Animorphs

For the book series, see Animorphs (book series)

For the TV series, see Animorphs (TV series)

Animorphs
Leader	Jake Berenson
Former leaders	Rachel † (interim) Marco (temporarily)
Members	Jake Berenson Rachel † Tobias Cassie Marco Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill † James † (auxiliary)
Former members	David Mean Rachel † Nice Rachel † Alternate Timelines: Rachel Rachel Tobias Cassie Marco Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill Jake Berenson Tobias Cassie Marco Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill Melissa Chapman
HQ	Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic (formerly) Hork-Bajir Valley
Locations	California
Affiliation	Chee (formerly) Free Hork-Bajir Colony Auxiliary Animorphs United States National Guard
Status	Defunct
Appearances
First Appearance	The Invasion
Last Appearance	The Beginning
TV Series	Animorphs
Game	Animorphs Animorphs: Shattered Reality Animorphs: Know the Secret

"My friends and I are Animorphs. Animal morphers. We can acquire the DNA of another animal, then become that animal. It's the only weapon we have in our war to help save humanity."

―Cassie

The Animorphs (a portmanteau for animal morphers), also known as the Andalite bandits and the Earth Liberation Army, were a group of child soldiers who, with their ability to turn into animals, engaged in guerilla warfare to fend off the Yeerks' invasion of Earth. The original incarnation of the team comprised of five human thirteen year olds who were given the power to morph by an Andalite named Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Later joined by Elfangor's brother Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill and briefly by another human named David, the Animorphs spent three years fighting against the Yeerks and their leader on Earth, Esplin 9466. A second incarnation known as the Auxiliary Animorphs was later formed, and the actions of both teams ultimately ended the Yeerk war.

History

Creation

"We were five kids taking a shortcut home from the mall at night. There was a ship. There was an alien. There was the destructive worm of knowledge: You are not alone. You are not safe. Nothing is what it seems. No one is who they seem to be. The knowledge of betrayal and terror. The awareness of evil. And then, the power. The power made us responsible, see. Without the power the knowledge would have just been a worm of fear eating up our insides. Bad enough. But it was the power that turned fear into obligation, that laid the weight on our unready shoulders. We could become any animal we touched, the Andalite told us. Power enough to win? No. Power enough to fight? Ah, yes."

―Jake

In order to defeat the Yeerk Empire, an omniscient god-like being known as the Ellimist, who had vowed to not directly interfere with conflicts, arranged for six children to form a group to fight against the Yeerks on Earth. He specifically arranged for the Andalite Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul's human son Tobias as well as Elfangor's younger brother Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill to join the team, along with a human boy named Marco and a human girl named Cassie; the former because he was the son of Visser One's host and the latter because she was a sub-temporally grounded anomaly who could break down alternate timelines. With these four individuals, the Ellimist stacked the deck, although he kept this hidden, allowing his enemies Crayak and The Drode to believe that the formation of the group was a mere chance encounter. The remaining two members of the intended team of six was however left to chance.

On a Friday night in 1997, five human thirteen year olds in California walked through an abandoned construction site on their way home back from the mall. The five kids consisted of Jake Berenson, his best friend Marco, his cousin Rachel, his crush Cassie, and a boy from school named Tobias whom Jake had saved from bullies. While Tobias, Cassie and Marco were predestined by the Ellimist's hand to be here at this specific moment in time, Jake and Rachel were not; both of them were there as they happened to be at the mall with Marco and Cassie, their respective best friends.

The Animorphs meet Elfangor. From left to right: Cassie, Tobias, Jake and Rachel. (Marco not pictured.)

While walking through the construction site, they witnessed an alien spaceship land in front of them. Emerging from this ship was an Andalite warrior named Prince Elfangor, who informed the children that there were parasitic alien slug-like creatures known as the Yeerks who took over bodies by entering through the ear canal and hijacking the brain, becoming Controllers; additionally, Elfangor revealed that the Yeerks were already on Earth and had commenced their secret invasion of human society. In order to give them a means to fight back, Elfangor used his Escafil Device to grant the five children the ability to morph – by touching any animal and concentrating, they would be able to acquire its DNA permanently into their system and then become said animal for two hours at a time.

The children then watched as two Bug fighters and the Blade ship of Visser Three, the sole Andalite-Controller in history, arrived on the site. Introduced to Taxxons and Hork-Bajir for the first time, the common host bodies of the Yeerks, the children watched as Visser Three morphed into an Antarean Bogg and ate Elfangor alive, killing the Andalite Prince. The children then fled from the scene, and managed to elude being captured by a pursuing Hork-Bajir-Controller.

