Author's Notes:

Gaia was first introduced in Gen-X #37 and she was last seen in Gen-X #50 and there is, overall, not a lot known about her origins or her life in general. So, when I let her move into my head there were a lot of blanks to be filled in. Keeping with Marvel tradition, this is an AU that veers completely off course from what her story was after escaping the Amalgamator in the comics. I like to think that I have stayed true to the spirit of the character while building her story. I hope you enjoy my attempt.

If you are interested in Gaia's canon, please read her story in Marvel's Generation-X series of comics.

Many thanks to my dear Liz (redbess) who listens to me prattle on about Gaia pretty constantly and has helped me flesh out ideas and work out kinks. I love you, darling.

Part 1

Come Away O Human Child

London, England, spring 1853

The air between the two trees in a small garden shimmered like heat coming off a rock as G'nera stepped through the portal between them. She wrapped her cloak more securely around her tall frame as she looked around, expecting to be seen, to be caught. But there was no one in the yard, and mere feet between her and her destination.

The house was a large, rambling affair. Three stories with flickering gas lights casting odd shadows off of furniture in several of the many windows. It was too dark to see what color it was, but G'nera new from her visions that it was blue with bright yellow shutters and elegant, white curtains in the windows.

Except in one.

G'nera's large yellow eyes shifted to the second story window with frothy pink curtains. As she watched, a woman came over to shut the window with one arm. The other held a blonde child, roughly toddling age (if G'nera's judgment of human aging was correct), carefully balanced so she wouldn't fall. The child's round face was relaxed with sleep and cradled comfortably on the woman's shoulder. The pair stepped away from the window and the flickering shadows showed the woman placing the child in a small bed. She then turned and walked to the door, pausing only long enough to dim the gas light before leaving the room.

G'nera waited for a count of thirty before moving from her hiding spot at a slithering walk, gliding from shadow to shadow until she was crouched next to the brick foundation of the house between two bushes. Another count, and she began scaling the walls as easily as an insect thanks to a secretion on her skin that allowed her to stick to vertical surfaces and the strong claws that tipped each of her four fingers. When she reached the window, she paused, knowing that she looked like nothing more than a blobby shadow next to the window. Holding to the wall with one hand and her feet, she leaned over and eased the window open with a quiet creak.

The thief paused again, long enough to make sure that no one had heard the sound she had felt was too loud, but there was no disturbance. Without another pause, she carefully (ever so carefully; must be careful and silent in all things) snaked through the window and lowered her bare feet to the floor. Once in, she paused to listen again. This time she heard voices, two females, one older and one rather young, having a conversation in the room just below her.

"Agnes, is Margaret in bed?" the older voice asked.

"Yes, mum. Sleepin' like a wee angel, she is." The younger girl's voice held a strange lilt to it that was oddly soothing, if G'nera was in any need of such comfort.

"Excellent. I believe I would like to take her out to the park in the morning. Have the carriage ready for ten, will you?"

"O' course, mum. Will there be anything else?"

"I'll have some letters that need to be sent out…" G'nera tuned them out at this point, deciding they were sufficiently distracted and would not notice her intrusion.

She turned to the cradle. It was dark wood carved elaborately with flowers and fairies. The linens were the same fountain of pink that the curtains were and nestled carefully inside their bounty was the child. Her blonde hair just curled to her shoulders and her rosebud mouth was slightly parted as she slept. One arm was at her side and the other was fisted next to her head. If G'nera opened her mind, she knew that she would feel the projections of the child's dreams. A telepath and possibly telekinetic. That was why she was chosen.

G'nera's slender, long fingered hand reaching inside the cloak for a pouch and deftly opened it with talon tipped fingers. She dipped two fingers into the pouch and sprinkled a fine dust over the girl's face. She sneezed once, then settled so deeply into sleep that the house could come down around her and she would not wake. The thief wrapped her in one of the blankets and moved her to a sling strung over her chest. …come away o' human child, she thought with a little smirk as she turned to leave the way she came. Some of the human poetry she had discovered while researching her target was quite apt.

