Hunter's Downfall

The one month anniversary had finally arrived and Leila had received a ticket for Equestria Land from Pinkie Pie the day before. She had been told to dress for the occasion and try to wear something more casual, so she had thrown on some blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and black sneakers. Her chronometer told her that it was time for the others to show up, with Applejack driving, but Twilight had seemingly not woken up all morning. The Reploid walked over to Twilight's door and noticed her mother, Twilight Velvet approaching. "I'll wake her up, ma'am. It would seem that her alarm clock had not rang this morning," Leila stated.

The gray skinned woman looked at the Reploid, confused as to how she would wake her daughter. But the Maverick Hunter had her ways, a light knocking on the door happened first. When that didn't get a response, she instead switched to her thermal vision to see if Twilight was in the room. There were heat signatures, but none of them were human shaped, "She's not in there," she stated.

Twilight Velvet looked at the Reploid, confused, "How do you know?" she asked.

Leila switched back to her visible light mode and opened the door to reveal that the room was empty. "Your daughter told you that I can see in the Infrared spectrum, right?" she inquired.

The gray skinned woman shook her head, "No, she didn't. But that is interesting to say the least. Well she'll probably be in her lab. Applejack is waiting outside," she informed the Reploid.

The Maverick Hunter received a call in her head at that exact moment, "Hey Leila, Twilight's already in the bus, come on and we'll take you to the theme park!" the call hung up before she could respond.

"She's already on the bus, I promise to get her back safe, ma'am," the Reploid said to the human.

As Leila started to walk away, she turned around suddenly and hugged Twilight Velvet, "Thanks for letting me stay here. You've been like the mother I never had," she said.

The purple and white haired woman smiled and hugged back, "You're a bit too old to be my daughter, but I'm glad you see me like that," she replied.

The Maverick Hunter broke the hug and chuckled as she walked towards the front door, "I'm only twenty, you know," she stated in a cheeky tone.

The two shared a laugh at the tone as Leila left the house and walked to the bus, her hair was in a ponytail, but that was so that it wouldn't get caught in anything. "Woah, I didn't think you'd be able to dress so casually, Leila!" yelled Rainbow Dash as the Reploid got on the bus.

Leila smiled as she took her seat and Applejack started driving, her friends started chatting among each other while she looked out the window at the scenery as it went by. Twilight Sparkle suddenly sat down next to her and she could feel the sensors in her left hand go off, something had been placed in it. "You'll need this, it's money. I know you spoke of Zeni where you came from, but this is the money we use. Dad gave me enough for both of us to do whatever we want, okay?" she said to the Maverick Hunter.

There wasn't an initial response as the Reploid other than her pocketing the money as she was still deep in thought. This discouraged the purple scientist who frowned, "If you don't want to talk, that's fine..." she said sadly.

Everyone in the bus looked at this situation as Twilight started to get up, but Leila gently grabbed her wrist, "I was thinking about a lot of things. Your family gave me a home when I had nowhere else to go, when I was just someone who by all records didn't even really exist here. I told your mother that she's just like the mom I never had. Twilight, you're like the little sister I always wanted. Unfortunately, I'm the only female Reploid that my creator built," she said without turning from the window.

Though no one could see her face directly, the expression in the reflection was one of loneliness. The smile was sad. The purple scientist sat back down and smiled, "Well, even if mom doesn't think of you as her daughter, I'll think of you as my big sister. How about that?" she offered.

The Reploid nodded, "Thank you, Twilight. You are very kind," she said with a genuine smile this time.

"We're your friends, Leila. Don't ever forget that, darling," called out Rarity.

"Yeah! We're always going to be together!" chimed in Rainbow Dash.

"You're a kind-hearted robot, Leila," said Fluttershy in her usual quiet voice.

"We're going to have lots of parties and fun!" called out Pinkie Pie.

