Hunter's Downfall

Two weeks had passed since they went to Equestria Land, Leila had volunteered to help the Apple family out with a sale of theirs and was silently on patrol for a couple of people known as Flim and Flam. For the last half hour, there was no sign of anyone on the farm lands, everything was going absolutely smoothly to the surprise of everyone. However, something didn't sit right with the Reploid, she didn't feel like she needed her armor as she was told that the two brothers weren't much of a threat. The quiet that was so prevalent in the farmland was soon replaced by two people talking to each other. The Maverick Hunter knew that no one else would be able to hear it, so she decided to investigate on her own. She saw two brilliant amber humans with strong jawlines and one with a mustache near a tree.

"Come on, brother! We need to get this tree down!" said the one without the mustache.

"I agree!" said the other one.

Though she didn't need to ever clear her throat, she was capable of synthesizing the sound. Which she did to get the attention of the two hoodlums who both snapped their heads to her location. "The Flim Flam brothers I assume. Come to swindle my friend out of what's rightfully her's, again," she stated.

The mustached one pulled out a document, "We are the rightful owners of this farmland and everything on it!" he said, hoping that she was far enough away that she wouldn't be able to read it.

The Maverick Hunter's focus zoomed in on the document which was revealed to be nothing more than a bunch of squiggly lines on a piece of paper. She arched a brow, "Uh huh. I'm fairly certain the Mayor would love to see that document," she told them.

The two brothers laughed nervously and then started to cut down the tree faster. Being unarmed aside from a buster, Leila didn't have any way to intimidate them. She didn't want to reveal her ace in the hole just yet. So she closed her eyes tried to concentrate on the Buster Shot to bring it here as the two brothers would recognize a gun if she had waved it in their face.

Unfortunately for her and fortunately for the two of them, something she didn't expect happened. The tree was cut all the way through and fell towards her. She could hear the snapping, but with her eyes closed, she couldn't see exactly where the tree was going to fall and the only clue was something hitting her in the head with enough force to knock her down and to the ground. This rendered her temporarily offline.

The two brothers walked over to her prone form and checked to see if she was alive. The two of them immediately started bickering among each other, both of them blaming the other who killed her. However the Reploid came back on and grabbed the branch she was pinned under silently. The snapping sound alerted the two brothers who had the sense to hightail it out of there. Leila's targeting system registered the two fleeing humans as enemies, with the objective to kill them both. However, her threat scan told her that they weren't much of a threat, thus they weren't a priority to try to kill yet.

The Maverick stood up and concentrated on her armor and weapons, shredding the clothes underneath. She had no use for clothing, they wouldn't assist her in her objective to destroy humanity. Leila also turned off her voice synthesizer, they didn't need to hear her speak. She started to make her way back to the farmhouse, an evil grin on her face. She wasn't going to make it quick, she wouldn't attack them from beyond their visual range. She wanted to take out what she considered were the biggest threats to her in front of their very eyes.

The Reploid walked across the field, the animals suddenly starting to move away from her as if they sensed her intentions. Her every step sounded through the silence of the field, her every movement caused the animals in the stable to start to get restless. Apple Bloom stood in her way and she scanned her, revealing the teenager to not be a threat, but she would be a useful messenger. "Leila, what ya doin armored and all again," she asked.

The Reploid turned on her vocal synthesizer for a brief moment, "Run child, tell your sister that death comes her way," she said in an angry and menacing tone.

The young teen gulped nervously, "Is everythin alright?" she asked.

Leila removed the Buster Shot from her back and fired a warning shot in the air, causing the young teenage girl to flee back towards the farmhouse. The Maverick holstered the weapon and turned her vocal synthesizer off once more. She continued her slow trek, giving Apple Bloom enough time to warn the others. She was a Reploid and now a Maverick at that, there was nothing these humans could to to stop her she figured.

She silently laughed to herself as she arrived at the farmhouse, everyone was on the defensive towards her. This was good, she gave them a smirk with sadistic glee. But a large human with pale skin and orange hair charged her, "Get away from mah sisters!" he yelled.

The Maverick turned her head and locked her body into place, letting the human's feeble tackle attempt to hit her with a thunk sound. She grabbed the man by the shirt and forced him off her, throwing him over her shoulder without even using her other arm. The human surprisingly landed on his feet and rushed her again, this time she lifted her arm so that he'd run straight into her fist. Thus caused Big Mac to stop and hold his nose and back up slightly as Shining Armor tried to tackle the Reploid from behind, triggering her proximity alarm and much to his horror, she grabbed him mid-tackle and slammed him on the ground before tossing him aside.