First Mission

"The only thing we have going for us is this animal morphing thing. [...] We should head for The Gardens. We need to acquire more DNA — from some animals that are not going to be easy to acquire."
"Yeah. [...] Rachel's right. I think we have to head to The Gardens. We need to get some help from Mother Earth's toughest children. Can you get us in?"
"I can get in free. You guys will have to pay, but I can use my mom's employee discount, so it'll be cheaper."
"Oh, I'm sure we could talk them into letting us in for nothing. Just tell them we're Animorphs."

―Rachel, Jake, Cassie and Marco

The next morning, Tobias, Jake and Cassie tested out their morphing ability and discovered that they could thought-speak while in morph. While the boys found themselves to be nude when they demorphed, Cassie managed to incorporate a skintight outfit after some practice to prevent nudity. They soon learned that Jake's brother Tom as well as members of the local police had been infested by the Yeerks and were now Controllers. Tobias, who had been given certain information by Elfangor, informed the others that the Yeerks had a key weakness; they needed to return to a Yeerk pool every three days in order to feed on Kandrona rays, and that they had to leave their host bodies in order to eat. When both Tom and the policeman-Controller recommended that they join The Sharing, the five teens decided to attend a beach bonfire held by The Sharing, with Tobias observing from the sky with his newly acquired red-tailed hawk morph. The kids realized that the organization, while publicly similar to a co-ed Boy Scouts group, was in actuality a front organization for the Yeerk Empire and that their junior high school's assistant/vice principal Chapman, who was also a Controller, was involved. While Jake was spying on the meeting for full members (a term given to Controllers within The Sharing), he overheard "Tom" mentioning that he would return to the Yeerk pool for a feeding on Monday night. During this visit, Cassie was caught spying by the policeman Controller they had met earlier that day, although he chose not to detain her.

On Monday, Jake spent the morning skipping classes in order to spy on Chapman using his lizard morph, which allowed him to discover a secret entrance to the Yeerk pool in the janitor's closet. Regrouping with the other four at the mall after school, Jake informed the others that with or without their help, he was planning to use the entrance in order to rescue Tom from the Yeerk pool. Marco, who was the only one of the group to be very reluctant to deal with the Yeerks, agreed to participate in this one rescue mission for Jake's sake, while the others readily agreed to join the overall cause. With Marco naming the team as the Animorphs, a portmanteau of animal morphers, they traveled to The Gardens, a local zoo-amusement park combo, in order to acquire the DNA of some exotic animals. Marco, Jake and Rachel acquired a Silverback gorilla, Siberian tiger and African elephant respectively while Tobias and Cassie chose not to acquire anything.

The five Animorphs then returned home for dinner before they were to regroup in front of the school. However, Cassie had been kidnapped by the policeman Controller and was dragged into the Yeerk pool through the school entrance. The Animorphs then followed suit and entered the Yeerk pool themselves. As they descended, they were shocked when they realized it was a massive underground complex and were disturbed as they heard the screams and cries of the various victims who were being tossed in cages.

The Animorphs noticed Cassie being dragged to the infestation pier and decided to save her. As Tobias, who was already in his hawk morph, flew up above, Jake, Rachel and Marco morphed into their battle morphs, with the latter two morphing for the first time. Rachel, as an elephant, crushed a Hork-Bajir-Controller under her foot and also used her foot to pop a Taxxon-Controller's body before rolling around its guts with her foot. She then wrapped her trunk around the human-Controller and tossed him across the cavern. Jake and Marco, now a tiger and gorilla respectively, attacked the incoming Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers as well; Marco punched the Hork-Bajir hosts, Jake used his teeth and claws to weave through their blades while also biting them, and Rachel used her trunk and tusks to toss Hork-Bajir hosts away. Defeating them with ease, the Animorphs made their way to the cages and freed the hosts. Jake was about to use his thought-speak to reveal his identity to Tom before Rachel informed him that Cassie was about to be infested. As Jake ran towards her, Tobias plummetted from above and used his talons to gouge out the eyes of the Hork-Bajir-Controller dragging Cassie, allowing her to break free.

Jake in tiger morph attacks Visser Three

As Cassie morphed into a horse and started to help them herd the freed hosts, which included Tom, towards the staircase they had come from, they were impeded by Visser Three. Believing that they were Andalites in morph, Visser Three then morphed into an Unnamed Creature with Eight Heads and Eight Legs that could shoot fireballs out of his mouth and began firing them at the Animorphs as well as the freed hosts. His fireballs successfully hit many of the freed Hork-Bajir and human hosts, many of whom either burned to death or were recaptured. Tobias, who had been flying up high within the complex, clung to a hidden rock face to avoid being struck by one of the Visser's many fireballs. The Animorphs, minus Tobias, tried to run up the stairs along with a group of freed hosts but a group of Taxxons stood in their way. Marco then grabbed them in his arms and used his gorilla strength to twist their bodies, popping them, while Rachel crushed them with her feet. As the Animorphs started to run up the stairs, with Rachel partially demorphing since her elephant morph could not climb, the Visser followed them. The stairway passage eventually became too narrow for Visser Three's giant morph, forcing him to use his fireballs to create a wall of fire in front of the Animorphs to trap them. Cornered, Tom lunged at the Visser but was knocked off the stairs, which caused Jake to attack the Visser in rage before he and his friends leaped over the wall of fire and successfully escaped from the Yeerk pool.

