For the book series, see here

For the TV series, see here

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 Yeerk Empire's 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 Yeerk Empire 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

Pre-Selection

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,^[2] 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.^[3]

Formation

On a Friday night in 1997,^{[note 1]} five human thirteen year olds^[4] in California^[5] walked through an abandoned construction site on their way home back from the mall.^[6] The five kids consisted of Jake Berenson,^[4] his best friend Marco, his cousin Rachel, his crush Cassie, and a boy from school named Tobias whom Jake had saved from bullies.^[6] 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.^[3]

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.^[6]

First Mission

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,^[6] a portmanteau of animal morphers,^[7] 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^[6] respectively while Tobias and Cassie chose not to acquire anything.^[8]

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'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.

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 Limbs 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.^[6] 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.^[9] 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.^[6]

As they emerged out of the janitor's closet and back into their school in their battle morphs, with Rachel half-demorphed,^{[note 3]} 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.^[6]

Early Operations

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 Underground Yeerk Pool Complex, 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.^[8]

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.^[10]

Rescue of Ax

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.^[11] While the humans considered Ax to be an official member of the Animorphs,^[12] Ax did not, instead viewing himself as one of their allies who took orders from Jake.^[13]

Ant Dismemberment/Meeting Visser One

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.^[12]

Hospital Attack/Jake's Infestation

Following their return back home, the Animorphs decided to take a recovery period, allowing them time to return to their normal lives and get their grades back up. Due to Rachel's penchant for battle, Marco bestowed upon her the nickname of "Xena, Warrior Princess." Around this time, Jake began having dreams of chasing Tom while in tiger morph and hunting him down.

While spying on "Tom," Jake discovered that he had been making several phone calls to a hospital in their city known as the Berman Clinic, and decided to infiltrate a leadership meeting of The Sharing at The Sharing's Headquarters using cockroach morphs. After they spent an hour practicing how to understand spoken speech as a cockroach, the Animorphs went to the Sharing's HQ building on a Thursday night, where the five of them secretly entered in roach morph while Tobias remained outside. Visser Three then arrived at the meeting in his new human morph, stepping out of his personal limousine, and informed the other Controllers about the Yeerk Empire's takeover of the Berman Clinic, and how the Governor of California, who needed minor surgery, would be having it performed at the Berman Clinic. Jake realized the threat of having the California governor infested, as the governor controlled the National Guard and the state police, only for Rachel to inform them that their governor was intending to run for President of the United States^[14] in the future.^{[note 4]}

On Saturday, the morph-capable Animorphs acquired and morphed into houseflies at Cassie's barn and landed on Tobias' back as he flew them to the Berman Clinic. Arriving at the hospital, the Animorphs disembarked and flew in through a hospital window. Demorphing, they noticed a Jacuzzi whirlpool that had been made into a makeshift portable Yeerk pool which contained several Yeerks. Jake decided to activate the Jacuzzi and boil the Yeerks alive, while Cassie and Ax guarded the door; due to not having a battle morph, Cassie elected to morph into a wolf. As the Yeerks were being boiled alive, two human-Controllers entered the room, who were then attacked by Cassie and Ax. Two more Controllers entered, and one of them fired his gun into the room; while Cassie and Ax avoided being hit, one of the bullets ricocheted and hit the human Jake in the side of his head, causing him to fall facedown into the agitated Jacuzzi. Temrash 114, one of the Yeerks being boiled inside the Jacuzzi, infested Jake in order to survive, and was shocked to discover that Jake and other human children were the "Andalite bandits."

The Animorphs caused extensive damage to the hospital as they made their escape, ensuring to cover Jake's face as Marco carried him outside. The group managed to escape safety into the national forest, and Jake realized with horror that he had been infested. Temrash revealed his name to Jake along with the fact that he had been Tom's original Yeerk, adding that Tom was now the host body to a Yeerk with a low rank. Temrash, as Jake, told the other Animorphs that they should split up and go home, while he intended to seek out Visser Three and deliver the Animorphs to them. However, he was surprised at Ax's silent arrival, and could not resist making a facial expression filled with hatred and contempt, which Ax noticed. Ax quickly informed the Animorphs that he believed Jake had been infested, as Jake had fallen into the Yeerk pool. Temrash tried to claim that Ax was wrong while Tobias mused that they could detain Jake for three days in order to be certain. Since Jake could not be away from his parents for three days without causing alarm, Cassie suggested that Ax morph into Jake and "play the role" for three days. When Ax placed his fingers on Jake's face to acquire him, Temrash yelled and referred to Ax as "Andalite filth," confirming Ax's suspicion.