Principal Cadance tried to rush the Maverick with Vice-Principal Luna, both of them coming from opposite sides to try to overwhelm her proximity sensors. But Leila merely rushed towards Principal Cadance and grabbed her by the face, using her as a shield from the Vice-Principal's blow. She tossed the pink woman aside and grabbed the blue woman, throwing her at the farmhouse wall, causing her to impact with a thud and fall to the ground. Principal Celestia pulled a taser out of her bag and rushed Leila who didn't counterattack. Instead the Maverick opened her left arm and quickly slotted the Thunder Element Chip into her active chip slot and allowed Celestia to hit her. Fifty thousand volts shot through her body, but the now yellow armor took the shock as if it were absolutely nothing. Leila punched the Principal in the face, drawing blood as she did so and causing her to reel back.

Celestia retreated, not sure of what to do as a gun shot rang out. A police officer had arrived with a pistol to try to save everyone, but the bullet impacted the Reploid's armor and failed to penetrate. The Maverick turned to the woman who had shot her, it was the police officer she had met when she first arrived. Several more futile shots rang out, each and everyone impacting her armor rather than doing any damage. The gem on her forehead started to glow and she charged the officer, grabbing the gun and snapping it in half, before open hand punching the policewoman into her car, knocking her out.

Leila turned around to face her targets, the seven girls she had befriended before she became a Maverick. But they were in an unfamiliar state to her, their hair was longer and in a ponytail and they had pony ears. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had wings in addition to this. The scanners that the Reploid had told her that their power had increased with this change and she tried to rush Applejack, but her proximity alarm was triggered. She was unable to react when a massive bear grabbed her and lifted her off her feet, holding her tightly to its chest. A few quick calculations told her that the bear's face was behind her head and she looked down for a moment, leading the humans to believe she had started to feel bad for her actions, but suddenly her head snapped back, slamming into the bear's face.

This caused the bear to weaken its grip on her and she was able to get to her feet. The Maverick grabbed the bear with one hand and threw it one handed over her shoulder at the feet of Fluttershy, who gasped. "Hey now, yer our friend, Leila. Don't you remember us?" Applejack said to try to reach her.

The Reploid pulled her Buster Shot off her back and aimed at the pale yellow human, charging a shot. Pinkie Pie pulled out some sprinkles and threw them at the firearm, damaging the firing mechanism as they detonated near it. "Leila! Friends do not try to shoot friends!" she scolded.

The Maverick tried to fire, but the charge harmlessly dissipated into the air. She squeezed the trigger, hoping to get an uncharged shot out of the weapon. This caused nothing to happen and she threw the weapon at the pink waitress' head. Rainbow Dash rushed forward and caught the weapon in mid-air, stopping it from doing any damage. "Hey! We're your friends and you're trying to hurt us!" she yelled.

None of the girls could figure out what had happened with the exception of Sunset Shimmer, thanks to the talk she and Leila had weeks ago, she knew what was going on. "Guys, our friend isn't going to listen to us. She's gone to us, she's become a Maverick!" she called out.

Everyone's attention left the homicidal robot, giving her the opening she needed, she drew her beam saber and rushed towards Applejack with the intent to cleave her in two from top to bottom. However, the farmgirl turned around, expecting something like this, catching the arm that had the saber in it to prevent it from harming her. "Leila, Ah know yer in there somewhere, fight it!" she said to try to reach her friend.

The Reploid's eyes opened wide, giving everyone a false sense of hope that they were able to reach her, but the reality of the situation they were in was that she was just surprised this human had reacted so fast to her attack. The right hand let go of the beam saber, but a rainbow blur moved between the two of them, grabbing it out of the air, unbeknownst to Leila. The Maverick tried to impale Applejack, but her left hand gently hit her belly instead.

"Lookin for this, Leila! I won't let you hurt my friends!" Rainbow Dash taunted as she dangled the beam saber hilt in the open.

Said Maverick made a mental note to kill Rainbow Dash next. Preferably with her bare hands, but a charged shot from her buster would suffice. A damage readout suddenly entered her vision as the farmgirl crushed her right arm, damaging the components within. Angered, Leila changed her left hand into a buster, causing Twilight Sparkle to gasp, "Oh no!" she cried.

