Hello. I've got a breach in the college schedule, so I'm posting another chapter a day before the weekend. Maria's moving forward!

Also, a disclaimer: I don't own either the Transformers or the Justice League. Just Maria and Matthew...in this story, that is.

Chapter 4

Maria let of a whistle as she, Static, and Gear entered the mountain that was now the Justice League's ground base. She had kept up with the episodes of Young Justice as best she could, but now she could see that the TV show was far behind.

"How many supercomputers are in this place?" Maria asked, her systems pointing out every single plug-in point on the consoles in the area.

"I think there are about...ten." Gear had been warming up to Maria a little over the drive there - especially considering how Maria had explained how the MegaBuster could morph into her regular arm and back. The Reploid had no doubt in her mind that Gear was considering creating a Robot Master of his own - without messing with the copyright laws of that world, of course. "You know, you don't seem to be as excited as I thought you'd be in meeting Batman."

"That's because she's already met him."

The three stopped upon seeing a young man appear out of the shadows and step on front of them. His costume was a pure black jumpsuit, with a dark blue, V-like shape that appeared to have feathers coming up from the center of his chest and stopping at his shoulders. On his face, there was a mask around his eyes, but nothing else was needed.

"Maria," the figure greeted.

"Hey, Nightwing," Mara replied calmly. "How's your group holding up?"

"Fine." He motioned for the three to follow him. "Batman saw you come in. He wanted to speak with you three about something that caught our attention some time ago." He started to walk further into the cave, Maria following without hesitation. Static and Gear, after looking at each other a moment, dashed after them.

At the end of the path, they reached a platform that had what appeared to be a copy of Batman's personal super computer. Standing in front of it was the Dark Knight himself, looking over a map of the world. Certain spots were colored red, while others were dotted with blue or green, causing Maria to frown at their odd placements on the map.

"Hi, Batman," Maria greeted calmly. "What's up?"

"The Watchtower has been picking up strange signals from all across the world," Batman responded. "We're still not sure as to whether or not they are of Reach origin, but I would doubt that, considering what they're busy with at present."

"Some sort of court trial, I'm guessing?"

Static gave her a look. "Now how did you know that?"

"Where I come from, I've got access to all sorts of knowledge, remember? I heard about this incident from a cartoon on my world." Maria stepped forward to have a closer look at the map, frowning slightly at one red dot. "There's one all the way down in Antarctica?"

"Was," Batman corrected. "The green ones are what I'm worried about. They seem to be artifacts of some sort..."

"And the blue ones?"

"Energy deposits of some kind." This time, it was Nightwing who gave the answer. "We found some sort of blue crystal from one of the deposit sites that doesn't match any Earth element." He pressed a button on the supercomputer's dashboard, bringing up a blue crystal on the screen. "When we tried to suck the power from it, it almost caused Mt. Justice to overload."

Maria's eyes went over the data. "It would make sense that would happen. And that it wouldn't match up as an Earthen element." She looked up at Batman. "It kind of reminds me of a power source I've seen a couple times already - one is my power source, and the other is one that exists in the Capcom Kingdom."

Gear blinked, his eyes widening. "Capcom?"

The Reploid looked over at him. "Yeah. You know - MegaMan?" She returned her gaze to the Dark Knight. "One of Wily's bases had that power source in the center. We blew up the whole thing from there out."

"I doubt this came from there," Batman replied. "There are multiple deposits of this energy crystal across the planet."

"Okay..." Maria frowned. "That must mean it was out here by an alien force, but not the Reach. That much I know..." She let out a hiss as a headache suddenly blossomed, and she shut her eyes tightly.

- Giant robot figures breaking off crystals - large cubes of a glowing blue substance - ENERGON -

Maria blinked her eyes open, surprise clear on her face.

"Programming issue?" Gear guessed, concerned.

Maria shook her head as she looked back at the teenager. "No. It was a vision of something I'd read before. But, normally I get visions when I already know what's going on...and I definitely don't this time. Something else must be going on that's affecting me." Her gaze returned to Batman, and she stated, "Apparently, the crystals are called Energon, and I was right - it does come from another planet."