Temrash was then escorted to an abandoned shack in the woods, where the Animorphs kept watch on him while Ax, who was coached by Cassie, Rachel, and Marco, went to Jake's house to impersonate him. Cassie^[14] and Rachel^[7][13] acquired great horned owls to watch Jake at night, due to the owl's superior nighttime vision, with Cassie also acquiring a flea. That night, Temrash morphed into a tiger but could not run for long without getting tired; additionally, the tiger did not know which way led to out of the forest. When he tried demorphing and remorphing into a falcon, he was attacked by Cassie, who used her owl morph to observe "Jake" at night and later morphed into the flea to hide on Jake. Temrash tried to morph into an ant, a wolf, and again into a falcon, but his efforts were thwarted every time. As the third day approached, Temrash gave up, and Jake noted that unlike humans, who fought to the bitter end even when they knew they would lose, a Yeerk surrendered when they believed they had lost. Temrash had shared some of his memories as well as the memories he had "downloaded" from his previous hosts, including Tom, and transferred them to Jake's mind. One of these memories included how Tom had been infested, as well as the fact that Tom had stopped resisting his infestation and was waiting to die.

On the third day, Temrash died of the Fugue, and Jake noticed a machine-like being with a single eye watching him. Temrash's dead body then fell out of Jake's ear and shriveled until nothing remained. Freed from Yeerk control, Jake returned home, and on the next day, while partially morphing into a wolf to alter his voice, called Tom and anonymously told him to keep fighting. Due to the damage and destruction at the Berman Clinic, the hospital was forced to shut down, which led to the governor not having his surgery there and the Yeerks being unable to infest him. The Yeerk Empire considered this a significant failure, with the Animorphs' actions causing them a major setback for their immediate plans.^[14]

Destroying the Kandrona

Meeting the Ellimist

Shortly after Jake's infestation, Marco and Tobias began surveilling "Chapman", with Tobias tracking him from the air while Marco followed him on the ground. As a result, the Animorphs discovered that there was a passageway into the Underground Yeerk Pool Complex contained without a dressing room at The Gap inside their local mall, with another passageway contained inside the movie theater. Despite having nightmares of their first trip to the Yeerk pool, the Animorphs decide that destroying the Kandrona that generates the Kandrona rays that the Yeerks need for sustenance would strike a severe blow to the Yeerk Empire. Deciding to upgrade her battle morph, Rachel flew into The Gardens at night and acquired a grizzly bear. Using cockroach morphs, the Animorphs and Ax, minus Tobias, went to The Gap at the mall and morphed into cockroaches inside the dressing room and managed to successfully enter the passageway. Descending into the Yeerk pool, the Animorphs and Ax found themselves in the lunchroom, where they attempted to eavesdrop on Controllers in order to discern the Kandrona's location. Just then, a Taxxon spotted them and caught them all with its tongue. Before the Taxxon could eat them, time was frozen by an all-powerful being known as Ellimist, who demorphed them; he also restored Tobias to his original human form and teleported him into the underground Yeerk pool complex.

Ellimist told the Animorphs that humanity would be rendered extinct in the future as the Yeerk Empire would succeed in their takeover of Earth and the Animorphs would lose the fight. Ellimist offered to relocate the Animorphs and their loved ones, along with other humans and animal species, to another planet; however, he claimed that they needed to make the decision immediately, and if they did not accept, the Animorphs would be back on the Taxxon's tongue as cockroaches while Tobias would return to being trapped as a red-tailed hawk. While Cassie was in support of accepting the deal, the others were not. Marco, Jake, and Rachel spotted a dropshaft in the Yeerk pool complex and rejected Ellimist's deal. True to his warning, Tobias was reverted back to his hawk form and teleported back outside, while the Animorphs were back on the Taxxon's tongue, with the flow of time restored.

As the Taxxon began to digest them, the Animorphs demorphed and burst out of the Taxxon. Covered in Taxxon goo, they looked up and saw that all of the Controllers in the lunchroom were staring at them. Rachel yelled out loud for them to bail and the Animorphs ran, which caused the human-Controllers to rush after them. As they ran out of the lunchroom and into the general area of the pool complex while Jake yelled at them to assume battle morph. Before she could morph into the bear, Rachel was knocked to the ground by an adult male Controller, who put his hands around Rachel's throat to strangle her; Ax then arrived and used his tail blade to slice the man's arm off, freeing Rachel. Rachel noticed that Cassie and Marco had ascended up the dropshaft while Jake remained, not wanting to leave them behind.

