Hunter's Downfall

It had been eight days since she had seen Pinkie Pie for the first time in her existence and Leila had finally decided to ask Twilight where a place that they keep animals at was. Fortunately for her, the scientist knew of a place where another friend of hers was working. Looking at the instructions that she wrote down in her memory banks scrolling across the top right of her vision while navigating with the admittedly rudimentary Global Positioning System that this world had, the Reploid had very little issue finding her way to the animal shelter. She entered the building and saw the most soft spoken human she had ever met, with pale yellow skin and pink hair. If it wasn't for her standing tall and speaking to all of the animals in a kind voice, the Maverick Hunter would've tried to take this girl to the hospital for jaundice.

"Excuse me, miss, but I was told that I could find a Fluttershy here. Would you know where she is?" the Reploid said as calmly as she could.

Since the shy human didn't hear her come in, this sudden sentence startled her and she hid behind a desk. Unfortunately for said human, the Reploid that was in the shelter with her had target tracking capabilities and was now looking at the desk that she hid behind. "I'm not here to hurt you or anyone else, I'm just looking for Fluttershy. Twilight Sparkle sent me," the Maverick Hunter stated as gently as she could.

The human slowly peeked over the desk and looked at her with green eyes that looked unsure. "I heard what you did when you met Pinkie," she replied.

Leila acknowledged that and held up her right hand with one finger. With a command from her AI, she locked her left hand into hand mode. Until this setting was changed, she wouldn't be able to access the buster installed in that arm. "I can't change my hand into a buster anymore, I just locked that setting. If you want, I can detach my entire left arm assembly and slide it over to you, if that'll put you at ease," she said to try to defuse the situation

The pale yellow human could sense the sincerity in the Reploid's voice and climbed out of her hiding spot. "Um, I'm Fluttershy," she said, a bit quiet.

The Maverick Hunter's hearing was able to pick up and amplify quiet sounds. "Nice to meet you, Fluttershy," she said and then placed her hand on her own chest, "My name is Leila, I'm sure Twilight Sparkle has told you all about me and why I am here," she said to introduce herself.

"Oh, Leila. Um, I don't think there are any Mavericks around here. What makes a Reploid go Maverick anyhow?" Fluttershy asked, nervously.

The Maverick Hunter sighed, that wasn't a question she wanted to answer while she was learning about animal care. She walked over to the counter and leaned against it, "Reploids are complex beings. We are built to simulate human life, we can act, think, learn, and grow just like humans." She said before Fluttershy raised her hand.

This was an act that did not go unnoticed by the Reploid, "No, we do not start off as baby Reploids and grow into adult Reploids. Though I suppose a Reploid could be created as an infant and then get upgraded into different 'life stages' as they went on. What I mean by grow is that we mature like humans do," she explained.

Fluttershy lowered her hand as her question had been answered. "In the past, before Commander X used something known as the Mother Elf, Mavericks could be created by a computer virus that infected what is known as a DNA Soul, which would corrupt the Reploid into doing the bidding of the virus program. Second Generation Reploids were built with a Chameleon Chip also known as a copy chip in order to get around this weakness. We Third Generation Reploids have no such protection, but we have strong Anti-Virus protocols built in. Second Generation Reploids, having a copy of Sigma's data can just go Maverick whenever they want. Certain First Generation Reploids and a handful of Third Generation ones can do the same. However, before you ask, no. I do not have that capability. Shorts in our cognitive neural network could cause it to happen, as could a significantly strong blow to the head if we were unarmored. On top of that, the Baby Elves that have been appearing where I came from lately could turn Reploids into Mavericks. Also Fluttershy, you don't have to worry, it'd take something like a full tree branch to fall onto my head to damage my internal systems without my helmet," The Reploid finished explaining.

This put the timid human at ease, there was nothing in the animal shelter that could hit with that much force. She walked over to one of the habitats in the shelter and started to pet the hamster inside. This piqued the curiosity of Leila who walked over and pointed towards the rodent, "What's that?" she asked.

The pink haired human looked surprised at this question, "You don't have hamsters where you come from?" she asked.

The look on Leila's face turned from a slightly annoyed expression to one of childlike wonderment. "No, I haven't ever seen many of these animals in the entire time I've been online. Many of these creatures went extinct around fifty years ago, it's so interesting to see all of them here in one place when I've only seen them in books and pictures," she said in a tone that suggested that she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Fluttershy giggled and removed her hand from the cage, "Go ahead and pet her. She's very friendly," she told her guest.

The Reploid stuck her hand in the cage and gently started to pet the hamster. Her sensors told her that the fur was soft and the animal didn't at all seem to care whether it was a robot touching it or a human. This sensation and situation were surreal to the Maverick Hunter who had never once thought that she would be able to do this.