"Where?"

"I think it's called Cybertron...and the aliens that use it look like giant robots."

Static gave Maria a weird look; the Reploid could feel his eyes digging into the back of her head. "Are you serious?"

"Completely. There're definitely not the Reach."

"But...giant robots?" Gear frowned slightly. "There has to be another force - maybe someone who created them?"

Maria got another headache, and she let out a hiss as something else slipped into her mind: - a giant hole in the ground - glowing balls of energy - monstrous metal beings with sentience -

Maria shook her head. "Their...planet is where they're created."

"Right. I wouldn't have guessed," Gear said sarcastically."

Maria ignored him. "Like...the core splits them off in...sparks." Somehow, the wording seemed right. Looking over at Gear, she added, "They're sentient on their own; a metallic version of us..." Another headache - shifting-changing- "...with...transformation capabilities?"

"You sounded unsure at that last part," Static remarked.

"You try to make sense of the visions I'm getting." Maria let out an annoyed sigh and dug her left thumb into her temples. "It was bad enough the first time I was off-world. I don't know why they've started to pop up so quickly." She shook her head. "At least I'm getting some information that I didn't know before."

"Do you have any idea as to whether they're friendly or not?" Nightwing asked.

"Some are, some aren't," Maria replied quickly. "That much I know for certain. The stories I read off the fan-based website had the words mostly blocked out, but I could make out some things - like how the bad guys pretty much killed the planet in an attempt to get rid of the good guys. Now they're pretty much scattered across the universe, and the ones here on Earth are hiding somewhere on this continent. I doubt there's ever going to be a chance that you'll meet them face to face unless they want you to."

*Or face to grill, if they're in vehicle mode* said a voice at the back of Maria's head.

Batman's eyes narrowed. "What you're saying doesn't help us very much."

"Well, it's not helping me, either," the Reploid replied. "I think all we can say for sure at this point is that if anyone tries to get their hands on Energon, we'll have to stockpile it until we end up running into them sometime." Another thought came to mind, and she added, "Or I could contact them through my brother and have them come over for the Energon. It could go either way."

"Your brother?" Nightwing repeated. "Since when do you have a brother?"

"Since he was born before me." Maria gave a slight smirk and a shrug. "I can still contact him by his phone, since it's connected directly to my com-link system. That way, I can tell him if we have any Energon or not." Maria gave Batman a curious look, wondering what the Dark Knight would say in response to her statement.

Batman's eyes narrowed as he looked over at the Reploid, considering her statement. "Fine. But you're going to have to help collect the Energon from the deposits we have discovered." He turned to face the computer again and brought back up the map before zooming in on a blue dot.

Maria shrugged. "Fine by me. Do you have anyplace in mind?"

Batman didn't answer her directly, instead turning his head to look at Nightwing. "Get a team together. I'm expecting you to be back here in a few hours."

Nightwing nodded. "Right." Motioning for the other three to follow him, Nightwing walked away down one of the paths, Maria and the two from Dakota following behind.

"Has anyone tried to go after the Energon other than what you've picked up?" Maria asked.

"We originally found it from a vault that was protected by some of Black Manta's group," Nightwing explained. "If we're going out, I'd suspect that we're going to be going after another one." He nodded to Static and Gear. "You two are going to be helping out, so don't go home just yet."

"Us? Help out you guys?" Gear looked like he was getting jumpy from excitement. Static smirked, also excited.

"Calm down," Maria stated. "We'll need that energy out there."

Gear nodded, but he still looked like he was ready to start celebrating at the prospect.

Nightwing motioned to a door to their right. "You guys can wait in there until I can get the rest of the team together."

Maria gave Nightwing a quick smile. "Thanks." The smile faded. "Just keep in mind that I'm a bit of a habitual fire user. I don't want to end up scaring anyone to death when I start throwing Fire Spheres at whoever we're going against." Ignoring the looks she was getting from Static and Gear, she slipped through the door, finding herself in what appeared to be a kitchen and living room combined. The smile started to play one her face again as Static and Gear entered.