With a bunch of human and Hork-Bajir-Controllers between them, Rachel yelled out loud to Jake to escape, using his name. The Hork-Bajir-Controllers rushed towards them, and Ax used his tail blade to try and keep them at bay while Rachel subconsciously morphed into the grizzly bear. Giving into the bear's instinct and allowing her bottled rage and frustration to merge with the bear's rage, Rachel attacked the Hork-Bajir-Controllers. Jake, who refused to leave them behind, morphed into his Siberian tiger and joined the fight; however, due to Rachel having given into the bear's instincts, she kept trying to kill Jake as well. Rachel, Jake, and Ax managed to make their way to the dropshaft, and as they ascended, Rachel continued to try and kill the tiger. Jake then yelled at her in thought-speak to regain control, which caused Rachel to snap out of it and realize that she had been trying to kill Jake. Rachel and Jake demorphed as they ascended and emerged out of the base of a water tower behind their school, and the Animorphs went back home.^[7]

Battle at the EGS Tower

The next day, the Animorphs were sent to the future, sometime in the 2000s, by Ellimist. There, they witnessed how their city would be like if the Yeerk Empire won, and noticed that the sky was yellow, the trees were dying, and that the air was strange. In addition, several buildings around the EGS Tower had been destroyed to create a massive surface Yeerk pool, which the EGS Tower had been left standing, albeit with its top two floors replaced with a glass dome. The Animorphs encountered a future Rachel in her twenties along with a future future Visser Three, who was now Visser One. Future Rachel, who was actually a Controller, spoke with young Rachel, although Rachel quickly realized that Rachel's Yeerk kept glancing at Ax. When the Visser began speaking to them, he referred to the Animorphs as consisting of six humans while he stated that Ellimist had sent them to see a future, before quickly amending his statement to claim that the Animorphs were indeed five humans and an Andalite and that Ellimist sent them to see the future. Rachel quickly realized that the future they were in was actually an alternate future timeline before Ellimist returned the Animorphs to their own timeline. Upon their return, the Animorphs accepted the Ellimist's offer, although he did not whisk them away to a new planet like he had offered.

Shortly after, Cassie and Rachel deduced that Ellimist did not do so because he did not want them to accept, and realized that he had allowed them to notice the dropshaft during their first encounter. With the realization that Ellimist did not truly intend to relocate them but had made the offer merely as a pretense to interact with them as a way to help them out without breaking his rules of intervention, they wondered why Ellimist had sent them to the future. On Saturday morning, Rachel suddenly realized that he had done it so that would put together that the EGS Tower's prominence in the future, around which a Yeerk pool was built, was due to the EGS Tower's upper floors housing the Kandrona. She then amassed the rest of the team, who held an emergency meeting around 3 A.M. before heading to the EGS Tower by 5 A.M. There, they stormed the building and took the freight elevator to the top floor, where they encountered several human and two Hork-Bajir-Controllers. While most of the human-Controllers fled, the Animorphs fought against the Hork-Bajir-Controllers in their first close-combat encounter with them; the battle was severely bloody as the Hork-Bajir-Controllers used their blades to slash at the Animorphs, slicing open Marco's stomach, slicing Jake, and severing one of Rachel's paws. The Animorphs managed to defeat five of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers before the remaining three fled, allowing the Animorphs to destroy the Kandrona, giving them their first massive victory against the Yeerk Empire. As they destroyed the Kandrona, Ellimist notified them that the Yeerk Empire would have a replacement Kandrona installed in three weeks, and Ax assured the group that their efforts were not in vain as many Yeerks would die during those three weeks.^[7]

Veleek Chase

Shortly after the successful destruction of the Earth-based Kandrona,^[7] the Animorphs decided to enjoy a weekend without worrying about anything Yeerk-related. The Yeerk Empire, however, had located an energy-detecting swarm consisting of a billion insects that came together to form a tornado-like entity with whirling blades and over a hundred eyes and teeth. Taking the swarm for themselves and mutating it to detect the energy that a morpher gave off when they morphed or demorphed, the swarm, dubbed by Visser Three as Veleek, was tasked with hunting down the "Andalite bandits." On a Saturday, Rachel went to board a bus taking her to a weekend gymnastics camp while Jake and Cassie attended a pool party hosted by Darlene, a girl at school. Rachel, who wanted to see Tobias before she left as she had developed an attraction to him by this point, morphed into a bald eagle and flew into the woods, although she was attacked by a group of jays when she flew near their nest. Rachel slammed into a tree and fell onto the floor, and as she began demorphing, she fell unconscious and developed amnesia. Meanwhile, as he had not been invited to Darlene's pool party due to having ruined one of her previous parties, Marco decided to crash the party in mouse morph, and blackmailed Ax to join him in exchange for flea powder, as Ax had contracted fleas living in the forest.

