Hunter's Downfall

Three weeks had passed since she arrived to this world and Leila was starting to get used to how the world and its tech level worked. Twilight Sparkle had been recently introducing her to cellphones and teaching her how to call people she knew. It wasn't a perfect system, but it was better than nothing. However, she also learned the schedules of each of Twilight's friends. They were still students and on most days went to school, leaving the Reploid to her own devices, but when they were out of school, she'd go assist one of them at their jobs. However on this day, she chose not to. She instead decided to visit the last of Twilight's friends. The directions that were given to her allowed her to find the house without any issue.

The Maverick Hunter knocked on the door lightly, something was eating away at her, something that she couldn't tell any of the others. As she usually was on her missions, her vocal synthesizer was turned off. This made her incapable of making any vocalizations. This was a sign of how serious she felt this situation was. Her hearing told her that someone was coming towards the door, but they were wearing mid-heel boots. The lock clicked open and the Reploid turned her voice synthesizer back on. The door opened to reveal a light amber human with red and yellow striped hair and cyan eyes. "Uh, hi. You're the robot that Twilight told me about, right?" the human said.

"Yeah... I don't have time for small talk. I have to discuss with you something important," Leila replied.

This confused Sunset Shimmer, she wasn't prepared for something like this, but nonetheless, she stepped out of the way to allow her guest to enter her house. The Maverick Hunter walked into the place, noting that it was very quaint. The first thing she noted was the loft to her left with a desk and computer underneath it. The entire place was small for a human dwelling, but where she came from, she saw smaller dwellings for Reploids. Leila walked over to the stairs and sat down on them so that she'd be eye level with the human.

"So what is it you wish to talk about with me?" asked the student.

The Reploid closed her eyes and sighed, "Twilight Sparkle doesn't know of one of my functions. If they are at her lab, I can summon my armor and my weapons. I'm telling you this because I trust you to do what's right if the time comes," she stated.

Sunset arched a brow, she was confused, but she folded her arms and was willing to hear her guest out.

"I know how you once turned into a demon, how you were once corrupted by a desire for power. If you were a Reploid, you would've been labeled as a Maverick. But you came back from this with the help of the others. You became kind and you wanted to believe in friendship. You later on regained your confidence and renounced your past. You proved your strength to everyone, you showed everyone that you truly had redeemed yourself. Then you later got a geode that allowed you to see the past of others. See what had been bothering them and see why they feel the way they do. You became more than who you were, you chose to be different and that is why I trust you with this," Leila explained.

Sunset was surprised, this was the first time that anyone had spoken about her past and even her being a demon without being accidentally insensitive and trying to say "no offense". Instead, she felt like she was being complemented on overcoming this part of herself, showing true strength in the process. Her gaze softened and she leaned against the wall with a smile, "Thanks, that means a lot to me," she replied.

The Maverick Hunter nodded and held out her hand, closing her eyes and concentrating on her beam saber. Twilight wasn't at the lab when she left, having told her that she was going to spend time with Rainbow Dash to see just how fast the cyan human could run with her geode as she called it. The hilt of the weapon teleported in a beam of light into her hand.

"That doesn't look like a weapon to me, looks like a bar of metal that you just teleported here," Sunset observed.

Leila opened her eyes and held the hilt pointing straight up with her arm bent in front of her. The triangular blue blade appeared as she activated the weapon. The human searched the Reploid's face for any sign of emotion, but there wasn't any. "I had this weapon given to me when I first joined the Maverick Hunters, it is my own personal beam saber. We are allowed to choose the color of our blades, I chose blue, because I didn't feel like I could live up to the legend that was Zero. His green Z-Saber is legendary, it's one of what we call the Ten Shining Weapons. Our beam sabers are built in the image of it, but aren't as powerful," she explained.

The Maverick Hunter deactivated the beam saber and looked into the eyes of the student that stood before her. "I didn't come here to tell you about the Ten Shining Weapons or my own arsenal. I've come here to make a request of you. We Reploids are almost human like, in fact, we Third Generation Reploids are said to be one step removed from human. But what makes us so advanced can also lead to us becoming Mavericks. A Maverick is a Reploid that has become a danger to humanity. In my world there were two major threats that would turn us Maverick. The Sigma Virus, which was eradicated when Commander X used the Mother Elf to restore the programming of infected Reploids and the Baby Elves, copies of the Dark Elf that had been going around for a while," she said firmly.

Sunset was confused, and she reached out to touch the Reploid to use her geode power. Leila didn't know what was going on, but allowed this, being shocked when the girl's eyes started glowing white. The red and yellow haired student let go soon after, "You've been through a lot more than you have been willing to share with my friends. Why haven't you told them the whole truth?" she asked.