As they emerged out of the janitor's closet and back into their school in their battle morphs, with Rachel half-demorphed, the only freed host that was still with them was a woman that had been on Cassie's horseback. They then went their separate ways, demorphed, and went home. Tobias, who was still stuck inside of the Yeerk pool complex, was eventually able to escape on his own, although he remained in morph for over two hours and was now permanently trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk. While chalking their first mission up as a failure since Tom had been reinfested, the Animorphs were grateful that they at least survived.

Early Operations

"There are five of us. Just five: Jake, Cassie, Marco, Tobias, and me. Marco came up with a name for us, for what we are now. He called us Animorphs. I guess that's as good a name as any for what we are. Mostly, I still just feel like a normal kid, you know? But I guess normal kids don't turn into elephants or bald eagles. And normal kids don't spend their free time fighting to save the world from the nightmares called Yeerks."

―Rachel

As Cassie taught the Animorphs how to incorporate skintight clothing into a morphing outfit, the group decided to acquire raptor morphs, with Jake acquiring a peregrine falcon, Rachel acquiring a bald eagle and Cassie and Marco choosing to acquire the same osprey. Just a little over a week after their trip to the Yeerk pool, the Animorphs decided to find another way to gain new intel on Yeerks as the janitor's entrance to the pool complex had been sealed. Their idea was to use Rachel's friendship with Chapman's daughter Melissa to get close to Chapman himself, although Melissa was not keen on hanging out with Rachel. Forced to pivot, Rachel acquired and morphed into Melissa's pet cat in order to enter the Chapman Residence. Rachel followed Chapman into his basement, where she eavesdropped on private conversations that his Yeerk, Iniss 226, was having with Visser Three. Rachel was then caught and brought to the abandoned construction site, where Visser Three had landed with his Blade ship. As she was loaded onto the ship, Jake, who had secretly been on Rachel's back in flea morph, jumped off and demorphed in a dark corner of the ship before remorphing into a tiger. Jake then attacked Visser Three while Rachel partially demorphed her cat paws to form human fingers so that she could open the cat carrier. The two then ran as Visser Three morphed into a three-legged rock beast, although Jake was fast enough to flee while Tobias picked Rachel up with his talons and flew her to safety.

Soon afterwards, Tobias discovered a Yeerk Truck ship in the mountains that was draining water from a lake. The other four Animorphs then acquired and morphed into wolves and traveled to the mountains through the national forest, where they stayed in morph for 127 minutes and were nearly trapped, causing Tobias to discover that the two-hour limit was not exactly 120 minutes. Tobias then succumbed to his hawk instincts and decided to live as a wild red-tailed hawk, establishing a meadow and killing prey for food. A few days later, the Animorphs decided to return to the mountains and infiltrate the Truck ship, with a plan to uncloak the ship's invisibility while it flew above the city, thereby exposing the alien ship to humanity; they believed that this would result in the authorities realizing they were facing an extraterrestrial threat and taking over the fight. In order to get inside the Truck ship, the four morph-capable Animorphs morphed into trout and entered the lake, where they were sucked through the ship's intake pipes. However, they found themselves trapped inside the water tank. The Animorphs then agreed that they did not want to be taken alive and asked Tobias, who was flying outside, if he could destroy the ship so that it would kill them. Tobias managed to snatch a Dracon beam from a Taxxon and destroyed the Truck ship's controls, causing it to careen. The ship then collided with a Bug fighter, with the point of impact being the water tank, thereby creating a hole for the Animorphs to escape through via their bird morphs. The Truck ship then crashed onto the ground and was destroyed by the Yeerks, giving the Animorphs a small semblance of victory, even though their ultimate goal was a failure.

Rescue of Ax

The Animorphs find the Dome ship

"How long until your people return to Earth?"
"One of your years. Maybe two."
"Two years! Five kids against an enemy that has destroyed half the galaxy? Five of us?"
"Six, my Prince."
"Six. Well then, with six it shouldn't be any problem."

―Cassie, Ax, Jake and Marco

A few weeks after receiving their powers, Cassie and Tobias started receiving visions of an Andalite calling to them from beneath the ocean. In order to rescue him, the four morph-capable Animorphs acquired bottlenose dolphins from The Gardens and traveled to a river estuary that led into the ocean. However, while swimming in the ocean, they noticed a humpback whale being attacked by a group of tiger sharks. The Animorphs attacked the sharks to save the whale, although Marco was bitten in half and was nearly killed. As Marco demorphed, the whale, dubbed the great one, brought Marco to the surface and telepathically informed Cassie of where the Andalite was located. However, the location was too far for a dolphin to reach within two hours. Two days later, the Animorphs acquired seagulls and flew out to a container ship in the ocean, where they demorphed and hid as stowaways for an hour. They then jumped off the ship and morphed into dolphins and quickly found an Andalite Dome ship.

