Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

Template:Infobox Animorph

"I had seen more battles, death, and destruction than many seasoned soldiers in our Andalite fleet. I felt my throat tighten and constrict. My hearts ached with a pain I could not describe. I wondered if I were dying. I felt not sadness. I felt pity. For myself. For us all. We were children no longer. And we never would be again."

―Ax^[src]

Captain-Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, also known as Ax, was the younger brother of Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, uncle of Tobias, son of Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen, and the brother-in-law of Loren. After being rescued by the Animorphs, he aided them in their battle against the Yeerks before officially joining the team as their sixth member. Following the conclusion of the Andalite-Yeerk War, Ax came across The One, who assimilated him.

History

Andalite-Yeerk War

Crashing to Earth

"The dome hit water! Boiling, steaming water It rushed over the dome. I was sinking! Sinking beneath the ocean of the blue planet. I was powerless. Terrified. Alone. After an eternity, the dome crunched heavily onto the ocean floor. Looking up, I could barely see the surface of the water a hundred feet or more over the top of the dome. I climbed shakily to my four hooves. I was standing on a vast, open plain that was a piece of my own planet. A blue-green park, hidden deep beneath an alien sea. And there I waited for weeks."

―Ax^[src]

When the Yeerks attacked the Andalite fleet over Earth, Aximili was left alone inside the GalaxyTree ship's dome because he didn't possess the skills, abilities or rank to fight. Aximili was a young cadet at the time and was left in the Dome because the older warriors, including his brother Elfangor, considered him "safer" there. During the battle when Visser Three's Blade Ship snuck up on the Andalite fleet's Dome ship, the Andalites detached the dome in order to gain more maneuverability. Despite this, the Blade Ship shot down the Andalites fighting in the "tail" of the dome ship, and Aximili, still inside the separated dome, crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Rescued by the Animorphs

"I will fight for you, Prince Jake, until I can return to my cousins."

―Ax^[src]

Trapped on the bottom of the ocean for many weeks, Aximili yearned to escape his predicament and seek his brother. During his time there, he managed to capture and acquire a tiger shark morph, to be used to flee the dome ship. Fearful to escape the confines of his ship and venture the ocean and subsequent surface world alone, he became desperate and decided to reach out to his people using a mirrorwave call, technology that would enhance and broadcast the signal of his thought-speak. He hoped that other surviving Andalites would detect the call and come to rescue him. Instead, his distress call was detected by Visser Three, Tobias and Cassie.

Aximili was rescued by four of the five Animorphs, who had used bottlenose dolphin morphs to reach him. Aximili was shocked to discover that humans possessed the power to morph and that his own brother Elfangor had broken the Law of Seerow's Kindness to give them that power. After escaping the clutches of Visser Three, Aximili acquired the four human Animorphs and created a unique human morph. With no home, he was relocated to the national forest located on Cassie's farm. Aximili, dubbed "Ax" by his new friends, decided to aid them in their efforts against the Yeerks until he found a way to return home. He allowed himself to fall under the command of "Prince Jake," a term of deference given Jake's role as leader.

Aiding the Animorphs

"I am not one of the Animorphs. But I fight alongside them against our common enemy, the Yeerks. And while I am on Earth, I have taken Jake for my prince."

―Ax^[src]

Now living in the national forest, Ax was frequently visited by Jake and Cassie, who realized he was homesick and that Ax desired to return to the Andalite homeworld. Promising to expedite the Andalite forces' journey to save Earth, Ax convinced the Animorphs to help him steal a Bug fighter. In order to lure the Bug fighter, Ax decided to construct a Z-space transponder using makeshift parts from RadioShack. During the trip to the mall to obtain these parts, Ax discovered the sense of taste as well as his love for cinnamon buns.

