000 - Character Info
PERSONALITY: Snide, snarky, sarcastic and sly, Axel is a bit of an abrasive character and most assuredly an acquired taste in company. He's competitive to a fault and confident as the day is long, with a tendency to mouth off and an inclination toward incorrigibility; it definitely takes a little getting used to his acerbic nature before you realize that for the most part he means little harm. His incendiary demeanor and antagonistic manner are a bit of a turn-off, it's true (and mostly a defense mechanism), but in Axel's opinion, people take themselves way too seriously anyway, and sometimes it's just too tempting to poke them with a stick. As a general rule, he's a good-natured breed of troublemaker who enjoys pushing peoples' buttons just to get a rise out of them, and while at first glance it seems like he doesn't play well with others, the fact of the matter is simply that most people don't bother to get to know him well enough to learn otherwise. A tad duplicitous and an expert at manipulating his words, it takes someone with a lot of patience and a genuine desire to put forth the effort to read between his lines to get through his thick skin to the squishy nougat center fundamentally nice guy he pretends not to be.
Axel is also rather childish when you get right down to it. He's a little needy, and though he is more than willing to loudly voice his own opinions, he has a tendency to be rash when he doesn't have a contingency plan. He wears his moods on his sleeves quite visibly in safe company, and despite how it takes quite a shock to break through that calm collected mask he dons most of the time, Axel is most assuredly not as infallible as he chalks himself up to be. A little possessive, a hair melodramatic, and a smidgen ridiculous, he's definitely entertaining company, if nothing else. He's fierce and proud, rebellious and suspicious...slow to trust, but rock-solid to the end once his affinity has been earned. He'll follow orders when he knows he has to or when it's in his best interests, but he hates to be told what to do. Derisive, brash, and downright sassy at times, he seems not to think too highly of most people, and puts on a very blatant show of assuming he's better than everyone else. He may not be a scholastic genius, but he's little if not ambitious and driven to get what he wants in order to facilitate his own aims. Strategically, he's difficult to outwit, because he's almost always planned two steps ahead of the game.
Something of a showoff, Axel is mischievous and clever, and can't sit still; he's resourceful and dangerously driven, perhaps even a little bit reckless given the right circumstances--he knows what he wants, and he despises losing. He doesn't particularly enjoy work, either, though less because he's lazy (though if given the option he would love to just nap all day) and more because he'd just rather someone else take care of things. He prefers to pass the buck and let others deal with problems, since getting his hands dirty often leads to having to take responsibility--something Axel always endeavors not to have to do. However he has no issues handling the nastier jobs if the right person is asking.
What you really don't see is that the preening and posturing is mostly to hide that Axel's a pretty decent guy. True, he is rather volatile, and he certainly has a fiery temper, but his pugnaciousness is diffused by a generally world-weary cynicism that keeps his jokes just shy of going too far and actually hurting anyone. He's got a sharp edge, but rarely presses hard enough to draw blood, and despite getting his yayas out at the expense of others, it's unusual for him to be outright cruel without a damn good reason. Charismatic, street-smart, and quick on his feet, Axel is definitely a good ally to have on your side. For that matter, he's a pretty good friend if you can stand him for more than ten minutes. He's actually quite loyal when he attaches himself to a person (or a cause), it just takes a lot of convincing (or a really awesome person) to impress him to the point where he'll stop being insufferable long enough to let someone in. Despite not having a heart with which to do so, it's pretty easy to tell Axel loves his friends dearly, though the circle tends to remain small. He pulls out all the stops to try and make things easier for them (even if that means skipping a nap to pull double work duty, or going on an icky dangerous mission to make sure nobody gets themselves killed), and even puts them before work...which could easily get him killed, in his specific occupation. He's always ready with a smart remark or a dumb joke to try and lighten the mood, and he's protective of the people he takes a liking to, almost to the point of possessiveness. For a guy without a heart, he sure hates to see his friends troubled or in pain. He's always good on his word, silver tongue notwithstanding, and if he screws something up, you can bet your last ten munny he's going to try and set things right. Axel would never have said that he would die for his friends, but in the end, his actions spoke much louder.