Entering the ship, they met an adolescent Andalite named Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, who was the younger brother of Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, the Andalite Prince who had given them the morphing power. Aximili, shortened to "Ax" by the Animorphs, decided to fight alongside them until he could return to his people and asked them who their Prince was. The other Animorphs looked to Jake, who Ax then dubbed "Prince Jake". Cassie was a little upset to find out Ax was around their age, as she had hoped that they would find an adult Andalite who would take over the fight for them. She then asked how long it would take for Andalite forces to come and Ax responded that it would a year or two, which demoralized Jake when he realized they were the only people fighting the Yeerk Empire on Earth even though they were only children. The Yeerks then located the Dome ship, prompting the Animorphs and Ax to escape, with Ax using a tiger shark morph he had acquired during his confinement. While Visser Three chased them in a mardrut morph, the great one and his whale allies showed up and attacked the Visser, allowing the team to escape.

Upon returning to land, Ax and Tobias were introduced to each other. As he could not walk around in his Andalite form, Ax acquired Jake, Rachel, Cassie and Marco and blended the four DNA strands to create a unique human morph. He was then brought to Cassie's farm, as the property contained forests, meadows and woods that he could hide and live within. While the humans considered Ax to be an official member of the Animorphs, Ax did not, instead viewing himself as one of their allies who took orders from Jake.

Ant Dismemberment and Meeting Visser One

"It had gotten to all of us. It's not so easy to just forget terror. It's not easy to just ignore the memory of your leg being ripped off. Of being dismembered. Torn apart. One of these days, I thought, one of us is going to go crazy. Totally, lock-me-up-in-a-rubber-room nutso. It was too much. This wasn't how life was supposed to be. One of us would snap. One of us would lose it. It could happen, even to strong people."

―Marco

Ax, who was living in the forest bordering Cassie's farm, wished to return to the Andalite homeworld; since he needed a spacecraft in order to fly home, the Animorphs decided to steal a Bug fighter. Ax proposed an idea where he would build a Yeerk Distress Beacon to summon a Bug fighter to them, stating that he was aware of a frequency that the Yeerk Empire used as the Andalites had used it in the past to send them false instructions. In order to build the beacon, Jake and Marco brought Ax, in his human morph, to the mall in order for Ax to get the parts he needed from Radio Shack. However, Ax was enticed by the smell of Cinnabon and went into a mad frenzy at the food court, eating food off of people's table. While being chased by the mall police, Ax demorphed publicly at the mall, causing a panic. Jake, Marco and Ax then ran out of the mall, with city police on their tail, and ran into a grocery store, where Marco yelled out a bomb threat to evacuate the store. Stashing the Radio Shack bag in a trash can, the three acquired lobsters from the tank at the back of the store and morphed into them before the police could enter the store. An hour later, they were purchased by a woman, who took them home. Marco began to demorph right before he could be dropped into a pot of water and nearly avoided being boiled alive. The three of them then demorphed and found themselves in the woman's kitchen, but told the screaming woman that it was just a dream.

They recovered the Radio Shack bag from the bag and Ax created the beacon, although it was useless without a Z-Space transponder, which would allow the distress signal to be sent across Z-Space and reach any cloaked Yeerk ships. Realizing that "Chapman" would have one, the Animorphs and Ax morphed into black garden ants, which they acquired from the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, and entered Chapman's backyard, where they entered his house through a crack in the foundation. They found themselves in Chapman's secret basement office, where they demorphed and retrieved the transponder before they remorphed into ants and carried the transponder back through the crack. However, they were then ambushed by the native ant colony whose territory they had invaded; the enemy ants stung them with poison while ripping out their limbs before biting their waists with their mandibles in an attempt to bisect them. Screaming in pain through thought-speak, the Animorphs and Ax demorphed and burst through the ground. The next day at school, the human Animorphs struggled with the traumatic aftermath of their experienced being dismembered while in ant morph.

With the transponder on hand, Ax finished the distress beacon, and the Animorphs decided to spring their trap outside of a town, at a quarry an hour's flight away. Privately, Marco told Jake that this would be his last mission and that he would be retiring, and mentioned how his mother's two year-death anniversary was coming up and that, with all the close calls with death he had, he did not want his father leaving flowers on two graves. With Ax having acquired a northern harrier, the six of them flew to the quarry, where Ax activated the distress beacon while the human Animorphs assumed their battle morphs; as Cassie did not have a battle morph, she chose to morph into the wolf as it was her most dangerous morph. However, as Ax had used an outdated frequency that the Yeerks had already been tricked with, they realized it was a trap.