She was just climbing the last of the way out of the window when she felt movement behind her, then heard a piercing scream. G'nera didn't chance a look, but leapt from the window and curled protectively around her bundle as she landed. She stood and ran towards the trees just as people from the house came flooding out of the doors. Someone was chasing her, had almost grabbed her cloak and…

She jumped between the trees and felt the gateway close behind her. She stood slowly and took a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the sudden onslaught of bright, sterile light. Her arms were wrapped around the infant and she loosened one to pull back her hood. When she did, she revealed a hairless, oblong skull with no ears and pale blue/green skin. Her eyes were yellow with no pupil apart from a small pinprick of green at the center.

G'nera turned to the man running the gate, waiting to speak as he shut down the machine.

"Did you get her?" he asked, his voice reverberating off of G'nera's open ear canals in familiar baritone. The language he spoke was fluid, liquid gabble that G'nera understood perfectly as it was her native tongue.

"I got her," she replied in the same language. She looked down at the sleeping baby. "I will put her in bay six. When she and the others wake, the testing can begin."

Pa'Dhorha'n Plains, Testing Facility, 8 years later

G'nera watched the five children through the glass, her bald head cocked to one side. She knew without looking that two people stood on her left side and two on her right. The sixth had been dismissed three years ago when his protégé from a small moon somewhere in the horsehead nebula had failed and been humanely dispatched. That had ended Ur'an's time in their little group and he had been transferred to work on The Project. Now there were five, and the time was rapidly approaching for the next of the unworthies to be weeded out.

The children were all standing in a line, separated by humming energy walls. They were so still and silent that they could almost have been dolls, but they were in mental contact with one another and with the machines. This was learning time. Today's lesson focused on a star system that none of them were from. The information was downloaded directly into their brains and sorted through automatically by the safety chips each one had implanted beneath their skulls.

G'nera studied the competition against her Sol3. Enu2 wasn't any competition. The clumsy child was covered in shaggy, tawny fur, was already half again as tall as his playmates, and had paws rather than hands. Not that these were strikes against him. In fact, they were part of what made them think an Enu2 child with the correct abilities could be used for their purposes. But for a telepath, the child was singularly dull and had no other abilities to speak of. All efforts to trigger any latent abilities had failed, and it was unlikely that he'd be able to undergo the other changes that were necessary for the project to be complete. No. Enu2 was not a threat. In fact, he and his handler, J'rai, would probably be the next to go.

Janu6, however, might be an issue. G'nera shifted her attention to the blue skinned, four armed male. He was small and lithe, at least a hands breadth shorter than Sol3. From what G'nera had studied, the child looked like something from some of the religious mythology of a country on Sol3's planet. His mind was lightning quick, and he had responded to their efforts to awaken his abilities as though he'd already had them active. Troublesome.

Shifting her thoughts again, G'nera studied Hava4, the only other female in the group since Ur'an's had failed. The child was as dark as Sol3 was pale, with white hair and a long tail that ended in a white tuft. Sol3 and Hava4 were on a mental level with one another and often communicated mentally. The fact was, those two and the fifth child, Tyr12, were forming a particularly strong triad. If the link couldn't be severed without damaging them, then perhaps it should be encouraged. Three guardians would be better than one.

Tyr12 was an Ardaan, like G'nera and the rest of them. He had been given by his parents to the project willingly when he'd shown the proper initial signs. It was an honor for them to have had him selected. They were helping to prevent a chaotic end to all things by their sacrifice. Not that Tyr12 knew this. He, just like the rest, had no parents once they entered these walls. Tyr12's parents knew that contact was forbidden, and hadn't once tried to break that rule. At least, not as far as G'nera knew.

So, that was the competition. G'nera felt confidant that Sol3 had a solid chance.

She watched the children, for that was all they were, and wondered at the irony of it all. Such fragile things to pin their hopes on. They would be strong once G'nera and the others were finished with them. Those that passed these next rounds would begin obtaining genetic upgrades to their bodies to help them to survive their duty. It would make the cullings more difficult, but by then there would be physical contests as well as intellectual ones to help make the decisions. The ones that couldn't survive those contests would, obviously, be out of the running.

G'nera could only hope that Sol3 would survive. The humans were more fragile than other races. Younger, too. The others had laughed when she had suggested the race, called her a fool for considering it, but... G'nera had good instincts. She believed that this small being, with all her frailties and the flaws of her race, could be the perfect trigger.

She hoped her instincts were right. If not... well. There would be no replacement assignment for her failure.