The scientist gripped the buster in a telekinetic grab, forcing it to point at the ground and fire off a harmless shot that only managed to kick up some dust and scorch the ground between the Reploid and the farmgirl. "Rarity! Throw your diamond constructs at it! I can't hold it forever!" she yelled.

"Darling, what if I hit Applejack?" the fashionista protested.

"You won't! I believe in you!" the scientist replied.

Rarity created six diamond small diamond constructs and launched them at the buster. All six of them hit their mark, damaging it to the point of being inoperable and unable to return to the hand configuration. However, Leila's right arm started to fill out, her auto-repair functions were brought online. This caused Sunset Shimmer to turn to Rainbow Dash, "Give that to me!" she ordered.

The athlete nodded and rushed towards Sunset, passing her the beam saber. The pale amber student looked towards Applejack, "Move out of the way!" she yelled.

The farmgirl hesitated for a moment thinking her friend was crazy, but the look in everyone else's eyes told her that her friend had a plan. She moved out of the way, allowing Sunset Shimmer to rush in with the beam saber. The Reploid tried to move, but the pale amber student activated the weapon and thrust the blade into her mid-section. Damage readouts appeared across the vision of the Maverick, warning signs started popping up and her eyes started to soften.

Sunset deactivated the beam saber and Leila fell to her knees as the weapon that had been stolen from her earlier dropped to the ground. A full diagnostic told the Reploid that both her Solar and Microfusion cores had been severely damaged. The former was completely inoperable and her solar energy stores were being lost at a rapid rate and the latter was leaking rapidly. Every human present looked at her as she fell on her back, a hole through her midsection leaking oil and hydraulic fluids. An image of a man appeared before her eyes and she weakly reached up, her vocal synthesizer turned back on. "F-Father..." was the only thing she said.

The memory unit in her head started to malfunction, images from her existence flashed before her very eyes. Her first activation, getting to meet her brothers, the meeting with Commander X and being assigned to the 17th Elite Unit, later being transferred into a command position of the 14th Special Unit. Several missions appeared before her at once, many of them she had lost comrades. Then the recent memories from the conflict ravaging her world flashed before her eyes. Then there was nothing more, but the reality of the situation in front of her. Leila turned her head to look towards Sunset Shimmer, who had fallen to her knees, "You kept your promise," she said, her voice weak.

The pale amber human looked down to hide the tears, "I didn't want to do this, but you told me to, so I did," she said, trying not to choke on her own words.

The six other ponied up humans walked towards their human friend, leaving Leila on the ground by herself. "Fluttershy, you remind me of him..." the Reploid said.

Fluttershy looked towards Leila and slowly, but timidly walked towards her. She knelt down next to the Reploid with a frown on her face, "Who?" she asked.

"Commander X... well, he's not the commander of my unit... I command the 14th, he commands the 17th. But I respect him so much that I never stopped calling him by the title of Commander. Commander Fluttershy, never give up your hope, never give up you love for animals and keep protecting the creatures that can't protect themselves," the dying Maverick Hunter told her.

Sunset Shimmer recovered enough to walk over to her dying friend, she sat down on her knees and lifted the Reploid's head off the ground and into her lap. "I'm sorry that it had to be like this Leila, I wish there was some way we could have saved you," she said, tears rolling down her face.

The light in the Maverick Hunter's eyes started to fade as her energy sources reached near-critically low levels. The diagnostics told her that she had less than ten minutes left. "Everyone... I don't have long. Please, come closer," she requested.

The others walked to her and her proximity sensors told her that they had surrounded her as the world faded away from her vision as non-critical systems were turned off to try to conserve energy. "Sunset Shimmer, you remind me of the stories that Commander X had told me about his best friend Zero. You're a true hero underneath and you fight to protect your friends despite your past," she told the person holding her.

The pale amber student smiled and fought back tears, but the Reploid placed a hand on her cheek to wipe them away.

"Twilight Sparkle, you are a brilliant scientist and you hold the key to making this world a better place. I'm sure you'll find a way to create the world that Commander X has been fighting his entire life to create. A world where machines like me and humans like you can live in peace and harmony. I believe in you," The Reploid said without turning her head.