The Animorphs and Ax then found themselves surrounded by a hundred Hork-Bajir-Controllers armed with Dracon beams as well as Visser Three himself, who ordered them to get onto his Blade ship as he wished to bring them to the Pool ship and present them to Visser One. As the Blade ship departed from the quarry and flew into space, the team looked out of a window and saw Earth, a view that they admired, before they saw the Pool ship before the Blade ship docked with it. Visser Three then presented the Animorphs and Ax to Visser One; to their shock, Marco and Jake discovered that her host body was none other than Marco's mother. As the other Animorphs had not met Marco's mother nor know what she looked like, Marco privately thought-spoke with Jake and asked him not to disclose it to anyone else. Visser Three pondered what to do with them, and considered infesting them; this prompted Ax to yell at Visser Three, who then wondered why Ax was the only one speaking to him while the other Animorphs remained silent and still in their Earth morphs. He then shrugged and ordered the Animorphs to be imprisoned in a holding cell on the Pool ship, although the Animorphs were then freed by Visser One's guards, since Visser Three's successful capture of the "Andalite bandits" could jeopardize her career. The Animorphs then fought their way through the Pool ship and took a dropshaft to the floor with the escape pods, where they took one, which was programmed to return them to the quarry, and successfully escaped from the ship. Marco, now with a purpose to fight as he wished to save his mother, decided to fully commit to being a member of the Animorphs.

Jake's Infestation

Jake was then accidentally infested by the Yeerk that previously resided in his brother's head, Temrash 114. The rest of the team soon discovered this, and confined Jake for three days, starving Temrash of life-sustaining Kandrona rays. Before Temrash died, Jake saw a vision of a horrifying red-eyed creature. This vision would haunt his dreams for a long time to come.

Destroying the Kandrona

"A handful of kids fighting an alien invasion? Look what's happening. Tobias is trapped in a morph. Rachel is starting to use morphing to get away from her problems. The other night I woke up in bed, and I didn't know what I was. I didn't know if I had hands or fins or claws or talons. Maybe you and Cassie are immune, Jake. But I doubt it."
"We can't give up."
"All we ever do is lose. We annoy the Yeerks. Maybe we blow up a ship, or have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do is barely escape with our lives."

―Marco and Jake

This section needs a rewrite

The Animorphs' first major victory against the Yeerks came when they were able to find and destroy the Yeerks' Kandrona, a device which supplied the Yeerks with Kandrona rays. They were assisted by the Ellimist, a being of immense power who could not act directly to help them, only give them the means to help themselves. In this case, he showed them the location of the Kandrona. Its destruction, and further sabotage by the Yeerk traitor Eslin 359, led to the deaths of many Yeerks as they succumbed to Kandrona starvation.

The Chee and the Free Hork-Bajir

"Tobias, you are a beginning. You are a point on which an entire time line may turn."

―The Ellimist

After thwarting a Yeerk attempt to destroy the forest in which Ax was hiding, the group discovered that a race of nonviolent androids known as the Chee had infiltrated the Yeerk organization and were willing to work with the Animorphs as allies. Their first mission under this alliance was to retrieve a Pemalite crystal from the Yeerks, which the Chee could use to remove their programmed inhibition against violence. Their Chee contact, Erek King, accomplished this and destroyed a force of Hork-Bajir, but was so repulsed by what he had done that he returned his programming to its original state. From then on, he and the other Chee would supply the Animorphs with information about Yeerk activities.

Later, Tobias came across a Hork-Bajir who had escaped from the Yeerks. With the help of the Ellimist, the Animorphs guided Jara Hamee and his mate Ket Halpak to a hidden valley where they would be protected. As thanks for helping to save the Hork-Bajir species from Yeerk slavery, the Ellimist returned Tobias's morphing power, then took him back in time to acquire his old human body. Tobias could now morph alongside the other Animorphs, but still could not be fully human.

The Leeran Conflict

"Where sky meets sea, Andalite, human, and Leeran are joined as allies. Each with our weaknesses. Each with our strengths."

―Unnamed Leeran

This section needs a rewrite

Through the Chee, the Animorphs became aware that the Yeerks were launching an invasion of the planet Leera. Initially, the Animorphs sabotaged an Earth-based Yeerk project led by Visser One that was genetically altering sharks to make them suitable hosts for battle on the aquatic planet of Leera. They became further involved in the conflict on Leera when a bizarre morphing accident transported them to the planet itself. There, they thwarted the efforts of an Andalite traitor and greatly aided the Andalite war effort, destroying a major Yeerk installation before being brought back to Earth.

