Axton switches up
his middle
& last name
periodically.
OFCR. CROSS
SECURITY OFFICER
Axton is the quieter
of the security group,
but still remains
intimidating to those
who don't know his
past.
Axton Cross, also known by his full name...
AXTON CROSSBONES / AXTON CROSS / AXL / AX
is one of Variant Labs’ security officers, a quiet, awkward man whose overall demeanor usually effects people before his words do. Most people around the lab simply call him Ax or Axl, both because it suits him better and because his full name has a habit of making people do a double take.
The name came from his father, Kenneth Cross Bones, who had been given the family name by his own father before him. It is a name with history behind it, even if more than a few people have joked that it sounds less like a real man and more like some old comic book superhero. Axton has heard every version of the joke by now, and usually lets it pass without much reaction.
Like several others at Variant Labs, Axton spent time in the Zion Armada, though his experience there was separate from Butch and Baron’s. He had seen them before in passing, recognized the faces, and the kind of men they were, but never built any relationship with them.
By then, Axton had already learned one of the hardest lessons Zion had to offer: do not get too close to people, because one day you may watch them die. That thought haunted him through his service, especially after he was seriously injured in the war. During combat, Axton was stabbed in the neck and left with permanent damage that changed his voice for good.
Even after surviving, the wound left his speech mumbly and strained whenever he talks, as though every word still has to force its way back out of him. For years after the injury, Axton barely spoke at all, which only made him seem more unsettling to the people around him.
By the time he started working at Variant Labs, Axton was only beginning to reclaim the outspoken part of himself. As the years went on, he gradually found his voice again, even if it never returned the same way it once had. Under all the intimidating exterior, Axton is far more approachable than most people expect. He opens up slowly, but genuinely, once someone earns that trust.
He is not extrovertedly loud, and not interested in pretending to be harder than he already is. At Variant Labs, that makes him valuable in a way that goes beyond security alone. He understands distance and caution better than most, but he also understands what it means to begin letting people in again.