Shortly after Marco and Ax morphed into mice and entered Darlene's property, Visser Three deployed the Veleek within the city, with the Veleek being programmed to capture an Animorph without killing them and then to bring them to the Blade ship in upper atmosphere in exchange for sustenance. After causing a ruckus during Darlene's party, Marco and Ax made their way into Darlene's basement to demorph, with Ax remorphing into his human morph. However, the energy that the duo gave off while demorphing, as well as Ax morphing into human, caused the Veleek to rush to Darlene's house, where it destroyed the entire house. At the same time, the amnesiac Rachel regained consciousness in the woods and was horrified to see that she was in a half-eagle, half-human state, and focused on her human body to try and reverse the change. Before the Veleek could grab Marco and Ax, it detected Rachel's morphing energy; since the Veleek preferred fresh energy signatures over older ones, it abandoned Marco and Ax to go after Rachel. In the woods, Rachel was halfway through demorphing as the Veleek appeared above her, forcing her to run through the forest. Finishing her demorph as she fled, she ran out into a freeway, where the Veleek collided with a truck and caused a crash. With no one actively giving off any morphing energy signatures, the Veleek flew off, and the amnesiac Rachel, who was filmed being on the highway by a driver with a camcorder, retreated into the woods.

Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Ax went to Cassie's house following the incident at Darlene's party, where they watched the news report on the "freak tornado" that had destroyed Darlene's house and also was involved in a freeway accident. Upon viewing the footage of the accident, Cassie spotted Rachel barefoot and in her morphing outfit, which confirmed that she not only was not at the gymnastics camp but also had come out of a demorph. With the realization that the Veleek had attacked both Marco and Ax, as well as Rachel, as both had come out of a demorph, the Animorphs realized that the dust beast they had encountered was Yeerk-related and set out to find Rachel. Cassie was sent to the mall, where she spotted Iniss 226, the Yeerk who controlled Chapman. Meanwhile, Jake and Marco took the bus to the freeway site while Tobias flew over the woods and Ax ran through the woods in order to try and find Rachel. While in the woods, Rachel came across a dilapidated shack where a madwoman lived. The woman, who had once been infested by a Yeerk and now suffered from mental illness, believed Rachel to be a Controller and locked her in the shack before setting it on fire. Jake and Marco morphed into wolves and set off to track Rachel through scent using one of her shirts that Cassie had given them, and their morphing immediately drew the Veleek, who converged on them. Jake and Marco ran through the trees to gain some distance on the Veleek, although the Veleek quickly gained on them.

Trapped inside the burning shack, Rachel morphed into her grizzly bear and broke out. Just as the Veleek was about to capture Jake and Marco, who smelled the fire from the nearby shack, the Veleek sensed the morphing energy that Rachel gave off and abandoned Jake and Marco to grab her instead. At the same time, Cassie, who followed "Chapman" into a B. Dalton bookstore at the mall, morphed into a housefly to spy on him; since Rachel and Cassie morphed at the same time and the Veleek could not be in two places at once, the Veleek focused on Rachel, who was closer, which allowed Cassie to morph safely. Ax, who had been running through the woods and planned to meet up with Jake and Marco, noticed the burning shack and the Veleek that was nearby. Going toward the shack, he spotted Rachel and watched in horror as the Veleek severed Rachel's front paws off. As the Veleek used its tendrils to restrain Rachel in order to carry her off, Ax decided to morph into his northern harrier to follow it, and the energy that Ax immediately exuded caused the Veleek to let go of Rachel and grab Ax instead. While the Veleek flew off with Ax, Rachel made her way to a stream and demorphed in the water before walking away. At the mall, Cassie also demorphed after learning the Veleek's name and that it was a morph-hunter. Jake, Marco, and Tobias arrived at the burning shack, where they recognized Rachel and Ax's scent but wondered where the two disappeared off to. Needing to return home, Marco and Jake demorphed. Since the Veleek was currently transporting Ax to the Blade ship as per its mission, it did not react to the demorphing energy that the four other morph-capable Animorphs gave off.

Ax was brought to the Blade ship and learned of the Veleek's name as well, as well as the fact that it went after morphing energy. Ax was then imprisoned in a box while the Veleek was fed and redeployed. Cassie regrouped at the barn with Jake, Tobias, and Marco to share what they had learned. With the sun setting, Rachel exited from the woods and found herself in a suburban housing development area, where she then broke into an empty house. Having been spotted by the neighbors, who then called the police to report the break-in, Rachel morphed into an elephant, which drew the Veleek to her. As Tobias flew off into the woods to sleep as he could not see or fly well at night, Jake, Marco, and Cassie spotted the Veleek in the distance quickly making its way to the suburban development area. Realizing that Rachel or Ax must have morphed, which meant that one of them was still alive, the three decided they needed to save them. Since they could not morph to fly there without drawing the Veleek to Cassie's farm, the trio, under Marco's suggestion, stole Cassie's father's truck in order to drive to the housing area, with Marco behind the wheel. Marco, who did not know how to drive, crashed through many things, such as trash cans, and narrowly avoided hitting cars. Making their way toward the housing area, Jake decided that the three of them would morph in intervals in order to play "keepaway" with the Veleek in the hopes that the dust beast would tire out.