BACKGROUND: Very little is known about Axel's past before he joined Organization XIII. Like the other members of the organization, he remembers his past, he just has no desire to explain it to anybody, and so he keeps his nebulous history to himself. The only other person who seems to know anything about his elusive past is Saïx, the organization's #7, with whom this history seems to collide. Of course, Saïx isn't very forthcoming with information, either. All we know for certain is that before his heart was lost to the darkness, Axel's name was Lea (リア--a variation of the name Lee, pronounced Lee-ah, despite what the English adaptation of 358/2 Days indicates). Any actual details regarding his past, however, are shrouded in mystery.
When a heart is lost to darkness, two byproducts are created--a Heartless and a Nobody. The lost heart is housed in the dark vessel of the Heartless, and the empty husk of the flesh becomes a Nobody. Obviously, the strength of the heart plays a part in this process: the stronger the heart, the stronger the Heartless, the stronger the Nobody. Most of the Heartless and Nobodies created as darkness continued to take over the different worlds were small and weak, but there were the rare powerful Heartless and Nobodies with not only sentience, but intelligence, and it was the cream of that crop that created Organization XIII--a gathering of the strongest of the strong Nobodies. The organization was founded by Xemnas and his five cohorts, whose delving into the mysteries of the heart drove them to lose them. Known as Xehanort in life, Xemnas was the apprentice to Ansem the Wise, a great scientist who had been studying the workings of the heart for many years. However his recent studies had brought Ansem to the brink of a very dangerous revelation, and he had the entire project stopped. When Xehanort voiced a desire to continue the research, Ansem forbade it, and so Xehanort moved forward on his own. Along with his five interns, Xehanort probed into the darkest corners of his own heart, losing it to the consuming darkness and creating a powerful Heartless and Nobody. The Heartless called itself Ansem, in an attempt to smear the name of the man who stymied their research, and the Nobody was known as Xemnas.
However, after the deed was done, the Nobody created in the process realized that without a heart, the world was an empty, desolate place. And so with the Nobodies of his fallen interns the six of them combined their power, intelligence, and resources to attempt to undo what their investigations had done: they wanted their hearts back, and supposed that the only way to do so would be to collect the hearts stolen by the Heartless. When all of the stolen hearts combined, it would create Kingdom Hearts, and only then would the Nobodies be whole once more. Such was the goal of Organization XIII.
After joining the organization, Axel quickly made a bit of a spectacle of himself. It was actually Saïx--the first of the neophyte members--who rose to the top to become the organization's second-in-command. Axel of course denies that his ties with Saïx had anything to do with how quickly he himself came into favor with the brass. The organization favors those who get the job done, after all, and if there's one thing Axel is good at, it's his job. Which is recon and killing Heartless, of course. Despite his youth and general newness to the organization, Axel quickly became one of its most efficient and trusted members--if Xemnas needed something done fast and right, Axel was the one he called upon. When the Nobody of the Keyblade Master was found and inducted into the ranks, his training was put into Axel's hands, and despite a bit of a rocky beginning, Axel and Roxas became close. However their budding friendship was put on hold when Axel was ordered to take a mission in Castle Oblivion. It seemed that the Keyblade Master was falling right into the trap they'd laid out, and Xemnas wanted to make sure nothing got in their way. There was talk of mutiny in the ranks, and Axel was charged with sniffing out the insurgents and making sure the interests of the organization were preserved.
Castle Oblivion was the Organizations second base, as it were, where Vexen--the fourth member--was conducting most of his research. Luring Sora into the castle to erase his memories was the first step in an experiment to see if the Keyblade Master's powers could be replicated. As he made his way to the top floors of the castle, Sora progressively lost more and more of his memories, even forgetting the most important person in his life--Kairi. His memories of Kairi were replaced with memories of Naminé, the memory witch who was to unravel Sora's memories so that Xemnas could make use of them himself. Axel had a vested interest in Sora, of course, since he was Roxas's Somebody, but he knew his real objectives were rooted elsewhere. After sidewinding his way into Larxene and Marluxia's little plot to overthrow Xemnas, he turned the tables and aided Sora in destroying them, fulfilling his orders to destroy the resistance and ascertain the organization's victory.