After successfully creating the transponder, he summoned a Bug fighter, but was unaware that the Yeerks updated their frequency. The Animorphs and Ax were subsequently trapped by Visser Three and held hostage on the Blade ship. After being forced to board the Pool ship and meet Visser One, who freed the Animorphs to sabotage Visser Three, Ax fought the Yeerk Empire for the first time, with his only prior combat experience having been biting Taxxons while in shark morph. Fighting alongside the Animorphs for the first time, Ax returns to Earth with them, deciding to stay and fight.

Conflict of Interest

"I can't answer your questions! I can't!"
"You mean, you won't! Rachel's right. We're just pawns in the big game. It's Andalites versus Yeerks in the big game and we're what? The towel boys?"
"Look... look... I have to follow the rules."
"Do you? Did Elfangor follow the rules when he gave us the power to morph?"
"I'm not Elfangor! Can't you see that? I'm not some big hero. I'm just a young Andalite, all right? You want the truth? Here's some truth for you: I'm not a warrior. I'm an aristh. A... a trainee. A cadet. A nobody."

―Ax, Marco and Cassie^[src]

Following the destruction of the Kandrona, the Ellimist had informed them that a replacement would arrive in three weeks. After two weeks of witnessing no signs of damage, the Animorphs begin to encounter humans raving about being enslaved by Yeerks. However, the Animorphs are shocked to discover that the humans are not living free lives but are instead murdered by the Yeerks. When Ax makes it clear that he knew the Yeerks would silence the freed hosts, this angers the Animorphs, especially Jake, who realizes his brother Tom could have been killed.

Ax refuses to answer any of the Animorphs' questions regarding the Andalites and their history with the Yeerks, which causes them to distrust him. During a visit to Marco's house, Ax accidentally reconfigures Marco's father software program, for an observatory's telescope, into an inter-dimensional communicator. Enlisting the help of Tobias, with whom Ax has formed a bond, the pair travel to the observatory, where Ax communicates with the Andalite military, where he is pressured with accepting the blame of giving the Animorphs the power to morph in order to prevent Elfangor's reputation from being tarnished. While speaking with his father, who reminds Ax that killing Visser Three and avenging Elfangor is his burden, a Controller named Eslin 359 interrupts the call. Eslin notifies Ax that Visser Three left the Yeerk he loved, Derane 344, to die of Kandrona starvation and thus wishes to exact vengeance. Eslin provides Ax the location of Visser Three's private feeding ground and asks Ax to kill the visser.

The Animorphs inquire on Ax and Tobias' whereabouts, with Ax once again refusing to explain. Despite Ax considering himself an ally of the Animorphs as opposed to being an official member, the other Animorphs consider Ax to be one of them, and Jake informs Ax that he cannot be a part of their team if he keeps secrets from them. Emotional and upset, Ax severs his ties with the team and decides to head out to assassinate Visser Three, using a rattlesnake morph he recently acquired. After biting Visser Three's Andalite form, Ax demorphs to finish the job, but is attacked by a Hork-Bajir-Controller while he is in mid-morph, defenseless and vulnerable. However, he is saved by Rachel in her grizzly bear morph, as well as the other Animorphs, who arrive to save and assist Ax. Ax discovers that Visser Three has abandoned his host body, Andalite War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, and cannot bring himself to kill the Andalite, despite knowing that by sparing him, Visser Three will re-infest him. Ax and the Animorphs spare Alloran's life, and return home.

Officially Joining the Animorphs

"Look, Ax, we don't want you to give us any Andalite technology. We don't want you to break your laws. We just want you to trust us. Tell us the truth. Be one of us."

―Jake^[src]

Ax is overwhelmed that the Animorphs decided to save him despite the way he treated them, and decides to break the Law of Seerow's Kindness once more, as his brother did, by explaining the story of Seerow and how the Yeerk Empire came to be. Declaring that he will no longer keep secrets from the team, Ax officially joins the Animorphs as their sixth member and makes another call to the Andalite homeworld, where he informs a military officer that he will share everything with the Animorphs, as he considers them his people as well.