The Veleek destroyed the house that Rachel had sought refuge in, forcing Rachel to run through the suburban streets. Realizing that the Veleek would destroy the other homes and kill innocent people just to capture her, Rachel decided to face the Veleek head-on; however, when the Veleek grabbed her with its tendrils, it could not carry her away due to her immense weight. Just then, the other three arrived, and as Cassie jumped out of the truck to get to Rachel, Jake jumped into the truck bed as he had begun morphing into a tiger. The morphing energy that Jake emitted caused the Veleek to abandon Rachel and focus on Jake, who morphed slowly to ensure the Veleek remained locked onto him while Marco drove them away from the development area and onto a freeway. Cassie rushed to Rachel's side and learned that she had amnesia, but convinced Rachel to trust her. Cassie got onto Rachel's back and the two made their way toward the woods in order to save innocent bystanders from being hurt. On the freeway, Marco accidentally drove into the bordering woods, and Jake, now fully in tiger morph, jumped out, although not before telling Marco to morph in five minutes. For those five minutes, Jake kept the Veleek chasing him, although the tiger ran out of energy. Just before the Veleek could capture Jake, the Veleek sensed Marco, who had returned to the housing area and had morphed into a gorilla while driving, and left Jake to go after its new target. While being chased, Marco drove the truck into Rachel's elephant form, knocking Rachel onto her side, where she struck her head against the concrete and caused her to start regaining her memories. Marco was ejected from the truck, which was totaled, while Cassie, who had started to morph into a squirrel before Marco hit them, landed nearly and stopped morphing. The Veleek hovered above them and spotted its three targets, but as Rachel was too heavy and Cassie was no longer emitting morphing energy, it chose to take the target it had last been chasing and captured Marco; Cassie, who had realized that she could continue to morph in order to force the Veleek to take her, felt fear in the moment and refused to do so, and thus blamed herself for Marco's capture.

Cassie, Rachel, and Jake escaped from the housing development area and returned home, with Rachel staying at Cassie's house. The Veleek brought Marco onto the Blade ship, where Ax, having grabbed one of the fleas on his body, acquired and morphed into it in order to escape the box. Ax then jumped onto Visser Three's Andalite body and slowly began to demorph, causing the Veleek to lock onto him; however, as he was on the Visser's Andalite body, the Veleek grabbed Visser Three as well. The Visser yelled for his subordinates to strike the Veleek with water, allowing Marco and Ax to learn that the Veleek was extremely weak to water, while Ax's flea eyes were able to see that the Veleek consisted of billions of insects and that the ones struck by the water had been killed. Marco, under Ax's instructions, opened the hatch of the Blade ship, and as Ax jumped onto Marco, the duo jumped out of the Blade ship, demorphed, and then remorphed into their bird morphs to fly back to the city safely. The next day, the Animorphs regrouped and shared the information they had all learned since, and Cassie came up with a strategy to defeat the Veleek.

They headed to the beach to enact their plan, and since they could not morph without luring the Veleek to them, Ax stayed behind. Flying above the ocean, Tobias located a humpback whale while the human Animorphs morphed into bottlenose dolphins; the Veleek, who converged upon them, hovered above them by several feet due to its aquaphobia. Upon reaching the whale, Cassie demorphed and acquired the whale before morphing into a cockroach. Tobias flew down and grabbed her, and in order to prevent the Veleek from locking onto Cassie since she had emitted the latest morphing signature, Jake, Marco, and Rachel partially demorphed and remorphed to give off fresh new energy signatures and keep the Veleek focused on them. Tobias then flew as high up as he could and dropped Cassie, who demorphed in the sky as the Veleek rushed up to grab her. As the Veleek ensnared her with its tendrils, Cassie morphed into the humpback whale, whose weight served as an anchor and dragged the Veleek into the ocean, killing it. The Animorphs then celebrated their victory,^[13] and Rachel's full memories returned to her shortly after.^[15]

