No Choice

No Choice is the first episode of Gaia Guardians. It is an hour long.

Summary
Four young students are chosen to become their city’s defenders under the training of a wise and powerful but uncaring spirit.

Plot
The episode starts off with a prologue, showing that 200 years ago a planet known as Gaian was ruled by Queen Silverstripe and King Snakesong, with their son, Prince Goldenstreak next in line for the throne. Meanwhile, there was a plan they were organizing to invade Earth. However, when Goldenstreak meddled with the plan, Silverstripe and Snakesong decided to have him killed, but he escaped and managed to destroy his parents’ fleet of ships, which had all the Gaian population inside. Silverstripe and Snakesong also managed to escape and fled to an unknown location, with Goldenstreak setting up a base near the city of Doveport. Ever since then, Goldenstreak has chosen four humans to become Gaia Guardians to take over the role of protecting the city and the Earth itself from the king and queen while he enters a state that allows them to fight with their power.

Monday 3rd September, 2018…

Four teenagers, Brooklyn Umiko of Delta Cascade High, Audrey Hathaway and Kent Bainbridge of Cato Academy and Sam Rowan of Goldwood High, are all dissatisfied with their lives. (Beautiful) They are all bullied and pushed around, while Gilda Harrison, a popular, ‘perfect’ student at Goldwood High, is envied by Sam. During school, Brooklyn admires from her school window the view of the tower Goldenstreak set up near Doveport. She sees the Gaia Guardians flying around the tower practicing their powers. She talks to herself how she admires the Guardians and Goldenstreak, thinking about how kind, selfless and brave they must be. After school, Kent thanks Audrey for movie night and heads home. Audrey walks back to her dorm and sees a package with card from her mother on the mat. She just sighs and shoves it under her bed with the other gifts her mother has sent her. Suddenly, she hears and explosion outside and sees trees rising up from the ground randomly and bursting into flame. She sees a winged figure leaping from building to building in the distance before flying off. Brooklyn, Kent and Sam are all caught in the chaos. Sam is surrounded by trees and they are about to go off but all four of the Guardians use their powers to rip the trees out of the ground and the trees explode, killing three of the Guardians. The Fire Guardian falls to the ground, surviving the explosion, but the trees fall on him, crushing his body. Suddenly, when no-one is around to see them, a green ball with a white rose inside appears in Audrey’s room, a white one with a mini-tornado blowing three tiny silver specks around appears next to Kent, a blue one with water and three pearls inside appears next to Brooklyn and a red one with a burning flame inside appears next to Sam. The balls all burst into light, making the kids vanish.

The kids wake up in Goldenstreak’s Tower, with Goldenstreak roughly waking them up. When they do they are at first shocked at the vision of Goldenstreak but he snaps at them and they snap out of it. He explains to them that they are in the middle of a battle, all four of the former Guardians are dead and that they are the new Gaia Guardians, not giving them a chance to let anything sink in. He demands that they accept their destiny. They at first want more answers but he silences them with a death glare. They then decide to accept the proposal after looking at the city in chaos. Goldenstreak creates four contracts and four feather pens and explains the contracts as Gaian Seals and orders them to sign them. Brooklyn tries to convince the others to read first but, Goldenstreak loudly reminds them that Doveport is in the middle of a literal ‘forest fire’ and to hurry up. When they do, Goldenstreak then transforms them into Guardians. Kent, curious, rebellious and kind, becomes the Air Guardian, Mistwing. Audrey, loyal, stubbornly determined and protective, becomes the Earth Guardian, Stonestrike. Brooklyn, cool-headed, graceful and intelligent, becomes the Water Guardian, Icestorm. Sam, brave, hard-working and passionate, becomes the Fire Guardian, Cinderscorch. Goldenstreak gives each of them balls similar to ones that transported them to his tower. At first Stonestrike complains about having her hair lengthened, styled in ringlets and tied back with bronze flowers but Goldenstreak shouts at her to hurry up. The scared Guardians quickly smash the balls onto the ground and disappear while Goldenstreak stands still, his eyes glowing and his hair and clothes billowing as if being blown by wind.

The four return to Doveport and one by one destroy the trees before they can explode. They are seen struggling with using their powers for the first time but manage to get rid of the trees. They hide from the people when they come out from hiding and return to their natural state. Meanwhile back in Goldenstreak’s Tower, he comes out of his trance. The police and firemen come to clean up the damage while news reporters discuss the fight. Apparently, new Gaia Guardians have been chosen and the previous ones have died. Unfortunately, their bodies could not be found. Sam is confused and looks over to where he saw the previous Gaia Guardians die and sees they are not there. Brooklyn notices and asks if he is okay, to which her stutters that he is. The Guardians look at the scratches the got on themselves and Brooklyn wonders if they made the right choice. Audrey mutters she doesn’t think they even had one. Brooklyn agrees that Goldenstreak isn’t what he expected him to be and Audrey and Sam nod. Kent just looks at all the families, pets and homes safe and sound and says that if they did have a choice, they made the right one. The others look at him and he explains as long as the world is safe, they made the right choice. He explains that Goldenstreak was probably just a little grumpy, like Audrey. Audrey glares at him, but then thinks about what he said and says that he’s probably right. Brooklyn suggests that they tell their parents that they got the scratches running away from the burning trees. She says goodbye to the others and they all head home.

Back in Silverstripe and Snakesong’s hideout, a labyrinth at the bottom of a mountain surrounded by a hot dead forest, they discuss the new Guardians. They say they’ve been purposely hold back their attacks all these years to wait until Goldenstreak’s heir realizes her birthright. They say they had poisoned Goldenstreak the night he betrayed them which will eventually kill him. When they find out about the poison and his heir, he will invest so much time into taking care of her, Goldenstreak will completely abandon the Guardians, who will then be killed by an army of Soldiers that Silverstripe and Snakesong themselves have been raising all this time. Without Gaia Guardians to share and increase Goldenstreak's power and only caring about keeping his heir safe, he will die and his heir, new to her responsibilities, will easily be killed. One of their own Soldiers repeats “her?” and asks who is Goldenstreak’s heir: Audrey or Brooklyn. Snakesong replies neither and holds up a grey glass ball showing a sleeping Gilda Harrison.

Trivia

 * When signing the Gaian Seal, it is shown that Audrey, Brooklyn and Sam are right-handed and only Kent is left-handed.