The Ascalin Incident

"I couldn't help feeling that I was to blame. I was humiliated. I felt sick. I had turned away from my friends and trusted my own people instead. One of my own people had betrayed us."

―Ax^[src]

During a mission where the six Animorphs morphed into mosquitoes, their original excess mass, which was in Z-space, had been caught in the wake of a passing ship, the Ascalin. This caused the six Animorphs to become instantly transported into Z-space, with Ax signaling the attention of the ship before he and the others could die in space. On the ship, Ax was reunited with his people, namely Andalite captain Samilin-Corrath-Gahar and his tactical officer, Hareli-Frodlin-Sirinial. Ax informed them of the situation on Earth, and, under the suggestion of his Andalite superiors, chooses to leave the Animorphs and join the Andalite military unit on the Ascalin, who were heading towards Leera to support the Leerans in their fight against the Yeerks. Additionally, Ax informs the Animorphs that Jake is no longer his prince and that he will not be returning with them to Earth.

En route to Leera, Captain Samilin sliced Harelin’s tail off and revealed himself to be working for Visser Four. The disabled Harelin manages to grab his Shredder and vaporize Samilin, and asks Ax to escape the ship along with his human allies and make contact with Captain-Prince Galuit-Enilon-Esgarrouth on Leera, before destroying the ship to prevent the Yeerks from gaining Andalite hosts.

"I made a mistake trusting Captain Samilin. I made a mistake dismissing all of you. You have... you have kept me alive and befriended me for a long time. All I can say is that none of you knows what it's like to be completely cut off from your own people."
"One of us does."
"All I can do is say I'm sorry. And I will consider Jake my prince until he says otherwise. You are my prince until you, and only you, say otherwise."

―Ax and Tobias to the Animorphs^[src]

After reaching safety, Ax is confronted by Rachel and Marco for abandoning the Animorphs in favor of joining Samilin. Ax apologizes, adding that the Animorphs do not know how it feels to be stranded on a foreign planet cut off from their people. With Jake's approval, Ax rejoins the Animorphs.

Making His Scoop

Not too long after Tobias’s first birthday after becoming an Animorph, Ax discovers that he is Tobias' uncle as Elfangor was Tobias' father.

Sometime before their next mission, to a meatpacking plant to prevent a supposed drug that would remove a human's free will, Ax constructs a scoop in the woods, along with cable television, and discovers a love for television, most notably commercials and soap operas.

Unit 0

"It was all a deception. You misled us. You lied to your own people."
"No. I have learned something, Estrid. These are my people. Anyone who believes in freedom, anyone who resists tyranny, anyone who pursues peace is "my people." Andalite, Hork-Bajir, or human."

―Estrid and Ax^[src]

During a mission to rescue Mr. King from the Yeerks, four Andalites, known as Unit 0, arrived to the battle and told Ax that they know how to contact him. Setting up a meeting with them, Ax and the other Animorphs learned that the Andalite fleet to Earth has been delayed. Since Unit 0 refused to work with them, the Animorphs staged their disbandment in order to have Ax join Unit 0 and serve as a spy. While serving with them, Ax began to develop romantic feelings and a physical attraction to Estrid-Corill-Darrath, even kissing her when they were both in human morph. As he learns, Unit 0 is actually on a suicide mission, using a virus that Estrid developed that can cripple the Yeerks but would possibly wipe out humans as well.

Ax, along with the other Animorphs and Estrid, headed into the Yeerk pool to stop the virus from being released, but Estrid, terrified and disgusted by the Yeerk pool, refused to demorph and fight to protect the humans, who are not part of their species. Ax then goes to protect his friends, telling her that she is beautiful and brilliant but he "doesn't think he likes her very much".

Once the virus is destroyed, Estrid offers Ax to return home with her, but he refuses, citing that his fight is on Earth.

