Gaea stood inside her Viewing Room, watching yet another Red Wood cut down to make a cheap table. She had seen the world rise and fall. This form, dark haired and female, had been conscious for only a few hundred years. In that time, she saw coal coat the sky, stars become mute behind a gate of human progress. It made her lonely, disconnected, and *angry.*
There were times when humanity gave her hope, made the right choices, only to fall again at the expense of the Earth. Gaea could feel them tear up her beautiful planet, her home, her soul. It made the white streak in her hair spread, until almost all her dark curls were snow streaked mountains.
The 80s had been a hopeful time. Gaea had found a group worthy of wielding the Five Rings: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Heart. They had been a motley crew of optimistic, engaged humans. They had confidence. That had been important to Gaea, that they have the same tentative hope she did. That each of those rings was wielded by someone who wanted to help save humanity and show them the way.
The Rings had failed Earth. Had failed Gaea. Those bright children had flickered out.
Gaea didn't like to think about those last few days. The Planateers had become a family of sorts, deeply connected through the magic of the rings. Perhaps too close, too isolated from the realities of the war they would be raging. When Linka died…
The group fell away, moving on with their lives or refusing to. It didn't matter,
Gaea had been left alone, with only her empty certainty that she would never find anyone worthy of wielding the Magic of Old.
Now the world was a harder place. Gaea didn't know what else to do to get her point across. Earth was dying. Gaea was dying.
When she could summon the Will to speak with Captain Planet, he would blink his tired light at her and ask her to let him sleep. He didn't have the strength to take his form. Earth, the Planet he was born to protect, was killing him as well. *My child… I won't let them kill you.*
Gaea had always felt the Five Rings were what the world needed. She had been born in a time when Science was not strong, when religion and paganism were strongest. Now, as she looked at the world, she knew there was more to it, more to the magic needed to stop the humans. Magic and Science were often the same, she thought, doing things no one could explain.
So she began to mix and mingle elements, she began to make new Rings.
She made a new Child.
"It is time," Gaea said. "It is time to start over."