The group then infiltrated Web Access America, finding that its owner was the host of Esplin 9466 Lesser, the brother of Visser Three. They discovered that he had been branded a traitor and was living as an outcast, surviving by killing Human-controllers and ingesting their Yeerks. One of the Animorphs burned his mansion down, forcing him into hiding. After a trip to the distant past, , Cassie felt unable to continue as an Animorph and left the group, only to become lost in the woods with a Yeerk named Aftran 942. While trying to find their way back to civilization, the pair came to a mutual understanding, which led to Aftran deciding to voluntarily leave her host and work to destabilize the Yeerk war effort from the inside.

David, the New Animorph

"You may kill a bird, but it isn't murder. I'd never do that. I wouldn't hurt a human. But hey, an animal? That's a different story."

―David

This section needs a rewrite

A boy named David found the Escafil device that had been used by Elfangor to give the Animorphs their power. The Animorphs' initial attempt to prevent the Yeerks from obtaining it ended with David's parents becoming Controllers, and David himself becoming homeless. Knowing that they could not willingly allow the Yeerks infest him, they decided to use the device to make him the seventh Animorph.However, David was emotionally distraught from the loss of his parents, and his unstable, sociopathic personality led to him attempting to kill the other Animorphs. The Animorphs were unable to out-fight him, so they decided to set a trap for him at the construction site, luring him into the open with the Escafil device. David morphed to rat, and the Animorphs caught him in a box, keeping him there until he was trapped in morph. Rachel and Ax then flew him to a remote island and left him there.

Tobias was approached by a solicitor claiming to represent his father, who told him that an unknown cousin of his, Aria, wanted to take care of him. After investigating, the Animorphs found that the solicitor was a Controller and that "Aria" was really Visser Three in morph - but that the solicitor nonetheless represented Tobias's real father, Elfangor, who had fathered Tobias while living on Earth in human morph, in a timeline that had later been altered by the Ellimist. Upon discovering his true parentage, Tobias felt an increased sense of kinship with his shorm - and now his uncle - Ax.

Defying Crayak

This section needs a rewrite

The Ellimist appeared to the Animorphs once again, asking them and their Chee friend Erek to help save an alien race called the Iskoort from destruction by his nemesis, Crayak and his force of Howlers. He transported them to the Iskoort homeworld, where they were able to stop the Howlers by introducing the concept of love to their collective memory. Furious that his seemingly-unstoppable fighting force had been crippled, Crayak swore that he would take personal revenge against Jake, promising that his nightmares would continue.

Crayak first attempted to destroy the Chee, by having his underling, the Drode, paralyze them with the controls on a sunken Pemalite ship, the only remnant of Pemalite technology still in existence. His secondary goal was to lure the Animorphs to the Pemalite ship, where they would be drawn into a Yeerk ambush and destroyed. However, the Animorphs managed to survive the Yeerk attack long enough to repair the Chee, allowing Erek to take control of the Pemalite ship and sink it deeper into the ocean, far from the reach of the Yeerks.

Rescuing Aftran

After successfully dismantling a Yeerk research operation designed to destroy human free will, Ax developed a case of the yamphut, an illness fatal to Andalites. The other Animorphs also caught the illness, but were not in any danger. Cassie, as the only uninfected Animorph, worked with the Yeerk Peace Movement to free Aftran from the Yeerk pool, where she was to be interrogated and executed by Visser Three. Aftran assisted Cassie with operating on Ax to cure the yamphut, then was given the morphing power and voluntarily trapped herself in humpback whale morph.

Visser vs. Visser

This section needs a rewrite

This section requires expansion

Marco spotted Visser One - still occupying his mother's body - on Earth, and discovered that she had been exiled for her part in the Yeerks' losses on Leera, pending an investigation. The Animorphs brokered a deal with her in an attempt to have her and Visser Three destroy each other; however, this plan was not successful. Visser Three escaped, and Visser One disappeared once more.

Anti-Morphing Ray

Learning from the Chee that the Yeerks were developing an Anti-Morphing Ray, the Animorphs decided that rather than destroying it - and thus proving that it could affect them - they would instead make the Yeerks believe that the weapon would not work. They accomplished this by letting Tobias be captured - as his hawk morph was now his natural form, the Yeerks would think that he was still in morph when they used the weapon on him, and conclude that it had failed. The plan succeeded, but in the process, Tobias was tortured extensively by a human-Controller named Taylor. He would never fully recover from this incident, becoming more withdrawn.

Trip to the Hork-Bajir homeworld

The Animorphs were then approached by an Arn, who brought with him the Ixcila, or "stored personality", of Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan. Aldrea was the grandmother of Jara Hamee, and knew the location of a hidden weapons cache on the Hork-Bajir homeworld, which the Arn could use to start a resistance movement against the Yeerks. Cassie played host to Aldrea's personality, and the Animorphs - with Jara Hamee's daughter Toby Hamee - traveled to the Hork-Bajir homeworld. Once there, they were able to find the weapons, and returned to Earth.

