since I was able to push myself like this." Ajax replies as he starts to feel himself get winded and sore. Of course he's sure that he's going to feel the soreness way worse the next day but that's fine with him. Par for the course to getting his new self into proper shape.
"Yeahyeahyeah we get it alright. You got a new bod and shit and you wanna show it off. Not in front of my daughter fucker." He outright threatens Ajax but the human is barely listening at this point. Loona just narrows her eyes at her adoptive father before looking back at Ajax. "But what I wanna know is… how the fuck… did this happen?!" He straight up shouts, getting everyone's attention. "Like you left to get some payment and then you come back… like this! Like I think we deserve some other explanations and shit with all this… shit… fuck." He grumbles at the repeat words.
Ajax does a couple more before stopping and letting out a breath of air. "Yeah, I suppose your right. I owe you all that much. Hey, can you two…?" Ajax mutters to his two passengers.
"Heyup!" Millie with grace jumps of his back as she pats her pants a little while Moxxie is more careful in getting off of him. Once they are off, Ajax pushes himself into a handstand position before he pushing himself up and landing on his feet. He smiles at the move he was able to pull off.
*ClapClapClapClapClap*
Everyone looks to see Moxxie giving him a small applause at the movement. He looks to see everyone staring at him before he looks away embarrassed. Millie smiles at him and hugs him, making him feel better.
"Thank you Moxxie." Ajax thanks him for the encouragement. Ajax's face contorts a little to pain as he grunts, "Ahh… dammit." He murmurs as he rolls his shoulder a little and moves to sit down on the couch. "Damn… almost pulled something. Gotta be careful." He mutters as he wipes some sweat on his brow. Soon enough someone hands him a bottle of water from one of their minifridges. "Thank you." He grabs and looks up to Loona who is already looking away a little frantically on her phone. He looks confused at her before shrugging and taking a large swig of water. After downing a quarter of the bottles contents, he breathes a sigh of relief. "That's good stuff." He nods before looking at the others as they look expectantly, although Blitzø looks impatient and annoyed but that's a normal look for him usually. "Alright, what do you wanna know?"
"What happened after you left the office?" Moxxie asks the question, which from behind him Blitzø looks like he wants to strangle him for interrupting him but relents as that was the question he was going to ask.
Ajax nods and leans back in his seat. "After I left, Lyle, Loopty and I went to the parking lot where they began to explain to me what it was they wanted from me. I thought it was another assassination contract, like they didn't want some technician or rival that might have messed with their invention. Instead, they came at me with a way different job in mind."
A Couple Days Ago…
"You want me to destroy what?" A still older and surprised Ajax asks for clarification.
"Our company building, offices, files, computers, our aging machine invention, everything!" Loopty boisterously states with a flare of his arms. "Rip, burn and blow up everything you can get your hands on or even from a distance!" He loudly finishes shouting with a smile on his face.
"…" Ajax looks at him confused before glancing to Lyle, who is still smiling with his piano key teeth evident.
"Here's the thing my boy," Lyle comes up to him in a grandfatherly tone, which confuses Ajax since before they were hit with the aging machine they most likely were younger than him but he doesn't say anything and continues listening. "We had it setup where if one of us croaks, the other would get full control and all the proceeds. However…" Lyle trails off at the awkwardness of why they were asking him in the first place.
"We never came up with a solution as to what would have happened if BOTH of us kicked the bucket!" Loopty chimes in, "To be honest the idea of both of us dying at the same time or even relatively close together never occurred to us, nor was ending up down here even in the afterlife as well." He finishes with a curious tone as he gets a look around Hell.
"Which brings us to the job." Lyle continues, "While we are still living, breathing, or in anyway coherent in some form or another, there is no way we can keep on going knowing those government leeches up there would do who knows what to our inventions and technology!" He states in an almost horrified and depressed tone.
"Not to mention what the other billionaires and trillionaires would do to steal our ideas! AHhhh!"
They both begin crying and hugging one another at the realizations.
Ajax looks at them weirdly at the display, not sure what he's seeing.
"Which brings us back to why we need you." In an instant, they are normal…ish, and have some decorum again as Lyle continues. "We want you to go back up top and prevent anyone from using our technology for their own benefit. Since we are down here, theirs nothing we can do to reap the benefits from up top so we want to make sure no steals or uses anything of ours ever again."
"So! Do we have a deeeaaaaal?" Loopty draws out the last words as he holds out his abnormally long arm into a handshake, same with Lyle.
Ajax looks down at the extended hands before sighing, and nods. "What's the pay?"