Kandrona Destruction Aftermath

Shortly after having defeated the Veleek, the new ground-based Kandrona had yet to arrive when the Animorphs suddenly saw a man on the street raving about the Yeerks, which caused them to celebrate since them destroying the Kandrona had caused Yeerks to starve and now their hosts, specifically the human hosts, would be freed and could inform the world about the threat of the Yeerk Empire. However, Ax, who noticed that the police secretly killed the man on the street, something that the Animorphs did not notice, but does not tell the Animorphs that the Yeerk Empire would just kill the freed humans as they not allow former hosts to live freely and reveal their existence since sharing information would violate the Andalite law of Seerow's Kindness. The day after, the Animorphs brought Ax to their junior high school, with Ax in his human morph. There, Jake's homeroom teacher Mr. Pardue underwent the Fugue as his Yeerk starved, causing "Chapman" to arrive and usher the kids out. As they exited the classroom, Jake witnessed "Chapman" injecting something into the back of Pardue's neck, killing both Pardue and the Yeerk within his head. Realizing that the freed human hosts would be murdered, Jake blamed himself and the Animorphs for destroying the Kandrona and considered the deaths of the freed hosts as blood on their hands; he became further infuriated when he realized that Ax had already known that the Yeerk Empire would kill any host that was freed. Jake told Ax that he viewed Ax as one of them and that he had a right to know the truth since Tom could have been killed, and Ax rationalized his silence as he stated that Jake might not have authorized the destruction of the Kandrona had he known the stakes, furthering angering Jake.

Wanting Ax to trust them, the Animorphs decided to bring Ax to a bookstore, as Ax wanted to learn more about humans. On the way, Ax and Marco stopped at Marco's house, where Ax met Marco's father Peter and played what he believed was a child's game on Peter's computer. Ax later discovered that it was not a game but Peter's profession, as Peter's job was to write software for an observatory, and Ax realized that the modifications he made to his program would allow him to send signals through Z-space, which would allow him to contact the Andalite homeworld. Ax enlisted Tobias' help in flying to the observatory, where Ax successfully communicated with the Andalite military, specifically Head of Council Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrouss, who had Ax take the blame for giving the Animorphs their morphing power in order to preserve Elfangor's legacy and ordered Ax to maintain the Law of Seerow's Kindness by not sharing anything with the Animorphs. While speaking to his father, whom Ax informed about Elfangor's murder, the call was ended by a human-Controller named Eslin 359. Eslin tells Ax that the recent string of dying hosts was due to his sabotage, as he wanted Visser Three murdered; he explained that the Animorphs' destruction of the Kandrona caused many Yeerks to starve to death and that Visser Three only prioritized saving some of them while deeming the others expendable, and that one of the "expendable" Yeerks had been Derane 344, a Yeerk whom he loved. Wanting revenge, Eslin notified Ax of the location where Visser Three fed his Andalite host body and asked him to kill the Visser.

The others Animorphs soon called a meeting, having discovered that Tobias went somewhere with Ax and that Tobias had refused to tell them anything since Ax had sworn him to secrecy. Not liking that Ax had not only kept secrets from them but was now having them keep secrets from one another, the Animorphs, who considered Ax to be one of them, gave Ax an ultimatum: if he was to remain on the team, he was to trust them entirely and be forthcoming; if he refused, he would not be allowed to fight alongside the team and would have to go his own way. Due to the orders from the Andalite military, Ax left the team. The next morning, Ax performed his morning ritual when Tobias arrived and implored him to tell the Animorphs about the assassination mission, to which Ax replied that he did not want to tell Jake since as his Prince, Jake could forbid from going on the mission. Tobias remarked that Jake was his "Prince" too and wondered if Jake could have ordered Ax to divulge his secrets, although Ax clarified that a Prince could not order his subordinates to violate Andalite law. Ax then set out to the feeding spot and morphed into a rattlesnake he had acquired earlier, where he then bit Visser Three's Andalite body when the Visser arrived.

As Ax tried to demorph, he found himself vulnerable in mid-morph when confronted by Hork-Bajir-Controllers, although he was saved by the arrival of the Animorphs. Ax is angered that Tobias had told the Animorphs about the mission and the location of the feeding spot, and Tobias stated that since Jake was his "Prince", he simply had Jake order him to disclose everything. The Animorphs approached the wounded Visser Three to finish him off, and Visser Three swiftly exited his Andalite host and escaped into the nearby stream. Now freed, the poisoned Andalite host body introduced himself as War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass and asked to be killed, adding that the snake venom would not kill him. Ax cannot bring himself to kill Alloran due to him being an uncontrolled Andalite, and an understanding Alloran simply requested that Ax pass a message onto his family that he still loved them. The Animorphs then left the wounded Alloran behind before Yeerk reinforcements could arrive, allowing Alloran to be recaptured and reinfested by Visser Three.^[15]

