Gaia Moore

Context

Fearless was a series of young adult novels by Francine Pascal. These ran from 1999 to 2004.

These seem to have been successful by pre-Hunger Games YAF standards.

Heroine Gaia Moore precedes Katniss by a decade, and is contemporary to Buffy Summers.

Background

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History

Tom and Katia Moore noticed something unusual about their daughter right from the moment of her birth. Even then she was the “world’s calmest baby,” as Tom described her to his superiors in the CIA.

Tom and Katia took extreme care to nurture every talent their daughter displayed. He taught her karate, kung fu, jiujitsu, muay thai, sharpshooting, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Dutch, and every aspect of the logistics of espionage and most importantly, survival.

By the time she entered first grade, she had already saved a few lives using her skills and began teaching them to her classmates during recess.

Conspiracies

Unfortunately, when her teacher, Ms Berger, noticed at one point that Gaia had become even more aggressive than usual. Even she, the teacher, felt unsafe in Gaia’s presence. From there it was discovered that Tom’s brother, Oliver, had impersonated him. He had taken her for several lunchtime training sessions at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument .

Tom confronted Oliver there just as he was about to abduct her. But he turned out to have defected from the CIA to an evil organization known only as The Organization. A huge firefight ensued between dozens of agents of both groups.

Gaia managed to free herself from an Organization agent with her teeth. She then knocked Oliver out with a kick he’d invented and taught her that he called the Slashing Viper. This stunned everyone that had seen.

Oliver later shot Yuri Petrova, the head of the Organization and Katia’s father. He took command of the Organization himself, assuming the name Loki.

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Plans within plans

Meanwhile, Tom took Gaia to be examined extensively to learn just what was different about her. It was then that they knew definitively that Gaia was genetically incapable of experiencing fear. Consequently, the Moores moved to an isolated house in the Berkshire mountains in California and educated Gaia themselves.

Six years later, Loki finally turned up at the Moores’ home. He tried to murder Tom, but Katia got in the way and was killed instead. Tom was then recalled to active duty in the agency. Gaia was placed in a series of foster homes, eventually moving in with Tom’s CIA mentor, George Niven, in New York City.

There she became friends with a very persistent classmate, Ed Fargo. He had lost the use of his legs in a skateboarding accident two years prior. They both developed a crush on an NYU medical student, Sam Moon. Unfortunately, while gawking at Sam, Gaia accidentally spilled coffee on his previous girlfriend, Heather Gannis, creating a bitter rivalry between them.

Gaia also befriended one Mary Moss after saving her from being mugged. Mary later decided to abandon cocaine when Gaia caught her using on Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, when Gaia told Mary about Katia’s death, Loki deemed Mary too dangerous to live. He framed her dealer, Skizz, for the subsequent shooting. Tom had to kill Skizz himself to prevent Gaia from doing it.

Wheels within wheels

Eventually, Gaia discovered that George’s wife, Ella, was reporting directly to Loki on Gaia’s movements. Ella had also hired a hitman to kill Gaia. But by saving Ella, Gaia convinced her that she wasn’t the conniving brat Ella’d made her out to be. Ella thus impersonated Gaia when the hitman arrived.

Gaia had moved in with the surviving Mosses until Tom returned to New York. He moved in with a co-worker, Natasha Petrova.

It was during this time that Loki abducted Gaia and claimed that her lack of fear was due to a serum she’d been injected with at birth. Loki then offered her what he claimed to be a counter-agent to that serum, which she accepted out of curiosity.

In truth, the “counteragent” was a set of hallucinogens [Mental Illusion: 7 R#: 9]. It was meant to determine if what Loki told Gaia was true. What Gaia thought was fear turned out to be a lengthy psychotic episode.

Mysteries within mysteries

Afterwards, Loki fed Heather the same fish story. He offered her an “improved” version of what Gaia had supposedly received [Iron Will: 12, only against fear, R#: 11]. The serum worked for a short time, but the effect began to phase in and out, as did Heather’s memory and eyesight.

Disregarding this, Loki took that same serum himself and was eventually sent into a coma. A clone of Josh Kendall gave Heather the counteragent, but too late to save her sight.

Natasha turned out to be not only Katia’s sister, but also working for their father in the Organization. She poisoned Tom and while he was comatose, he was taken to Siberia. Natasha and Tatiana were eventually discovered and incarcerated.