This time they get even sider smiles, "That's where the second condition of our contract comes in, which connects with your pay."
This gets him to raise an eyebrow in curiosity.
It doesn't take long for Ajax to find himself back on the surface of Earth, this time outside the factory building of the famous inventors Lyle and Loopty. What was once bustling and pumping out smoke of its use, now stands still with only a few cars being inside the areas parking lot. Ajax lowers the binoculars he's using and gets down from the hill he's on and makes his way down.
With the inventors gone, the place stands still and no one seems to be around. Ajax wastes no time in making his way to the main building area and one of the side doors. When he tries to open it, he grunts as he finds the door locked but sees the keypad next to it. Thankfully, the duo inventors gave him a code that unlocks all the keypad doors in the entire building. A universal code that they only know through memory. Plugging it in, it's open and he makes his way in.
Little bit later, after traversing through the building, he finds himself high up on the catwalks above the main floor of the factory building. The place is a veritable ground of conveyor belts and machinery laying about, with their latest invention sitting smack dab In the middle of the floor.
Ajax looks on carefully, making sure no one can see him, at the few people in the building. Theirs only about a dozen people down there staring at the aging machine. Some of them look like reporters, techs, but Ajax notices some of them look like some of the other famous rich assholes that the inventors talked about a few times. Frankly he doesn't care about them, no doubt doing what the inventors feared and want to steal their technology. One person Ajax does see happens to look vaguely like one of the Gener—
"Mmmm." Ajax grunts as he tightens his grip on the railing and lets out a low growl. He shakes his mind of his memories and cools himself, focusing on the job. From the distance he can't make out what it is they are all talking about, though from the hand gestures seems like they want the machine and use of the factory it seems. He doesn't have to wait long though as soon enough the people all begin to file out of the area and head towards the exit. He slowly makes his way along the catwalks and toward the stairs, taking special care to not make too much noise while also keeping his eyes on the doorways to make sure no one else barges in and interrupts him.
He deliberately goes slow, wasting several minutes as he goes to make sure on one else comes back real quick. He passes by a security office above the main floor. In order to keep the lights on they went ahead and kept the generator running in the place for most of the electrical systems and not the assembly lines or whatever heavy machinery they got in the building. With a flick of the switches and turning on the security monitors, he looks through the various cameras and spots no one else inside the building until he comes to camera pointed outside, where he watches as everyone gets in their various vehicles and heads off. With a smile, he makes his way back down to the main floor of the building.
Not long after, he finds himself standing in front of the aging machine that the duo inventors recently made. He remembers the last time he made it to the factory and glances over at the dial at the side set to "OLD". It was a simple matter really when it came down to it. As much of the security measure they had in the place, it wasn't much for Ajax to steal a technicians uniform with a hardhat and make his way to the machine just as they stepped into their invention. Just a twist of the nob to the furthest setting to advance their age and that was it. Just left and let father time deal with them.
He sighs at the incompetence of his actions and letting something else try and do them. Not confirming it.
He clenches his fists angrily before relaxing soon after and reaching for the dial. With a twist, he sets the machine backward until it reads an age of around his early 20's. And just for good measure…
*CRANK*
He breaks the dial off, making sure its permanently set to the age number so he doesn't do to him what the inventors did to themselves. With that set, he goes ahead and boots up the machine at its control console, recalling the steps and instructions they told him he needed to take in order to set it up properly. A few minutes, some annoyances, some cursing, double and triple checking, he's done.
"Alright then, that should be it." Ajax mutters with a bit of finality in his tone. He reaches up and pulls a large lever down.
Like a fireworks show, the machine bustles to life with machinery whirring, lights flaring and loud noises. He's mentally thankful he made sure everyone was gone, otherwise he's sure people would have been rushing their asses inside to investigate the commotion. He steps up to the door and stands there for a few seconds, taking a deep breath as he does whilst closing his eyes.
After holding it in, he lets out a long breath of air and steps on in. The door closes behind him as he enters, sealing him inside as the machine starts to go haywire as it does what it was meant to do:
Changing a person's age.
It lasts under a minute but its all that was needed for the machine to do its job. When it done, the door opens up with a hiss of air and smoke exiting it.
The new figure stands there just like before. He soon steps forward out of the machine, letting the smoke billow away from him. He soon takes a large deep breath of air as he stretches his arms out to the side, feeling his newly changes bones pop in satisfying ways. Once he's done he lets out the breath of air and lets his arms relax at his sides.
Through that and the feeling he now has, theirs only one comment he can say about the new feeling he has:
"Fuck yeah."