A sudden noise caught her attention, it was nothing more than a rustling and her head turned to see what it was. Inside of a large area were a few rabbits and one of them had entered the litter box. Leila was curious about these creatures and slowly withdrew her hand from the hamster cage to walk over towards the rabbits. It was a surprise to her when the creature jumped out of the litter box and dashed towards the safety of shelter. This saddened the Reploid, who could only release a sigh. "Oh, Rabbits are prey animals in the wild. Let me talk to them," the pale yellow human told her.

The animal caretaker walked into the rabbit pen and sat down, "It's okay little rabbits, Leila here isn't going to hurt you. I know that she can be very unfamiliar to you, but she's not a predator and she's not an enemy. She's our friend and she just wants to see you guys because where she comes, there aren't any rabbits," she said gently as her necklace glowed.

The five rabbits in the pen all exited their hiding spots and moved over to Fluttershy who motioned towards the Reploid. The Maverick Hunter didn't need to be told a second time. She slowly walked into the pen and was sure to not make any sudden moves as she slowly sat down. The five rabbits that were around their caretaker now moved towards the machine instead. They were very curious about her and started sniffing around to get an idea of what and who she was. One of the rabbits hopped up into Leila's lap and she started to pet it gently as she could to not stress the animal in question or worse, harm it.

"You're very good at handling animals for someone who hasn't ever seen them before, Leila," Fluttershy observed.

The Maverick Hunter laughed a bit to herself, "Twilight wouldn't let me come over here unless I had studied animal care for an entire week. Since I don't require sleep, I had been doing that for about one hundred and sixty-eight hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-two point nine five seconds before I made my way over here. I know how to care for animals from insects to bears. Though I would rather not have to deal with a bear, they're quite powerful and I don't want to figure out if a bear or a Reploid is stronger," she informed the pale yellow human.

Leila absentmindedly started to scratch the rabbit behind the ears and just lose herself in the reality that she was surrounded by so many different animals. She could hear dogs, cats, birds, other types of rodents. She could see from where she was some species of snakes and arachnids. It was a rather interesting gathering of creatures from around the world. She pointed to one of the birds specifically, "What's that one called?" she asked.

"Oh, that's a scarlet macaw. Like all parrots, she is very long lived and very intelligent. They can also learn how to mimic human speech," the caretaker answered.

"I've never seen a scarlet macaw before. I know about the blue-and-yellow macaws, those are surprisingly common where I come from, especially in the Amazon. But this species hasn't been seen in the wild or captivity for over a hundred years at least. That's when the last recorded sighting of one was written down, though the image data was too corrupted to show me what it looked like," the Reploid said in amazement.

The rabbits, almost as if to sense her intentions, got off the Maverick Hunter and allowed her to leave the pen. She walked over to the cage with the scarlet macaw and registered its image data just in case she were able to return to her world. But she was also amazed at the sheer beauty of the bird in question. The bright yellow against the dark blue and the vivid red, with just a small tinge of green where the yellow and blue met. The bird looked at her with the same curiosity, almost as if it knew that she wasn't a human. "Did you know that parrots like this are capable of seeing into at least part of the ultraviolet spectrum of light?" she asked.

Fluttershy nodded, "Yes, it's rather interesting that birds can see wavelengths that humans can't. Sometimes I wonder what the world would look like if I could see like a bird," she stated.

Leila chuckled a little, "Well, everything looks different in the UV spectrum. In pure ultraviolet, everything looks exactly the same except with tones of blue as the only color. If I use my color vision in conjunction with UV, the grays, whites and blacks that you see turn purplish for me. For humans, this would be an interesting way to perceive the world, but it's just how I perceive it every day. I can also see in infrared, but that's really just one giant blob of black or gray depending on the ambient temperature and all sources of heat just look like generic blobs shaped vaguely like whatever is emitting that heat," she explained.

The animal caretaker chuckled at this and then suddenly remembered something, "My shift is ending soon and I've got homework tonight. If you'd like, we could meet up tomorrow while I'm here and I can let you handle some more of the animals and we can discuss them. I'm sure you'd enjoy that," she said to the Reploid.

The Maverick Hunter couldn't deny that, she wanted to get to know all of these different animals. Her curiosity was almost like a child exploring their own house for the first time. She wanted to gather as much information as she could in case she was ever able to find a way back to where she came from. But in case she didn't, she'd at least be able to see all of these wonderful creatures. "Thank you, Fluttershy. I would like that very much," she responded.

The two of them smiled and left the building. With an understanding nod, the two of them parted ways and Leila hoped that like the others she had met, she would be able to consider Fluttershy her friend.