Disobeying the Prince

"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."

―Ax^[src]

On a mission to stop “Operation 9466”, a campaign to instigate World War III by having China and the United States engage in nuclear war, being lead by Visser Two Ax has an idea to threaten to destroy the Yeerk Pool unless Visser Two calls off the attacks against China. Jake rejects it, thinking that it’s too much of a gamble and it would put all of their families in danger. Saying that he’s sorry, Ax knocks Jake unconscious and takes a hostage Visser Two in a fighter-bomber with a nuclear weapon onboard. Ax’s plan works and Visser Two calls off the attack.

As Ax flies the plane back to the Animorphs, Ax remarks that he views the Animorphs as his family and that he also considers himself human in some ways, and wonders whether the Animorphs, especially Jake, will forgive him for his actions.

Endgame

During the final days of the Yeerk War, Ax secretly communicated with the Andalite fleet using the Z-space transponder, where he received orders to prevent the other Animorphs’ current plans and let the Yeerks take control of the Earth so that the Andalite military fleet would quarantine the planet, resulting in the Andalites destroying Earth from orbit.

Ax, after some reflection in which he remembered that Elfangor had broken Andalite military law and trusted the humans, decided to maintain his faith and loyalty in the Animorphs as opposed to the military fleet, disobeying their orders.

Post-War

2000

After seizing the Pool Ship, freeing Alloran from Visser One, and negotiating with the Andalite fleet, the Andalite fleet promotes Ax to the rank of prince and is appointed the official liaison between the Andalite fleet and Earth.

2001

"And Ax was doing great as well. He was an official prince and this huge hero back on his home planet. He had stepped out of Elfangor's shadow at long last, and was not only a hero but the one and only expert on all things human. [...] Ax worked out technology-transfer deals with some of the big corporations. They have to keep it slow because if you just dump a hundred years of technological advances overnight the stock market goes nuts. It worked out okay, though. The Andalites can definitely teach us a lot about computer architecture. But it was Microsoft and Sony and Adobe and Nintendo that came up with the killer apps. I mean, the new Palm Pilots will be actual pilots. The Andalites flatly refused to let us share their weapons technology. But NASA has had a definite revival: The first human Zero-space vehicle will be built jointly by Boeing and Lockheed and be ready for launch in three years. H. sapiens was going to the stars."

―Marco^[src]

Returning to the Andalite homeworld, Ax was hailed as a hero and considered an expert on Earth and its human culture. Ax communicated frequently with Earth, working with some of its’ corporations to exchange technology between the two planets.

2003

"You were supposed to want to stop fighting and go home to your meadow and your scoop, back to your peacetime occupation, your family and friends. I guess some warriors did want all those things. At some level I did, too. But how do you weigh the sharp rush of battle against the slower, more contemplative joys of watching your trees flower?"

―Ax^[src]

Two years after Esplin 9466's sentencing, Ax is charged with finding the Blade Ship, working closely with the crew to train himself aboard the Intrepid. He notes that the military is being shrunk back, and that he easily has the most interesting assignment. The ship eventually finds a mysterious DNA sample belonging to a polar bear aboard an unknown vessel. Realizing that it belonged to one of the Controllers, Ax lead the investigation into the vessel.

As First Officer Menderash-Postill-Fastill later recalls, the ship came alive and attacked. Menderash broke off from the ship, but they were then attacked by pirates. He is the sole survivor.

Assimilated by The One

" The face that belonged to our friend Ax split wide open across the bottom and revealed a new-formed mouth full of red-rimmed teeth."

―Marco^[src]

Menderash arrives on Earth and tells Jake about the Intrepid’s attack. Jake then recruits Marco, Tobias, Sergeant Santorelli, and Jeanne Gerard to go on a mission to find the Blade Ship and hopefully help Ax. After months of floating through space, they find the Blade Ship, only to discover that Ax has been assimilated into an entity only known as The One.