"Why did you tell Nightwing that?" Static asked, frowning.

"I was thinking about a possible teammate," Maria replied, the smile diminishing. "Martians don't exactly like fire." She opened the fridge and started to go through its contents. "Considering I'm going to need my strength..."

"Wait." Gear had Maria's ears, now. "How is it that you would be able to eat any of that? You're a robot."

"Dr. Light adjusted my systems with human habits in mind," Maria responded. "All part of a grand charade that allowed me to keep secret what I was until I deemed it time to tell those around me." She started to pull out ham, Swiss cheese, and a loaf of bread. "You two want to make something? I just need something to make sure that my power core doesn't burn out from all the energy usage."

Maria didn't move out of surprise when Static started pulling out other items using his electro-magnetic abilities. Within moments, the Dakota teen had managed to get himself a pretty thick sandwich.

"I haven't eaten since lunch," he explained between bites.

Gear rolled his eyes and chuckled, then started going through the sandwich-making food items, eventually coming up with his own equally-thick sandwich. Maria made a sandwich, as well, but hers was thinner than the boys - she never did had an appetite like theirs.

"So, you can use fire? Like Hot Streak?" Gear had managed to finish off his sandwich pretty quickly, making Maria wonder how long ago he had eaten.

Maria nodded. "I picked up the ability when I originally started world-jumping, and it's power has increased since. Fire Sphere is my basic attack - besides the MegaBuster, of course - and if I need to, I can increase the power to go into White Flare mode."

"White Flare mode?" Static wiped a bit of mustard off his face with the back of a purple sleeve. "What's that do?"

"A can send tendrils of white fire out at the nearest enemy. I haven't really experimented with it much, since it doesn't really last for long, but so far, I've been able to grab people and throw people around with it...as well as cause a lot of burn damage. For instance, Metal Man, one of Dr. Wily's creations, was melted into a pile of slag just because I really wanted to get rid of him."

Gear's eyes widened. "Wow. That's a lot of power."

"And it takes a lot out of me. If Dr. Light hadn't added a power regulator to my systems, I wouldn't have been able to do much during the Smash Worlds Tournament."

"Smash Worlds Tournament?"

The group's heads turned, catching sigh of an eighteen-year-old boy wearing a black shirt with the Superman insignia entering the room.

"That thing Dick mentioned two weeks ago?" The boy's blue eyes narrowed. "What were you doing there?"

"I was invited, like him," Maria replied. "The name's Maria; I'm going to be sticking around for a few days."

"Connor." The boy tore open the fridge, then gave Static and Gear a glare and slammed it shut. "Dick said that you're going on a mission with us."

Maria nodded. "I told Batman a few things about the Energon crystals, and I think he wants us to go get some more before that Light group can get their hands on it."

Connor raised an eyebrow at this. "Is that what those crystals are called? Energon?"

Maria nodded again. "I know a few people who would be able to use it - people who are on our side, in a way."

"In what way?" Static seemed to be more than ready to jump in and try to get more information on Maria's strange friends.

The Reploid smirked. "Maybe I'll fill in you guys later. These people aren't exactly willing to show their faces in public as often as you do."

"Really?" Maria turned her attention back to Connor, who had crossed his arms over his chest. "The way you're saying it, it sounds like you could be a double agent." The teen's eyes narrowed.

Maria frowned, mentally cursing her incompetence - honestly, she should have known better by this point. "Great. Looks like I've dug myself a pit." She let out a sigh. "I'll tell you guys when Nightwing gets the team together, all right?"

Connor's eyes narrowed further, and the boy nodded. "Fair enough." He walked over to the door. "Dick wanted you to know that we'll be meeting at the command center for debriefing in an hour." With that, Connor walked out.

"He gets to be less distant as you get to know him," Static assured Maria.

Maria let out only a sigh in response. "Why am I getting the feeling that this is going to be a long night?"

Heh heh. Maria's getting info that she didn't know before... ;)

What do you guys think is going to happen in the next chapter? I'd like to see what anyone thinks Maria's going to get herself into...or maybe what her brother in planning. :D