The scientist started to cry, but placed her hand in Leila's free hand, holding it tightly, "I promise that I will dedicate my work to such a world in your memory. I'll try to repair you and bring you back online and if I can't, I promise I'll find a way to send a message to this Commander X that you speak so highly about," she said, causing a weak smile to form on the Maverick Hunter's face.

"Applejack, your honesty and hard work brings people closer together, you constantly are the one to try to make sense of situations that don't make sense to you and you're always thinking of your friends. You will be the glue that keeps your friends together when things test the limits of your friendships," Leila said to the farmgirl.

Applejack nodded and placed her stetson on her chest, "Ah am honored that ya think so, Leila," she said, tears in her eyes.

The Maverick Hunter nodded, "Rainbow Dash, your Loyalty and cockiness reminds me of Captain Axl. You talk a big game, but you want to live up to the legends that you've heard about. Don't be so concerned with that and just be yourself, do not be afraid to fail, but also never forget to be there for your friends when they need you," she stated.

The athlete looked around nervously, "Me, afraid to fail? Not a chance!" she tried to lie, getting an arched brow and a glare from Applejack, "Okay, you're right, I am afraid to fail. But that's because I want to be a better person for my friends," she said.

Leila nodded weakly, "Just... be yourself. Now, Pinkie Pie, you've always been able to spread joy and you helped make me one of the happiest Reploids to ever exist. I wish that I could've tasted the food you have served me and I apologize for the whole thing with the Buster a month ago. You're a good friend and a source of laughter and joy in any group. Never change," she said, her voice getting weaker.

Pinkie smiled, tears forming in her eyes as she started to sob wildly. "What about me, Darling?" Rarity asked.

"Your generosity in giving me the clothes was greatly appreciated, but where I'm going, I won't need them anymore. You can have them back if you'd like. But never lose that generous spirit, if there were more people like you in the world. Surely this world would be a far better place than it is right now. You will always be important to any friend group that you're in," the Reploid said.

There was a pause as everyone started crying, "Thank you for being the sister I never had... Twilight Sparkle. And to all of you, if you were in my world, you would've made excellent Maverick Hunters, your teamwork and ingenuity proved that you are capable of defending this world from any threats. My... vocal synthesizer is almost... offline. Good-bye... my friends," The Reploid said as her hands fell to the ground, her grip loosened on Twilight's hand.

To everyone else, she had already gone offline, but her systems had tried to redirect energy to critical systems to keep her alive. None of it worked. Everyone around her started openly weeping and she could hear it. Unable to see them, speak with them, or interact with them. There was nothing but darkness from her perspective. She wanted her friends to protect the world in her absence and not to mourn her loss, only to go out and continue to be the heroes that this world needed. She had seen so much death and destruction in her time being online. Her eyes whited out, the last thing that she saw was the countdown in the void, slowly counting to the moment she would go offline. It seemed to take an eternity to count down from thirty seconds to five. An eternity in which Leila heard her friends on the outside weep for her death.

As the counter hit five seconds, her hearing suddenly cut off, leaving her alone in the empty void. There wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel, there wasn't some angel to come and get her. She was a machine after all, she didn't really have a soul as it was understood by humans. The last of her systems started shutting down as the seconds counted down. Once the countdown hit zero, she was no more. In the physical world, she was nothing more than a motionless, lifeless husk laying on the ground, surrounded by her friends who were openly crying at her death while being comforted by their friends and family.

Though she was gone, she wasn't forgotten. Her body would be transferred to Twilight Sparkle's lab with the help of Big McIntosh and Shining Armor where she would be placed in a capsule for safe keeping, it would keep dust from entering the internal components, keeping the Reploid clean. Everyone was present for the sealing, but though the intention was to keep the body safe, in everyone's minds, the capsule was more of a coffin than a protective measure.

As everyone except for the scientist left the lab, Twilight Velvet walked in and gasped, in the two weeks since she had been told by the Reploid that she had viewed the gray woman as her mother, she started to see the Maverick Hunter as one of her own children. "I promise, Mom that I'll do my best to fix her, I'll do everything I can!" Twilight Sparkle called out.

The mother and daughter both hugged as they cried into each other, trying to comfort the other. To everyone else in the group of friends, they had lost a friend. But to the Twilight family, they had lost a family member. But Twilight Sparkle was determined, she would spend the rest of her life if she had to in order to try to bring her sister back.