Appearance

"Up close he looks like a cross between a deer or a horse, and a human and a scorpion. Sort of like a mythical centaur. His upper body is like a boy's. He has weak-looking arms and a head with two movable stalks on top, kind of like antlers. Each stalk has an eye. The eyes are constantly looking left and right and back. Andalites are very hard to sneak up on. His body is covered in blue and tan fur, very short on his humanoid torso, a bit longer on his deer-like body. His four hooves are sharp and black. But it's the tail that grabs your attention. It's long enough that he can whip it up over his head and hit someone standing in front of him. It ends in a curved blade."

―Cassie^[src]

Aximili is an Andalite, and as such he has the standard Andalite features: centaur-like form covered in blue-and-tan fur, a long muscular tail with a big, scythe-like blade on the end, and two stalk eyes on the top of his head, providing 360° vision. He also has seven fingers on each hand and no mouth, instead communicating via thought-speak and eating through his hooves. His human morph, created through a Frolis Maneuver that combines the DNA of different individuals to make a new morph, appears "strange" to the Animorphs, because it looks as though Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel were "put through a blender."

Personality

"We could simply fly away. We could become something or someone else. Life would no doubt be simpler. Life would be a matter of life or death, survival or failure, simple, black or white choices. But in reality life seldom comes in simple shades of black and white. The choices in the real world, the choices we most often face, are all in shades of gray. And I lived in the real world."

―Ax^[src]

Aximili is extremely curious and interested in the various Earth cultures. He is somewhat arrogant, a common Andalite trait, but has tempered his arrogance over time, proclaiming more than once that the humans are his people as well as Andalites as he recognizes their commendable qualities. For instance, a group of human hosts in the Yeerk pool deliberately acted as shields to other Yeerk forces to give the Animorphs time to escape. Like all Andalites he places great value on honor and duty, to the extent that, on some occasions, he would side with humans over Andalites because he believed that the Andalites were resorting to particularly drastic measures while the Animorphs had not. He generally has a good knowledge of most of the advanced technology and alien races that the Animorphs encounter, but has admitted more than once that he didn't always pay attention in school and thus missed certain topics being discussed in detail.

At first he seems very serious. However, as he spends more time in the company of the Animorphs, he slowly develops a sense of humor, which they find slightly disturbing. Despite his usual seriousness, he tends to suffer from a loss of control when in human morph, demonstrating exceptional enthusiasm for exploring his sense of taste, which he does not have in his natural state, and treating human speech as a toy by repeating certain words, or even syllables, repeatedly out of the sheer joy he finds in using a human mouth. He considers the cinnamon bun one of humankind's greatest inventions, and also enjoys chocolate, cigarette butts, and just about anything with a strong taste. He has a good relationship with all of the Animorphs, but is especially close to Tobias because they both live in the woods, away from typical human habitation.

Relationships with the other Animorphs

"Jake. Rachel. Tobias. Cassie. Marco. The humans amazed me with their resilience, their ingenuity, and their bravery. They delighted me with their humor, their passions, and their capacity for play. Their food. But they truly sickened me with their self-indulgence and their childishness. But then, I reminded myself, they are children. And so am I."

―Ax^[src]

Tobias

"But Tobias is the only one I might consider a true shorm. A shorm is a deep friend, someone who knows everything there is to know about you. The word comes from the Andalite's tail blade, which looks something like what you may know as a scorpion's tail. A shorm is someone you would trust to put his tail blade against your throat. Even though Tobias does not have a tail blade – or hooves, stem eyes, and fur, the way Andalites do – he is almost one of us. Elfangor was his father, and, as strange as it is to think of, I am, in Earth terms, Tobias's uncle. But I think it is the fact that he is almost as unique on this planet as I am that makes us close. Choosing life as a red-tailed hawk has set Tobias apart from everything he once knew. We are both unique on this planet, and both very much alone."

―Ax^[src]