"Woooooww." M both mutter in awe at what happened to their friend.
"Oh yeah. The change, the feeling, everything was like being reborn in New Game plus." Ajax leans back in his seat and just enjoys the feeling of a no longer aching body.
"Well I have to admit, that's pretty impressive." Blitzø comments with a smirk. "You were impressive before but now I can only imagine what type of fucked up shit you'll be able to do now that your longer gonna be slowing our asses down." He continues with a coy smirk.
"You and me both." Ajax doesn't even feel annoyed or angry at the comment from his boss, just immense relief at the fact he's right, now he's no longer going to slow them down in any way. "That was the reward they gave me. Giving me the opportunity to get back my youth before I nuke the entire place. In exchange I was to also grab the data from my use of the machine and give it to them so they can make use of it. Was a reward I now relish." He smiles as he takes a drink of his water.
"So what happened to the factory?" Loona asks, getting his attention. "You said those inventor crazies wanted it destroyed. What did you do?"
At that, Ajax smiles.
Ajax sits on the hill, overlooking the whole area in front of him as he watches in front of him.
The sounds of distant sirens rapidly begin to increase in volume until they are very nearby.
Ajax watches as the entire factory has been completely lit ablaze. The whole building has been turned into one massive bonfire.
He leans back against a tree and watches as the firefighters make an effort to try to put out the fire but its already too late. Once they confirm no ones inside, its all they could do but try and keep the fire from spreading.
Ajax smiles as he moves his hands behind his head.
"I burned it."
"… Nice." Loona comments with a smirk.
"Nice work!" Millie compliments him.
"Thanks Millie. I do good work."
"You sure do. It's a shame you couldn't keep the machine for yourself." Blitzø comments out loud as he pops open a can of beer. "You bought yourself a dozen or so more years of life but if you had that you could practically live forever!... Provided no one puts a bullet in your head but at least now you don't have to worry about being old and decrepit." He bluntly states as he takes a deep swig of his drink.
"He's right. Sinners don't necessarily age down here and it takes demons a long long time before they start to make any progress in terms of aging." Moxxie comments. Now that Ajax thinks about it he wasn't sure what the situation was when it comes to aging in Hell but its good to know.
While the others agree with the whole thing, Ajax nervously and awkwardly gets a look as he scratches the side of his neck. "Not… exactly." He mutters.
This gets their attention as they look at him as he has more information to give them. "What's that?" Moxxie asks.
Ajax sighs as he takes a drink of water. "That is where another part of their reward comes into play. More of a… side effect."
"What is it?" Millie asks curious.
Ajax sighs before answering.
"I won't be able to age anymore." Ajax states with certainty and clarity as he remembers his conversation with Lyle at the theatre.
"Indeeed you won't." Lyle states. "Just like we talked about before my unfortunate demise, the machine as it turns out is a one-time use. You could use it again but it won't affect whatever age you first set yourself as. I tried to figure what or how it happened but due to my advanced age at the time I couldn't get any progress and their was no way I was going to let anyone tinker with the machine like that. It's why I was ready to off myself when you found me up there because their was no way I was going to spend the rest of my days as a decrepit, weak, bed-ridden, shitting-in-my-pants, dementia laden old fart!" He loudly and angrily states as he looks like he's about ready to go on a rampage. No doubt still angry at the fact that these two at the height of their power was ripped away from them.
Ajax steps back as Loopty tries to comfort his partner. "There there. You're not that anymore. You're here now in a new body and a new horizon for us to plunder!" He reminds him of the new location they can currently live and experiment in.
"Eh-hem." Lyle calms down as he adjusts his clothing. "Yes yes. Quite right." He clears his throat and continues, "As I was saying, we don't know what happened with our calculations that resulted in the permanent age setup. That's why if you wish to use the machine to regain your youth, we request that you return to us with the data of your use of the machine, as well as what happened with us."
"It will go a long way in helping us figure out where we went wrong and better help us with making more of our inventions in the future!" Loopty continues with the explanation.
"So, in exchange for use the machine on yourself, you grab the data and bring it back to us before you blow everything to… here?" Lyle says a little confused since he's not sure how to say it since they are in Hell.
Ajax takes a moment to think about the proposition. For a bit he's been depressed when it comes to his aging body and his slow skills. Using the machine would completely negate that and allow him to get back the years he spent fighting for others and use them how he sees fit.
However… theirs no going back from this. This is a permanent change for him. No amount of time would kill him, and he is too good to let just anyone be able to kill him. He could technically live to the end of the sun exploding if he wanted to. He could watch as civilizations rise and fall through time and their own ignorance, greed and anger.