"These guys will forgive just about anything, you don't have any reason to worry," Sunset Shimmer said as she sat in the seat behind the Reploid.

Leila started laughing, it was almost as if she had found her home. "Hey, let's say we all take a picture together before we go our own ways in the theme park to do our own things?" she offered.

"Why that's a great idea, Leila! Ah'm sure Twilight or Rarity has a camera of some sort," said Applejack as they pulled into the parking lot.

The farmgirl parked the bus and all eight of them exited. Twilight Sparkle set up a camera drone to take a picture of all of them and they got in position. From right to left stood Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Leila, Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. The fashionista was smiling while posing for the camera, the animal caretaker had a shy smile on her face, the scientist was putting bunny ears behind the Reploid's head while smiling, the Maverick Hunter had her left arm draped around Sunset Shimmer's shoulder as she smiled while winking and throwing up a peace sign, the pale amber skinned girl was laughing at this with a smile on her face, the athlete winked at the camera with a confident grin, the waitress somehow produced confetti and threw it into the air while smiling, and finally the farmgirl just had a smile on her face and a hand on her stetson.

The eight friends stood there until the drone took the photograph. "Now, no matter what happens, we'll all have something to remember each other by," Twilight said with a smirk.

The eight of them enter the theme park and all went their separate ways. Leila was surprised to see that all of the rides we free, this caused her to wonder why Twilight put money into her hand. Then she ran into the arcade, there were games of skill here to win a prize which cost money to play. She saw Applejack and Rarity get prepared to start a game in which you fired water at a target to inflate a balloon until it popped. It looked like fun to the Reploid, so she walked over and paid the dollar fee to join.

"No offense, Leila, but I'm the best at this game!" Rainbow Dash taunted.

"Now now, Rainbow Dash, we all know that Ah am the best," retorted Applejack.

The bell rang and Leila wordlessly locked onto the target with her water gun and kept a steady stream on the target. Her balloon inflated the fastest and popped first. The two girls looked stunned at Leila who tapped her head as she took her prize, a giant stuffed dark blue pony, "I can run calculations faster than either of you can," she stated with a confident smirk.

The other two just watched as the Reploid walked off with the prize she had won. Neither of them could say a word, but the Maverick Hunter was happy. She then saw a booth where you could throw baseballs at a stack of three bottles. She noticed a prize that she wanted to win, it was another stuffed pony, but this one resembled Twilight Sparkle for some reason. She placed her stuffed plush on the counter and placed one dollar on the counter. The person behind it gave her three baseballs. As she felt the baseball in her hand, her positronic brain started to calculate the exact speed and trajectory she would need to throw the ball in order to knock down all three of the bottles. She threw the ball according to her calculations and failed to knock down any of them. "May I hold one of the bottles?" she asked.

The person behind the counter grabbed one of the bottles from a different pyramid and handed it to her. The sensors in her hand told her exactly why it didn't work. These weren't weighted down with rocks or lead, they were solid iron bottles. She placed the bottle on the counter, picked up the second ball and threw it according to the new calculations her mind spat out. All of the balls fell down and she handed the third baseball to the person behind the counter, picking the plush toy that she had wanted to win.

Carrying two plush toys now, she wandered to another booth. This one was a test of strength. Something that would be no issue for her at all. Leila smirked and handed her plush toys off to the person running it as well as her two dollar fee and grabbed the sledge hammer. She walked up to the sensor and calculated exactly how hard she would need to hit the sensor to trigger the bell that she noticed was exactly thirty feet up. Not very many humans she knew of would be able to ring that bell, but if she were to hit the sensor with as much force as she could impart on it, she would break the sensor and the machine by extension.

She finally swung the sledgehammer and the lights traveled up the column, followed by a ding sound as the bell was triggered. She picked her prize, a plush that resembled Rainbow Dash. A quick text message to Twilight had a few drones come pick up the three plush toys. But Leila was starting to get bored with these games of skill and strength, they were too easy for her. However, something caught her eye. It was a jar of jelly beans, a prize that Pinkie Pie would love. She walked over to the jar and looked at it, analyzing it perfectly to see exactly the number of beans were in it.