Ax's Official Induction

Ax spent the next two days in the woods thinking about the Animorphs and ultimately decided that he would tell them everything they wanted to know. He asked the Animorphs to meet him in the woods and told them the story of Seerow and about the law of Seerow's Kindness, and how Andalites were responsible for the Yeerk Empire and their conquest of other species since Seerow had given the Yeerks the technology to do it. To his surprise, the Animorphs did not blame Andalites and instead remarked that Seerow had messed up by trusting the Yeerks but that it did not mean the Andalites should cease all attempts to befriend and help out other species, and Jake expressed that he wanted Ax to tell them the truth and to be an official member of the team. The Animorphs claimed that Seerow's mistake had been helping out with the wrong species, but that if the Andalites wanted someone to partner with, humans would be the ideal species and that humans and Andalites would work together and learn from one another, although Ax believed this would not be possible due to them being from two different worlds. Rachel pointed out that the Andalites on the Andalite homeworld might not like Ax's newfound decision to tell the team everything they wanted to know, and Ax agreed that they would be upset and that he would have to explain his actions if he ever returned home. Tobias told Ax that Elfangor at the very least would be proud of his actions, and Jake asked Ax if he would officially join their team, which Ax agreed to.^[15]

With Ax now the official sixth member of the Animorphs,^{[note 5]} Marco told Ax that there was a question that all of the Animorphs had been wondering, and asked how Ax could eat without a mouth. Ax revealed that Andalites ate grass through their hooves, as their hooves could absorb grass and water.^[15] Ax also notified his fellow Animorphs that nothlit was the Andalite word for one who was trapped in morph.^[16]

Logging Operations

With Visser Three back in his Andalite host body, having survived the assassination mission against him in his feeding spot within the national forest,^[15] Visser Three decided to clear out the national forest as he suspected that the "Andalite bandits" were residing there. The Yeerk Empire then created the Dapsen Lumber Company and built a logging command center compound within the forest, which was protected by a force field. Meanwhile, while at school, Cassie and Rachel acquired and morphed into a white rat named Courtney, who was Cassie's science project, and are nearly killed by a group of boys. Rachel and Cassie attacked the boys by climbing up their pant legs before they managed to retreat to safely demorph, although Courtney escaped. That evening, having learned of the Dapsen compound's existence, the Animorphs decided to put a stop to the operation since Ax and Tobias lived in the forest, although Cassie believed that their reasoning should be to preserve the forest for its environmental and natural value. During a failed attempt to infiltrate the compound, the Animorphs were shot at by Dracon beams, and although they escaped, a skunk was wounded, which Cassie and her father later recovered. Cassie became horrified when her father informed her that the skunk was a mother and that she had babies somewhere in the woods as she realized that the kits would easily be preyed upon. Cassie then acquired the mother skunk as she resolved to finding the skunk kits.

The Animorphs regrouped around 3 A.M. and flew to the command center in great horned owl morphs, which Jake, Marco, and Ax, had acquired. Landing, the team, minus Jake and Tobias, morphed into a termite from the local colony and infiltrate the Dapsen command center, although they find their termite bodies being controlled by the termite queen. With no other choice, Cassie killed the termite queen, which restored the Animorphs' control over their termite bodies but destabilized the colony, which Cassie felt immense regret and guilt over as she likened herself to an invader who had entered the termite's world and had destroyed them. The Animorphs accessed the computer inside the command center and learned that Dapsen Lumber needed approval from a Forest Service Commissioner named Farrand before they could proceed and managed to escape from the building without being detected. The next morning, Cassie set out to find the skunk den that was situated near the command center, and Tobias offered to show the location to her. Alarmed at why a red-tailed hawk like Tobias knew the location of baby skunks, Cassie is angered to find out that Tobias ate one of the five kits and that there are only four left. Arriving at the den, Cassie morphed into the skunk den and fed the kits a frozen grasshopper she had brought from the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic while Tobias flew off to notify Jake. As a skunk, Cassie cuddled up with the four kits and fell asleep, only to be awakened by Jake nearly two hours later. Jake berated Cassie for nearly become a skunk nothlit and reminded her that they were not given their morphing powers to save skunk babies, although Cassie remained adamant that she would protect the kits until their mother returned. The Animorphs then decided to help Cassie, with Tobias monitoring the den while Cassie fed him frozen mice while the rest of them took turns morphing into the mother skunk so that the kits could imprint on their "mother," with Ax morphing into the skunk during the day when the Animorphs were at school.