Working with Visser One

"Four of them: two Hork-Bajir, the tiger, the bear. Four. No, that was wrong. There were at least six, not four. Where were the other two? Most of all, in virtually every record we had of the bandits]], one of them had usually appeared as an Andalite. There were all sorts of theories to explain this: This one Andalite did not possess the morphing power, or else the Andalites felt they needed to keep one of their people in true form as a way to "show the flag." I knew, or at least guessed the truth: The always-visible Andalite was a deception to keep us from realizing that at least some of the six were humans. Where was the Andalite as Andalite? Where were the other two?"

―Edriss 562

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Further battles

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USS George Washington Incident

"Things are different. From now on, we take what we need. We do what we have to do. No matter what the consequences." [...]
"Jake's right. Things have changed. We can't be asking anymore whether something's right or wrong. We really need to start asking whether it's expedient." [...]
"I think Visser One is about to launch open war. Entire cities might be incinerated. Whole countries. Maybe, just maybe, if we strike now, if we do everything we possibly can, maybe we can keep that from happening. I'm not sure I could live with myself if we didn't do all that we could."

―Jake and Marco to the other Animorphs

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Identities Exposed

"Ax. A cadet in training. A kid like us. Like we were, once. Because none of us will ever really be kids again. Now, a hundred or more battles later, I'm not sure exactly what we are. In the eyes of the innocent world, we're still children. But in our own eyes... We've won some of those battles. Lost others. At least we've come out alive. But the war rages on. And everything is different. Because now, the Yeerks know we're not "Andalite bandits." Now they know we're human. Most of us, anyway. They even know our names. They know who our families are, too. Which meant we had to tell our families everything. About the Yeerks. About the Andalites. About why we call ourselves Animorphs. About the months of fighting and the incredible danger and the exhausting emotional drain. We didn't have time to break the news to our families gently. Not with the Yeerks on the way. We had to evacuate our homes—our lives—immediately."

―Cassie

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Creating New Animorphs

"Would the Animorphs function as smoothly with twenty-three members as we had with six? With James now as a leader of the majority of members—though Jake was still in charge overall?"

―Cassie

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Destroying their hometown's Yeerk pool

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Open War

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Heroes of the World

"And all of that is over and above the rounds of interviews that came in that first wild month after the defeat of the Yeerks. I mean, in that first month you couldn't keep track of how many shows I'd been on. Jake and Cassie and I were bigger than all of Hollywood, D.C., and Manhattan put together. We weren't just celebrities, we were the only celebrities. We had senators and big-league rap producers and hot starlets fetching us sodas and Kit Kat bars. So cool. That first month we owned the world. But that was the easy part: We had a story to tell and everyone wanted the details of how we and our weird alien friend and all our animal morphs had saved the world."

―Marco

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One Last Mission

"I'd put it to the class that I needed volunteers for a mission that would very likely prove suicidal, that was illegal, that would involve their disappearing without a trace, without the approval of their governments, without notice to their families. They wouldn't be paid, promoted, or well-treated. I would be in charge and they would be low men or women on the totem pole."

―Jake

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Members

First Incarnation

The six Animorphs

"Animorphs. Marco coined the term back before I was rescued and joined the team. The original members of the Animorphs are Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, Marco. And me. The only Andalite."

―Ax

Jake

"I'm a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs. In the past it's been hard for me to say that, to take on the title of leader. In the past I've questioned myself. Wondered whether I was right, wondered whether what I did was good, wondered whether I had any right to make life-and-death decisions. I've felt sorry for myself at times. [...] I had given up soul-searching because I realized now that it was simply too late. Way past too late. The battle had become a war. And I was, for better or worse, the only leader we had."

―Jake Berenson

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The leader of the Animorphs, by virtue of being the one that the others relied upon to make plans and give orders. His brother Tom was a Controller, which gave Jake a very personal reason to fight against the Yeerks. Jake came to resent his role as leader, as it forced him to grow up too fast and miss many of the simple joys of childhood.

Rachel

"She was the goddess of war, my cousin was. Sixteen years old and a veteran of more battles than a World War II veteran. So was I, but Rachel loved it in a way I didn't. She needed it."

―Jake

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Jake's cousin. She was a driven, dedicated warrior. Of all the Animorphs, Rachel was the only one who found the constant battles and death to be exciting, and she often worried that this aspect of her personality was dehumanising her. She had uncommonly beautiful "supermodel" looks. Her growing relationship with Tobias often became strained due to his status as a nothlit.

Tobias

"I guess it's true what they always say about combat soldiers. They may start out fighting for their country, but they end up fighting for the guy next to them in the foxhole. I didn't so much care about the fate of the human race at that moment. I wasn't human. I was a hawk. But I cared about Jake, and Cassie, and Marco, and Ax-man, and Rachel. Always Rachel."

