Here's the fifth installment of Maria's Adventures. Scribe handed it over while I was stuck on the third installment - Capcom Kingdom - and it put the Khrista Chronicles nearly on hold. I think watching Transformers: Prime episodes in my free time (over Spring Break 2013 April) sped that up.

Scribe: *pokes her head in* Gee, Nexus, ya think?

Me: Scribe, you're not helping. Anyway, timeline-wise, this is taking place during Khrista's third time off-world - sometime around mid-summer, and it starts sometime between "Stronger, Faster" and "One Shall Fall" - meaning that Maria arrives there after Ratchet's little Synth-En fiasco, but long before the whole first season finale. (Even though a couple events may have gotten a little mixed up beforehand and afterwards...) I still haven't figured out the timing in between each of the chronicled bits of world-jumping craziness, but we are getting there.

Scribe: It doesn't help that you and and the others talk about the stories themselves more than the timing between them. Speaking of time, we're going to be using these Cybertronian terms for time once in a while, so here's the estimated translations that were already used in a different story:

Giga-Cycle: 100 years

Tera-Cycle: 10 years

Orbital-Cycle: 1 year

Vorn: month

Mega-Cycle: week

Solar-Cycle (or just plain Cycle): day

Breem: hour

Klik: minute

Nano-Klik: second

Me: Hey, I was going to do that! Oh, well. Anyway, here you go: the first chapter of the Transformers saga!

Chapter 1 - Another Vision

A girl with light brown hair and blue eyes let out a yawn as she came downstairs, her nose twitching. "Is that bacon I smell?"

"Yup!" A brown-haired, blue-eyed young man grinned at as the girl entered the kitchen. "Morning, Maria. Or, should I say, sleeping beauty."

Maria snorted. "Sleeping beauty yourself, Matt. How is it you're up earlier than I am? It's only seven in the morning in June."

"I felt like getting up before everyone else for a change." Maria's brother placed a plate of bacon on the kitchen table. "I suppose you're fully charged up?"

"Why else would I be up?" Maria snatched a piece of bacon off the plate with a white-gloved hand, giving her brother a suspicious look. "Why would you mention that, anyway? You haven't told anyone, have you?"

Matthew snorted. "Now why would you believe that?"

"I know you well enough to know that your normal habits are changed only when something is wrong or you're keeping a secret." Maria got up on her toes, her red shoulder guards glinting in the light as she tried to get some eye contact with her taller, older brother. "What did you do?"

Matthew's blue eyes sparked, the smirk that had been on his face disappearing into a serious expression. "It's not what I did - it's what a friend did. The Langstroms - the ones across the street - told me a few days ago that their daughter has gone missing."

Maria arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Khrista? Missing?" She frowned. "Well, that would explain why Joshua hasn't called to set up that virtual video game tournament he wanted to fight me in..." She shook her head. "They're probably participating in a tournament back on the Pokemon world."

"Could be. But according to them, she hasn't been gone for this long before, and Joshua actually disappeared into the woods for one reason or another." Matthew shrugged. "You want to try and check it out?"

The Reploid paused for a moment before shaking her head. "Wherever Khrista is, she's probably fine." Maria tossed the bacon into her mouth and swallowed. "You saw her in action, anyway. There's no way that she could possibly be defenseless in any world."

"And you are certainly piled up on defense." Matthew tapped Maria's orange-colored armored chest, prompting a chuckle from his sister. "You know, I was pretty surprised when you showed your armor to us that first time. Who knew my sister was a robot, right?"

"That's Reploid," Maria corrected. "If you want to meet Dr. Light personally, I can arrange a meeting between the two of you."

"Really? You could do that?"

"My portals can transfer more than one person. I brought everybody back from Neo-Mobius. I can get you to Neo-Earth, or bring him back here."

"Nah, I'm good. He's probably got his hands full with the bots." Matthew looked out a nearby window. "So, have you had any of those vision things you mentioned?"

Maria shook her head. "I think it's because there's nothing really going on that I need to give any attention to. The last actual day-vision I had from it was back in the Nintendo Kingdom, right before we arrested Saturn and what remained of the Galactic goons. Course, that was before any of us realized that Cyrus had done something to Giratina..."

"Hey, no one expected that," Matthew stated. "And the only reason you didn't get messed up in that was because of what was going on over on Light's planet. At least the Lake Trio had some sense in getting somebody else."

"And Khrista performed admirably." Maria smirked. "Merlin and Chaos filled in the blanks when I would ask them to pop by. It's pretty incredible, really, how they managed to set that plan in motion."

"Have you told her yet?"

Maria gave her brother a look. "Told her?"

"About what happened on Capcom. You know, what we found out in that video we got a few days ago?"

Maria blinked, then let out a sigh. "No, I haven't. I don't have a reason to, mainly because I don't have to at this point in time. Khrista doesn't need to know."

"That statement will probably come and bite you in the back when you need her most," Matthew warned teasingly.

"Ha ha, veeery funny." Maria grabbed another piece of bacon, then made a change in the subject. "Dr. Light thinks my White Flare attack could reach levels of heat that could match a volcano. He's probably right."