The Animorphs then learned of Farrand's arrival to the compound and that the Yeerks had prematurely started logging, which signaled to them that the Controllers would simply infest Farrand when he arrived and ensure that Dapsen Lumber had legal permission. The Animorphs decided to grab Farrand as soon as he arrived in order to prevent his infestation, as the Yeerks would have disabled the force field to allow for Farrand's arrival. Cassie and Tobias are tasked with flying to the compound while the others travel by ground, and Cassie apologized to Tobias for being upset at him for eating one of the baby skunks as she realized that hawks had a right to exist as much as prey animals and that Tobias was merely living life the way nature had intended hawks to live. En route, Cassie wondered what their plan would be if Farrand had already been infested, and when Tobias replied that they would just attack the logging operation itself, Cassie pointed out the double standard in how they treated human-Controllers vs. non-human-Controllers like Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, claiming that if Farrand was a non-human-Controller, they would've just attacked him and shrugged it off if he died, finding the situation similar to how the other Animorphs shrugged off Cassie having to kill the termite queen as they did not find non-human life to be on equal footing.

As they arrived at the compound, Tobias spotted Visser Three in his human morph, having recognized the Visser's human morph from a previous encounter when the Animorphs infiltrated The Sharing's Headquarters. While attempting to protect Farrand, Cassie was shot in the wing and crashed onto the ground, where she and a now unconscious Farrand were placed inside of a box. Cassie took advantage of the privacy the dark box offered to demorph and remorph into a skunk, after which she thought-spoke to Visser Three and told him that she would kill Farrand. Needing Farrand alive, Visser Three ordered the surrounding human and Hork-Bajir-Controllers to open the box and shoot "the Andalite bandit" inside. As they opened the box, Cassie turned around and sprayed them all, including the Visser, forcing them to retreat in disgust. Jake took advantage of the situation and had Ax broker a deal on his behalf with Visser Three, where Visser Three would let Cassie and Farrand go and would also drive Farrand to a hospital safely and infested in exchange for the "Andalite bandits" divulging the secret of how to neutralize skunk stench. Despite one of the human-Controllers trying to tell Visser Three that his human host knew how to do that, the Visser decided to seek the Andalite method and agreed to the deal. After Farrand was driven to the hospital, where he regained consciousness and officially denied Dapsen Lumber's permit, thereby preventing the Yeerk Empire's attempts to log in the national forest, the Animorphs told Visser Three that the secret to neutralizing skunk stench was grape juice. They then laughed about the fact that they had tricked the Visser^[17] by not telling him the truth that it was tomato juice and not grape juice which would help with the skunk smell.^{[note 6]}

Quest for the Pemalite Crystal

Meeting the Chee

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.^[18]

Matcom Infiltration

To be added

Amazon Sario Rip

Main article: Animorphs/Amazon Sario Rip

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Rachel's Morph Allergy

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Hork-Bajir Liberation

Aiding Jara Hamee

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.

Tobias' Morphing Restored

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.^[19]

Infiltrating Zone 91

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Royan Island Mission

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Billionaire Serial Killer

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Oatmeal Drug Warfare

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Aiding Andalite Military on Leera

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In the Time of Dinosaurs

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Cassie's Resignation

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.^[20]

The Seventh Animorph

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.^[21] 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.^[22] 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.^[23]

Tobias' True Parentage

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.^[24]

Shrunk by the Helmacrons

To be added

Trapped in the North Pole

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Contest of Champions

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.^[25]

Diving to the Pemale Ship

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.^[26]

Morphing Cows in Slaughterhouse

To be added

Ax's Brain Surgery

After successfully dismantling a Yeerk research operation designed to destroy human free will,^[27] 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.^[28]

Historical Time travel Adventure

History Altered by Visser Four

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Jake's Death

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Killing Hitler

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Erasing Berryman's Existence

To be added

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.^[29]

Preventing Fratricide

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Anti-Morphing Ray

Rachel's Split

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Tobias' Torture

Learning from the Chee that the Yeerks were developing an Anti-Morphing Ray,^[30] 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.^[31]

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.

Marco's Morphing Misfire

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Working with Visser One

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Secret Underwater Civilization

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Rachel's Leadership

Public Animal Attacks

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Flying Jet into Skyscraper

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Unit 0

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Buffa-Human/Morphing Sensor

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Andalites in Town

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Jake's Alternate Realities

Drode's Offer

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Simulated Reality

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Return of the Helmacrons

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Planning a Gas Leak Explosion

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Stuck in Australia

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Endgame

Revelations

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Preventing United States-China War

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Hork-Bajir Valley Flood

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The Return of David

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Identities Exposed

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Auxiliary Animorphs

Recruiting Disabled Teens

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Cassie's Kindness

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Alliance with National Guard

Working with the Governor

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Yeerk Pool/Downtown Destruction

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Open War

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Taxxon Alliance

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The Final Battle

Seizing the Pool Ship

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Death of Rachel

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Ending the War

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Worldwide Celebrities

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One Last Mission

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Members

First Incarnation

Jake

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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To be added

Second Incarnation

Auxiliary Animorphs

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

Notes

References