―Tobias

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A friend of Jake's. In the Animorphs' first battle, Tobias was trapped in his red-tailed hawk morph. As his human life wasn't a happy one, he initially seemed more comfortable as a hawk, but always felt a sense of inner turmoil between living as a predator and thinking as a human. Later, the Ellimist gave Tobias back his ability to morph, and even his human form, but this was only a morph and he could not stay in it more than two hours at a time.

Cassie

"I'm an Animorph. An animal morpher. My friends and I were given the ability to acquire the DNA of other creatures and morph them. This power is the only real weapon we have in our fight to save humanity. But it's more than that. For me, at least. Every time I morph an animal, I experience the world as that animal does, sensing it, sharing its instincts. That's knowledge my parents will never have. And I'm not sure not having it is such a bad thing."

―Cassie

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Rachel's best friend, and Jake's girlfriend. Cassie worked at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which was owned by her parents, and so had access to a variety of different animals. Cassie often struggled to come to terms with her nature as a non-violent, caring person and her missions as an Animorph, which often included killing sentient creatures.

Marco

"I'm probably the least emotional of the group. It's always been my virtue and my failing that I see the clear path from A to Z without the distraction of moral considerations. I don't want to say I'm ruthless, I'm not. But I have the ability. I can see the ruthless way clearly. I have to sort of add the morality back into the equation after the fact."

―Marco

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Jake's best friend, and the one who named the group "Animorphs". Always able to see the funny side of life, Marco's wisecracking nature was offset by personal pain: his mother, whom he had believed was dead, was actually a Controller – Visser One. Although initially reluctant to fight against what he believed to be "insane" odds, Marco was nonetheless loyal and courageous in battle.

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

"An aristh, a cadet, a warrior in training. But my existence in the group of humans that calls itself the Animorphs has, I believe, qualified me as a full warrior. An experienced fighter. Why do I fight for and with a people not my own? Because, in many ways, these humans have become my own. And the central, most important reason is that the humans are fighting off an invasion of an evil, parasitic alien species known as the Yeerks. The Yeerks must be stopped. It doesn't matter who stops them, or why. Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't even matter how."

―Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

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Elfangor's brother, an Andalite aristh. Nicknamed "Ax" by the other Animorphs, he fought alongside them in the hope of avenging his brother's death. The Animorphs' resident expert on alien biology and technology, Ax was always somewhat aloof and occasionally condescending to his human friends, as he felt torn between his loyalty to his own people and his friendship with the Animorphs. In human morph, Ax enjoyed making human mouth sounds, and eating human food, especially cinnamon buns from Cinnabon.

David

"Jake doesn't even know how to use his powers. I mean, come on, who cares if the Yeerks are around? With Animorph powers we can have anything we want."

―David to Rachel

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Second Incarnation

Auxiliary Animorphs

"Slowly our team formed a line. Grizzly. Gorilla. Tiger. Andalite. Hawk. Wolf. Then James's team. Lion. Crocodile. Bobcat. Bull. Then Craig's team. And Erica's. Slowly the visser's attention was caught. Maybe I imagined the look of fear that flitted across his enigmatic Andalite face as he surveyed our forces. Maybe not. But for the first time since this war had begun, it looked like a fair fight."

―Cassie

Main Article: Auxiliary Animorphs

A group of seventeen disabled kids, who were chosen by the original Animorphs to help them fight. They were chosen because they were disabled, and the Yeerks had no interest in making them hosts. The Escafil device cured three of them: James, who became the leader of the Auxiliary Animorphs, Craig, and Erica. Ray, one of them, was killed by Dracon fire, and almost all of the rest died in The Answer while assisting Sam Doubleday in creating a diversion to disguise the fact that the Animorphs were inside the Pool ship.

Trivia

• All six core Animorphs have been acquired and morphed by others:
  • Jake was morphed by Ax so he could pose as him while they were starving his Yeerk during The Capture.
  • Rachel was morphed by Cassie to cover for her on a TV show during The Reaction. She was later morphed by Elena at the school for the blind during The Ultimate.
  • Marco was morphed by David without his permission to gain information during The Solution.
  • Ax was morphed by Tobias when the Yeerks were developing a Anti-morphing ray during The Illusion.
  • Cassie was morphed accidentally by the Ant-Cassie during The Hidden.
  • Tobias (in his hawk form) was morphed by Loren, and several of the Auxiliary Animorphs to allow them to travel to The Gardens to acquire more morphs during The Diversion and The Ultimate, respectively. Tobias had to reacquire his own human morph.

Also See

• Animorphs (book series)
• Animorphs (TV series)

Gallery

"Someone took a picture of me? Not cool. Do you see what I'm wearing? I'm Spandex-boy. Totally not cool." The image gallery for Animorphs may be viewed here