"Now, that's one thing I don't understand." Matthew sat down at the table, fiddling with a piece of bacon. "How'd you get the fire powers, Collin become into a living generator, and Liz is some sort of water user, while I have nothing going for me?"

Maria shrugged, then sat down as well. "Mom and Dad didn't have anything like that, so I don't know how I got it. It's weird, really. I can't help but wonder if there's more to our family than meets the eye..."

Within her chest, there was a sudden surge of energy from the Atlantean Crystal that powered her robotic form. Maria let out a gasp of surprise as something that definitely wasn't her home's kitchen filled her vision.

A tall, dark figure stood in what appeared to be a forested area, the strange figure's eyes glowing a deep, dangerous red as they stared - seemingly into Maria's soul. More figures soon appeared, each with their eyes glowing that same deep red shade. The fog that surrounded the area began to slowly clear, revealing a destroyed city just past the trees. Above, in the sky, the clouds formed a strange formation - the tip of a plane, only with a face attached that seemed to be glaring down at the world below, other clouds wrapping themselves around it. The figures in front of Maria became revealed, as well, causing the Reploid to gasp in shock...

Maria let out a gasp as the vision ended, collapsing against the table with a clang! and a groan.

"What just happened?" Matthew asked. "It looked like you were staring off into space."

"A vision," Maria replied. "Of a bad future on another planet. Or, perhaps, an event to come that could change the set course of history." She looked at her brother, still breathing heavily after what she had seen. "Do you remember when I was looking into those stories on the FanFiction website? The ones with the giant robots that I wouldn't have found without going into the tournament?"

Matthew gave his sister a strange look. "Uh...yeah. Of course I remember you talking about those. Why?"

"That's what was in the vision. I think that the good guys in that world need my help."

"Them? Need you?" Matthew shook his head. "I find that hard to believe. What could robot titans like the ones you described to us need you for?"

"Keeping them from going completely to the dark side - or maybe something worse." Maria got up from the table. "The robots there keep their existence a secret to the rest of the Earth - except for a select few who aren't a part of their American government-people. If I remember correctly from what I've seen off the Internet already, there's a group that seems intent on taking them out. They could spell trouble for the good guys."

"So, you're saying that you're going to head out to their world?"

Maria nodded. "I was given this crystal," she said, tapping her chest, "as well as the gift to see visions of what has happened - my Dimensional Scream, if you will. It's predicted things perfectly so far, and I'm not going to not trust it this time." She took a couple steps away from her brother. "You may want to stand back."

"Wait a sec." Matthew grabbed one of Maria's metallic arms. "Why don't I come with you? The only place I've been to is that Pokemon planet, and I haven't traveled anywhere since."

Maria gave her brother a curious look. "I don't want to get you into any danger, Matt. Who knows what sort of dangers could become involved?"

"I helped take Cyrus out. What could be worse?"

"Getting incinerated by an enemy attack? Or torn to shreds by their clawed talons?" Maria didn't sound worried as she listed these off to her brother, as these could only cause minor injuries to her. "I don't think that you getting involved would be such a good idea... Besides, what would Mom and Dad think if you disappeared?"

Matthew's shoulders sagged slightly at the thought of their parents, but then he smirked and straightened. "We could write out a note, you know. That's what Liz did when she left last time."

Maria flinched slightly at remembering what had happened, then frowned. "You just want to go somewhere, don't you?"

"I really want to go," Matthew replied, nodding vigorously. "Besides, I haven't been anywhere else other than...well, you know."

Maria frowned, hesitant, but then gave a slow nod. "Well, I guess you can come along...but be careful, all right? We're going somewhere I know nothing about, so who knows what's going to happen."

Matthew gave a nod, then dashed into another room. He returned a few minutes later with a page torn out of a notebook and his quick, neat handwriting on it in big letters: "Left with Maria for another world. Be back soon. - Matthew"

"You know that 'soon' is pretty much a relative term, right?" Maria asked as Matt put the paper on the table.

Matthew shrugged. "You're gone for two days to a full week. They'll have an idea about how long we'll be out of here."

Maria eyed her brother for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right." She held her right hand out in front of her and mimed shooting a gun, causing a small orb of blue energy to appear and expand into a human-sized portal.

"That's new," Matthew remarked, raising an eyebrow.

Maria shrugged. "I've been trying new styles or portal-summoning. I'm going to need something iconic since my staff's gone."

Matthew started toward the portal, looking back at his sister. "Well, I don't think that one's going to work."

"If you say so," Maria replied, grinning. She quickly followed after her brother, stepping into the portal not too long after he had disappeared from sight.

Seconds later, the portal winked out of existence in the kitchen...at the same time that footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

Another story begun, and a mysterious vision revealed. Maria's world knows nothing about the Transformers (poor, Reploid - she's missing out)!

As for why I dropped this in the JLA area, as well...well, you guys'll figure it out when I post more chapters. This story isn't done yet, but I'm confident enough in what I have so far that I can start posting every other week or so. My uploading schedule is going to get more hectic as school starts, but there really isn't anything that can be done about that.

So, see you guys later!