Is this a potential life he's willing to subject himself too?
He looks back up at the inventors… and smiles. "I think I can do that."
"So you really can't age anymore?" Moxxie asks to be sure.
"According to the inventors and if they turn out to be right, then yeah. I can't age." Ajax nods. While some might think it's a big decision, frankly for Ajax it was a simple matter for him to agree. Afterall, war, fighting and strategy has always been his forte. He always figured it would be by some other persons skillet or something out of his control that would end him, just not father time. Doing this, he gets the youth he missed out on and the chance to truly refine his skills with the mindset of a war veteran in his 70's, and the refinable moldable body of a person in his 20's.
"Oh wow! That's amazin'!" Millie calls out in awe at the situation.
"No longer gonna slow it down then." Loona comments as she looks away and scratches her neck.
"You know, I always wondered how it would be the day that you croaked." Blitzø begins to bluntly state with an almost wishful look on his face. "I know you were old, badly so, but the things you can do to kill people almost brings a tear to my eye whenever I see it." He smirks. "It was going to be a shame for when we eventually lose, and then scrape you up once you landed your ass down here once its done. But that's beside the point!" He shouts as he turns back to everyone. "Point being that it was going to be an eventuality and we can all agree that the idea of any one of us dying in any shape or form was going to be a serious metric-fuck-ton of depressing day!" He states, which the others all nod in agreement. With that he eases his voice some as he regards his recently changes employee, "And now, you have gone above and beyond to change that. Because I'm going to be honest with you, the idea of anyone killing you… was a thought I never thought possible… until that fucking snake Striker." At the mention of the name, tempers flare up for a second as they all have looks of anger flash across their faces. Bltzø then blinks and inhales deeply, "But now, from what you've told us you did in the past, what we've seen you were able to do in your old shitty ass body… I think we don't have to worry." He walks away from the window as he walks up to Ajax, making him stand up and look at his boss. Blitzø stops in front of him with a smile and extends his hand, "Welcome soldier. I look forward to working with you."
Ajax smiles at the gesture, "Thank you boss, but let's not forget I'm not a soldier anymore." This gets a confused look from their boss and a curious look from the others. Ajax smiles as he gives off a menacing look and aura about him as continues to speak, "I'm… your Mercenary."
This gets a wide fang-fille smile from the boss of IMP.
"Hell Yeah!"
And smiles from the others.
Things are going to be interesting for the group from now on.
And the human wouldn't have it any other way.
Happy Halloween everyone! Slightly shorter chapter than my usuals and not exactly halloween themed but I think this chapter does well to explain to you all just what happened with Ajax's last job and the goings on from here, plus felt like it would be a good occasion to get this out for you all. Don't know if many of you caught early on what was going to happen with the aging machine but still, it was always an idea I was going to use for my character to be able to get him the experiences and skills of a monster and deadly soldier, but the young unhindered body of a young man.
I think things went alright for how it was done.
Coldblue: It's entirely alright. You don't have to review absolutely every chapter, just whenever YOU want to, on your own time that's best for you really.
1.) I'm not a police sketch artist so I can't go completely too into detail on his features, just some general points on his look to give people a basic idea.
2.) Considering everything Ajax has gone through his whole life, he just might be considered a super soldier with the several decades long experience he's got in combat and war, now wrapped up in a completely undamaged and ready for anything body.
3.) Some of the others will be confused, surprised and possibly excited at the idea of their coworker, friend and partner no longer being close to death's door and has a new lease on time for his life.
4.) Heaven, Hell, Earth, all of them are going to want some answers and a piece of Ajax with him basically cheating death like this. Things are going to get interesting for him and the others from here on out.
Arika 24: Might have gone a little overboard in terms of Blitzø's demanding shouting and such but frankly its rarely a time when he isn't shouting or yelling so my bad.
Bladewolf101: It's that obvious huh? It won't be instant but will take just some time before a pairing will form. In the meantime, Ajax has work to do to get himself reacquainted with his new body.
Now that Ajax has gotten himself a new lease on his life, no longer shackled in time wasted and no able to move forward what he wants instead of the orders from military higher-ups, its time for him and IMP to deal with their next big hurdle:
Human curiosity.
Next time to see what the government is going to do against them
Thank you all for your continued support. I appreciate it. Hope you all continue to like my work as it continues. Go ahead and favorite, follow, review, or don't, whatever you wish. Make sure to have fun reading, but most of all everyone, make sure to have a great day each and every one of you.