Unfortunately, things didn't end up going entirely in Axel's favor. The traitors were destroyed, and Axel killed two of his senior comrades with his own hands, but the prize was still lost. Naminé was spirited away into the hands of the mysterious DiZ. Naturally, Axel denies that he had anything to do with this--he didn't see her escape, after all... With Naminé gone and Sora put into a deep sleep so that his memories could be reconstructed, the organization now had precious little time to pick up the pieces if their dream of Kingdom Hearts was to come to fruition. In the end, Axel returned the sole survivor of the fiasco at Castle Oblivion. He seemed mostly unaffected by the loss of his comrades, but of course, he doesn't have a heart to feel with anyway, right? He was just following orders! It's difficult to tell if Axel has ever actually taken a side, or if he's just in this for himself: his apathy toward Vexen as he kills him with a snap of his fingers could indicate that perhaps he hated the man, and the way he remorselessly allowed the replica of Riku devour and absorb Zexion could almost be seen as cruel, but what does a creature with no heart know of hatred and cruelty? Maybe he's just doing it because he's told, maybe he's doing it because he enjoys it...or maybe he just honestly feels nothing--'Nobody' knows for sure. He keeps his true alliances so close to his...heart...that it's nigh impossible to tell who he's crossing, because he really never lets on just where his loyalties lie.
Upon returning to The World That Never Was, Axel is reunited with Roxas, and the two of them get back to working missions together. Incidentally, it is shortly after his return during a brief trip to Hollow Bastion that Axel actually unwittingly releases Maleficent's crow, Diablo, from its imprisonment. Spying a crow locked in a cage, Roxas wonders aloud if they should release it, and so Axel obliges him, throwing his chakrams and breaking the cage. It is because of this event that Maleficent was able to return to again play a part in the web of wickedness driving the story. Also during this time, Organization XIII had already acquired its inexplicable fourteenth member, Xion, but Axel had never spoken with her prior to his departure for Castle Oblivion. He returns to find that in his absence, Roxas and Xion have become close, and though he does a decent job of hiding it, he is visibly rankled by their friendship. Whether out of jealousy or remorse, however, he'll never tell.
Whatever his personal feelings on the issue may truly be, Axel befriends Xion as well, though he knows something isn't quite right about her. When exactly he comes into the knowledge that she's the puppet intended to absorb Roxas's power over the Keyblade isn't specified, but as Xion's actions grow more and more reckless and Roxas's energy begins to wane, Axel knows it's only a matter of time before one of them ends up destroying the other. Xion has actually pulled some of the sleeping Sora's missing memories--those desperately important memories of Kairi--into herself, and so long as she retains those memories, Sora can never awaken (which is good for the Organization), but Roxas will continue to lose power (which is bad for the Organization). The memories of one boy cannot be split between two shadows and sustain them both.
Pulled in two directions, Axel has to confront his own misgivings and make a choice: Xion, or Roxas? The puppet for whom Roxas cares, or the one genuine friendship he truly has? Ultimately, Axel knows the choice isn't really his to make--this is up to Roxas--and so when he finds the boy fleeing the castle, he doesn't stop him. Understanding that this is something Roxas will have to figure out on his own ("No one would be sad without me, anyway," Roxas snarls as he leaves), he lets him go, but not before admitting, mostly to himself, that his absence will hurt at least one person. After Roxas departs, Axel makes one last trip to Twilight Town, finding Xion at the gates of the mansion in the woods, where she had spoken with Naminé and learned the whole truth of her false existence. Though he claims that Xion returning Sora's stolen memories was the best choice all along, it's clear in Axel's words and the tone of his voice that the inevitable battle between them cuts him deeply. Axel's wounds are twofold when he not only fails to save Xion, whose very essence was erased, the memories returning to Sora and all traces of her ever having existed vanishing with them, but Roxas as well, who falls to Riku in the battle at Memory's Skyscraper and is forced into an illusory Twilight Town while Naminé unravels the rest of Sora's memories, which will allow the Keyblade Master to awaken...but will cause Roxas to fade from existence forever.