Gaia freed her father with the help of her uncle, who had reverted his a nice personality when he woke from his coma, and a new classmate who’d battled her to a standstill, Jake Montone. The four of them then returned to Siberia to capture Yuri and finish off the Organization for good.

Lies within lies

One night in Central Park, Gaia was captured and taken to the Rainhill Hospital in Fort Myers Beach. There, Dr. Michael Kraven successfully convinced Gaia that her father had been a drunken security guard and an only child, that she’d never been fearless, and that her mother was still alive.

This didn’t last, though. She got her hands on a red binder that another patient known only as D managed to steal from Dr Krader. It revealed not only the full nature of Kraven’s scheme, but also that D and Gaia were siblings.

Unfortunately, D’s ability to see human auras and his years in hostile isolation left him unable to deal with being in an area as populated as New York City. Another former inmate of Rainhill, Daisy Keller, took him in on her parents’ farm in Oklahoma.

When Tom was again called to duty, Gaia moved into the Collingwood Residency Hall with two other CIA brats. It was headed by Suko Watanabe, an old acquaintance of Tom’s from his early CIA days. At that point she met Chris and Liz Rodke, offspring of CEO Robert Rodke of Rodke and Simon Pharmaceuticals.

Plots within plots

At a party hosted by their father, Gaia learned that their company was researching ways to alter DNA structure. She met with one of their top scientists, Dr Karl T. Ulrich, who eventually agreed to attempt to alter Gaia’s DNA to enable her to feel fear [Neutralize: 18, Phobia: 19], a decision worthy of a sign issuance by Bill Engvall.

With no experience in dealing with fear, she found herself totally consumed by it. Moore allowed a gang of slashers to go unchecked to avoid confronting them.

When she learned the next day that those same slashers had sliced Ed, she realized that she couldn’t escape her sense of responibility that easily. From that point, Gaia did her level best to continue fighting the good fight.

She fled from only two other times from the next six battles. Even though she discovered that her fear not only lengthened her postfight blackouts to two hours, but also made her more sensitive to the damage she incurred from her fights.

Not wanting to follow the stereotype of turning to her boyfriend for comfort, Gaia instead paid a visit to the Rodkes. That was where Robert’s son Skyler brought her to his place to rest and recuperate.

Despite (or perhaps because of) Skyler’s efforts to ease her aches and pains, Gaia sank into a depression so deep that she didn’t even notice the disappearance of her fear weeks later on a Sunday morning… until a heated argument with Jake that night brought out a level of anger that rivalled Doomsday.

Fearless again

After testing herself out on five gangbangers, Gaia realized that she’d reverted to her normal self. She also realized that Skyler might not be as benevolent as he appeared. She pretended to remain the waif he’d come to know, while mentally preparing to bring the Rodkes down.

Skyler, however, was prepared to take advantage of Gaia’s greatest remaining weakness. He tired her out with a battle on the roof of his apartment complex. When she woke up, Dr. Ulrich was about to finish her off so he could dissect her.

But Chris, Jake, and Loki barged in and freed her. Chris then grabbed Loki’s gun and wildly shot everywhere. Stopping him cost Jake his life.

While the Rodkes were being taken to jail, Gaia, distraught with grief, ran like mad through the city. She then realized that she needed to leave New York forever. Moore let every acquaintance but one believe what Skyler’s sister, Liz, told them, that she was in Florida.

After saying goodbye to Ed, Gaia boarded a bus to the Kellers’ farm for a long visit with D. After that, she headed to California, where she spent two years attending Stanford University .

Close to the end of her stint there, Gaia was approached by FBI agent Jennifer Bishop. She managed to convince Gaia to overturn her decision to never join any federal agency. Moore was last seen contemplating a career in the Bureau.

Personality

As Ed Fargo noted the last time he saw Gaia in battle: “She’s surly, she’s unreliable, she sticks to no one’s schedule but her own. She dresses, uh, for comfort, totally unaware of her own gorgeosity, and she’s got the social graces of a leper. She can’t be bothered with other people’s opinions of her, and she doesn’t take BS. And if you mess with her or (dare I flatter myself) her friends- she’ll kick your ass.”

Quotes

“This is not what lost looks like. This is what annoyed looks like. And no, I don’t need any help. Thanks.”

DC Universe History

Gaia bears a striking resemblance to Cameron Chase. Given their similar choice of professions, the two of them may end up as close friends, possibly teaming up on occasion.

By Robert Marcum.

Source of Character: Fearless (teenlit book series by Francine Pascal).