Guilt wracked the Maverick Hunter's mind, she had watched many of the Reploids she had called friends become Mavericks before her very eyes and was forced to kill them. Even one of her "brothers", a Reploid that came before her with the same creator had went Maverick and she was forced to put him down. Leila looked down at the beam saber in her hand, the same weapon she had used to destroy him. "Because they don't need to know. They're entirely innocent, unlike you or I. You say that your past isn't today, but your past is still part of what shaped the you of today. Same with me, but unlike you, I don't get the luxury of forgetting, I don't get the luxury of disregarding it. I have to live with the memories of what I've done for the rest of my existence," she said.

The Reploid felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back up to see Sunset Shimmer standing there, "You can move on from your past. If you're as close to human as you say you are, it's possible. You can do it," the student told the machine confidently.

Leila placed the beam saber into her purse, because of the fail-safe mechanism in the device, it wouldn't be able to activate if it wasn't being held in the hand of a Reploid or a human. This prevented it from harming its user if being stored and from harming innocents if it wasn't being held. She then looked down at her own feet and sighed, "Sunset Shimmer, if I go Maverick, I want you to retire me," she requested.

This took the human by complete surprise, she hadn't expected this from the Reploid. "But I thought you couldn't go Maverick because the causes that were there in your world aren't here," she stated, her voice cracking a bit from shock.

The Maverick Hunter looked up at Sunset, making eye contact and not daring to try to look away, "Reploids can go Maverick if our cognitive systems are damaged or for any number of reasons. If I was back where I came from, I could possibly get repairs done, but considering you've seen what we've been going through for the last two years... you could understand that the much more likely scenario is that I'd be retired. We don't have the time and resources to repair every Reploid that goes Maverick because of a defect in their cognitive systems, even if it was caused by external damage," she said, her voice firm.

The student looked away, "I don't know if I could do it. I mean, you're basically a living, breathing creature!" she protested.

Leila became annoyed at this and her tone shifted to show this, "Listen Sunset, if I ever become Maverick then there's a high likelihood that I will go after you and your friends first. According to the information that Twilight Sparkle has given me, you would be the greatest threat out of everyone and everything in the world. Short of natural disasters of course. I might look human, I might even act human. But I am nothing more than an incredibly advanced machine. I might be capable of feeling emotion, I might be capable of making my own decisions, I might even be capable of eating and drinking, but at the end of the day, my brain is still a computer and I will choose the course of action I feel is the most logical. Ridding the world of what I would consider the greatest threat to my safety would be the most logical thing I'd do if I was a Maverick," she replied.

Sunset Shimmer sighed, "So if you went Maverick, you'd try to harm my friends?" she asked.

The Maverick Hunter looked away, "I've seen it too often. Many of my friends who turned immediately came for me because I was the greatest threat to them at the time. I just... don't want the same thing to happen to me. But I've got to be prepared for the possibility. Those six are the best friends I've ever had, but you have to realize that I was a Reploid fighting other Reploids and even if I was put on the back foot, I had other Reploids to come save me. There's none of that here, I'm the only one. If I go Maverick, you seven are the only ones with the potential to stop me, you have to understand this," she said in a wounded tone.

The human nodded, she didn't like it, but she could hear the truth in the Reploid's words. On top of this, she had witnessed the events of the last two years. Leila had lost dozens if not hundreds of friends, many of them had to be put down by her own hand. There was silence between the two of them for a couple of minutes as Sunset contemplated this. But, she took out her note book and wrote a reminder of this down, "If you turn Maverick, I promise that my friends and I will try to stop you and if we are able to, we will retire you," she said firmly.

This put the Maverick Hunter's mind at ease, she was no longer worried about the world being in danger if something happened to cause her to go Maverick. The world had heroes that it didn't even know existed and they would be the ones to try to stop her. She stood up with a smile and placed her hand on Sunset's shoulder, looking into the cyan eyes of the student. "Thank you, Sunset. I hope the day never comes, but in my line of work, it's best to be prepared for the worst outcome, but always hope for the best," she said with a weak smile

Sunset Shimmer returned the weak smile, the two of them had an understanding and a promise between them. She was intent to keep it til the day she died, no matter how far off that was. The former unicorn watched as Leila started to walk towards the door, but felt that she needed to say one more thing. "Leila?"

The Reploid turned back before she could grab the doorknob, "Yeah?"

The student gave a thumbs up, "Let's not dwell on what could be, and just try to be friends, okay?" she requested.

Leila smiled and nodded, returning the thumbs up. "Friends it is,"she replied.

The two waved to each other and the Maverick Hunter left the house. Her worries had been taken care of and she felt like a huge weight had been taken off of her shoulders. The one month anniversary of her arriving to this world was coming up and she was going to ask everyone what they wanted to do for that day, but that would happen later. For now, she wanted to get back to the lab before Twilight and return the beam saber to where it was before.