Axel's loyalties to the organization are shaken to their core when Xemnas charges him with finding Roxas and either bringing him back...or destroying him with his own hands. He feels responsible for having let him go, and wonders if things could have been different if he'd only tried harder to keep him at the castle. But orders were orders, and Axel knew if he didn't go after Roxas, someone else would...and would likely be less gentle about it. Though gentleness wasn't really an option--confronting the boy in Twilight Town, Axel was beyond dismayed to learn that Roxas had, in fact, completely forgotten all about him. But their showdown was cut short when DiZ managed to purge Axel from the fabricated Twilight Town, leaving Roxas confused and scared, and Axel to return empty-handed. A final attempt is made to bring Roxas back to the organization, but it fails as well, though it seems Roxas may have finally regained some of his memories. As Axel fades into the dark corridors that will take him back to the castle, he and Roxas make a promise to meet again in the next life, though Axel knows no such thing awaits him.
After that, Axel knows he can never go home again. Branded a traitor, he is forced to live between worlds, never able to stay in one place for very long. He rescues Naminé from DiZ, where it is discovered that he had plans to destroy her all along, since "Nobodies were never meant to exist anyway". It turns out DiZ is none other than Ansem the Wise. Forced into hiding when Xehanort's Heartless tarnished his good name, DiZ took to trying to rectify the mistakes of his apprentices from the shadows, working with Riku and King Mickey to keep Sora safe and try and destroy the Organization. Taking Naminé away, Axel entrusts her to Riku before setting off to find Kairi. It was Naminés greatest wish to meet Kairi, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do. Might as well screw up the Organizations plans a little more. He had to admit he was curious as to what might happen if a Nobody met their Somebody, and so he goes back to Twilight Town and attempts to bring Kairi to Naminé, but is stymied by Saïx, who kidnaps Kairi and locks her away in the castle in The World That Never Was.
By this point, Axel knows he's really screwed up. There's really only one way to fix things now--might as well go for broke. Finding Sora in Betwixt and Between--the shifting dimension between worlds--Axel helps him defeat the army of Nobodies guarding the gateway to The World That Never Was...but at a heavy price. His energy spent, Axel begins to fade away, but not before confessing to Sora that he'd done everything he'd done for the simple reason of wanting to see Roxas again. After telling Sora where to find Kairi (and apologizing for kidnapping her in the first place), Axel opens a portal to the castle, bidding Sora to go and finish what he hadn't been able to do, and then fades into the nothingness he came from. Huh. Turns out maybe his loyalties were just with Roxas the whole time...
ABILITIES:
• Chakrams/Fire - His weapons of choice are a pair of red-and-silver spiked chakrams that can be conjured at will from the air. These serve as melee as well as ranged weapons, as they can be both used to slashing/stabbing and be thrown. He also has an ability to weild fire, though whether this is directly linked to the chakrams themselves is uncertain. He can conjure circles of flame as well as projectile fireballs in battle. His codename in the Organization was The Flurry of Dancing Flames (おどる火の風).
• Speed/Teleportation - Axel is able to manipulate the corridors of darkness to move between and within worlds. These corridors are able to bridge any distance, utilizing the flux space between dimensions known as Betwixt and Between to close the gaps between planes. He's also insanely fast and can zap in and out of space faster than the eye can see, throwing his weapons and then just appearing on the other side of the arena to catch them and throw them again.
• Negotiation - A real smooth operator, Axel has quite a silver tongue and a way of talking himself out of (or into) just about any manner of trouble. He's an accomplished double-agent.