"Do you have a guess, ma'am?" the operator asked.

The Maverick Hunter smirked, "This gallon jar contains approximately seven hundred and fifty two jelly beans," she said.

The operator was stunned, "That's absolutely correct. You win the jar of jelly beans!" he said, handing the jar to the Reploid.

"Aww, but I wanted to guess how much were in the jar!" whined Pinkie Pie from behind her.

Leila turned around and handed the jar to her friend, "I won this for you," she said.

The pink human suddenly hugged the Maverick Hunter, "Aw! Thank you! You're the best, Leila!" she exclaimed.

"You're welcome, Pinkie," said the smiling Reploid as she returned the hug.

The two broke their hug and the Maverick Hunter wandered off to a group of Skee-Ball machines which Sunset Shimmer, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle were all playing. The three of them were trying to get a prize, and none of them paid attention to the fourth that had arrived until the Reploid rolled the first ball, hitting the 100 ring. All three of them watched in awe as Leila consistently hit the 100 ring. None of them had seen a perfect game before and their friend made it look easy. She picked a prize and handed it to Sunset and then played another perfect game and picked another prize to hand to Fluttershy. She played a third perfect game and handed that prize to Twilight. All three of them were just absolutely stunned by this.

"These games are too easy, I'm a bit bored. I saw the roller coaster and while I figure it would be exciting for you guys, I've been on faster vehicles that did more exciting maneuvers. This place isn't very exciting. I think I'm going to try the Ferris Wheel, I figure that if I go on that ride, I'll get a beautiful view of the city," the Reploid stated to her friends.

None of them were able to recover from the fact that their friend just blitzed her way through Skee-Ball as if it was nothing. This allowed Leila to make her way to the Ferris Wheel, where she met Rarity. "Oh hello, Darling. You don't seem like you're having a good time, is something wrong?" the fashionista asked.

The Reploid shrugged, "My positronic brain makes the games of this place far too easy for me. I'm able to calculate exactly what I need to do in order to win them all. The roller coaster doesn't look all that exciting and I've seen worse things than anything a haunted house could throw at me. I guess I'm just desensitized to things," she said a bit sad.

"Don't worry about it, the Ferris Wheel has the most beautiful view of the city that you'll ever see," Rarity replied.

The two of them silently climbed into the same car and watched out the window as the Ferris Wheel moved. It was just as the fashionista had said, the view of the city would be breathtaking if Reploids were capable of breathing. The city was so unlike the sprawling high rise metropolises of her world. Everything was so low to the ground and unique. It was as if there was a culture and identity to the people of this world that the people where she came from didn't have. All Leila could do was stare at the city in awe and if she were capable of crying, she would have shed a tear right then and there.

The Ferris Wheel descended and they got off of it to meet with the rest of the group. The Maverick Hunter didn't want to dampen their fun, but it was about time for all of them to head back anyhow. Leila had checked her chronometer and noticed that four hours had passed to her surprise. "Don't worry Leila, we can always come back some time if you'd like," Rainbow Dash offered.

The Reploid smiled, "I'd like that, as long as I'm spending time with my friends, even if I find the games and rides boring, I'm having a good time," she said.

"That's the spirit, how about we all get something to eat on the way back to our homes," Sunset said with a smile.

Everyone agreed to this and got on the bus. The eight of them hoped that they would all be able to return to Equestria Land soon, but with the conflicting schedules and money issues, they wouldn't be able to return for the rest of the month. However, they were going to make the rest of the day together as special as they could. The eight of them were inseparable friends now, Leila finally finding her place in the world. A place that she belonged and could fit in and be happy. The thoughts of possibly going Maverick were pushed far into the back of her mind for the first time since she had arrived.