Leila found herself being launched from the other side of the portal at a high velocity. Whereas an organic being would be thrown to the ground and roll a bit, her internal gyroscopic systems attempted to right herself. She placed her hands on the ground and flipped back onto her feet, locking her knee joints to prevent herself from being carried any further. The Reploid didn't know where she was or how she got here, all her memory banks could offer was a void of swirling color that had colors that the human eye could both see and not see. It was a surreal experience, but diagnostics told her that none of her systems were damaged. She looked at her hand to make sure that it was still a hand. As she was told before, she retained her human appearance. A guard looked at her with blue eyes and a spear in a magical grip, "We weren't aware of a visitor from the human world, let alone a Reploid," he stated.

The Maverick Hunter grabbed the scroll from the holster she had placed it in, "I have a message for someone here," she stated, holding the scroll in front of her.

The white furred guard looked the Reploid over, he could tell that she was heavily armed. "Not many messengers come fully armored and carrying at least two different weapons," he told her firmly while pointing the spear at her.

She slowly reached for the hilt of her Beam Saber and he tensed up, the guard was afraid that there was going to be a conflict, but she removed her weapon from its holster and placed it on the ground. She reached onto her back and did the same with her Buster Shot. The Reploid used one of her feet to slide them over to the guard. This put the pony at ease, but he was still tense, "Your Buster, too," he stated.

Leila rolled her eyes, "You're asking me to detach my left hand from my body," she stated. Then she realized one thing, she hadn't revealed her L-Buster. "How do you know that I have a Buster installed?" she asked.

The blue maned guard smiled, "You're not the first combat model Reploid to come through that mirror. Almost all of them had an internalized Buster system of some sort," he informed her

"Yeah, I'm not removing my left hand. I require it for more things than just a weapon, if you would like for me to lock the arm into arm mode to prevent me from changing it into the Buster, I can," the Reploid informed the guard.

This caused a bit of tension between the two of them. A large pink pony with a mane like the sunrise walked into the room, "Iron Spear, what seems to be the problem?" she asked.

"This Reploid here will not give up her last weapon, Princess," the guard replied.

The pink Alicorn looked at Leila with her orange eyes and a smile, "Apologies, we don't get a lot of combat-type Reploids here in Equestria. You're the first, but if you were sent here by Midnight Sparkle, I'm sure she had a good reason for it. You may retrieve your weaponry, I trust that you won't use it," she said.

The Maverick Hunter walked over to her Beam Saber and her Buster Shot, picking them both up and holstering them where they belong. She walked up to the Alicorn and noticed that this being was taller than she was, a curiosity to be sure. The Princess however started to laugh a little, "Reploids are always confused when they first see an Alicorn compared to the usual ponies. I assure you that I'm real. My name is Luster Dawn, by the way. What is your name?" she asked.

"Leila. My creator gave me the designation of Leila, I'm an A-Class Maverick Hunter..." she said just before something triggered in her databanks, "Correction, I'm a GA-Class Maverick Hunter. When did this happen?" she asked, confused.

The name Leila caused Luster Dawn to gasp, she had heard stories about a Reploid known by the same name and had the same A-Class Maverick Hunter ranking. But surely the one standing before her was different. "Follow me. Queen Twilight would know what to do," she told the Maverick Hunter.

The red-haired Reploid followed the pink Alicorn through the castle and into the throne room. An even taller purple Alicorn sat in a throne, a blue mane with a purple and magenta stripe flowing in an unseen breeze. Leila reached out with her right hand, as it seemed that her memory unit malfunctioned again. A hallucination appeared, the Twilight Sparkle that she knew seemed to be looking back at her, but the human quickly returned to the pony. "Twi-Twilight... how can it be you? It's been over one hundred years..." she stated in disbelief.

The pony queen looked at the Reploid, curiously, "How do you know my name?" she asked.

Luster Dawn was quick to answer this question, "She calls herself Leila, my queen. You once told me that Sunset Shimmer once wrote to you that a Reploid named Leila went Maverick and attacked them. But I don't think this could be the same one."

The Maverick Hunter looked down, the guilt was written all over her face. "Yeah... that's me. I went Maverick, I attacked my friends, I attacked my sister, and I attacked several others. I'm glad that they were able to stop me before I was able to cause any harm," she reported.

The guards in the throne room immediately rushed in, pointing their weapons at the Reploid. Her proximity sensors had been tripped and she triggered the installed version of the Rolling Shield to protect herself causing every pony to gasp in surprise.

"What is this new shield that you have?" one of the guards asked.

"Put away your weapons, if she wanted to do us harm, she would have tried to do so the moment she exited the portal," Queen Twilight ordered the guards.

The six guard ponies hesitated for a moment, but obeyed the orders of their queen. This caused the Maverick Hunter to relax a bit and the Rolling Shield vanished into thin air. She remembered the scroll that she had been carrying and walked closer to the purple Alicorn. "I have a message for someone in this realm," she reported.

Twilight's horn lit up and the scroll was gently lifted from Leila's hand. It floated to the Alicorn and seemed to unfurl itself. The pony looked over the message and smiled, "So you are the real Leila, I have to say that it is good to meet you. For a while, Sunset Shimmer spoke about how you made my human counterpart happy," she said.

The Reploid nodded, fighting back tears at the reminder of the Twilight Sparkle that she knew. "I know that I'm not a replacement, but..." The pony queen started. She climbed down from her throne and walked over to the armored machine. The size difference between the two when they were finally face to face was apparent, with the Alicorn towering over the Maverick Hunter. Leila wasn't one to normally be intimidated. But the queen wrapped her into a hug, "You've been inactive for one hundred and sixty-two years according to this message. There's so much in your past that you've missed, so many wonderful experiences with your friends that you could never be a part of. I was fortunate that I got to spend as much time with my friends as I did, before we all parted ways," she said.

The Maverick Hunter didn't return the hug, she just sighed sadly being constantly reminded of this. "Is there some way that I can see them again? Even if only for a little while?" she asked.

The Alicorn broke the hug and stepped back a few paces. There was a silence between the two of them and Leila felt an intense sorrow well up from inside of her. It was a long shot for her to be able to ever see her friends again, they had passed away long ago according to her knowledge of the human lifespan. The only way she would ever be able to see them once more was to violate the rules of space-time and travel backwards through time, but from what she knew, that wasn't possible. At least if it were possible where she had originally came from, there wasn't any surviving records of it.

"There is one way, but being inorganic, I'm not even sure if the spell would work on you. If it did, it'd have a very limited time that it would work, probably around twelve hours or so and only once ever at that. However, you must know that you need to avoid changing any events in your past as that could drastically alter your present. Where are you looking to go?", Twilight informed her, ending with a question.

Leila's eyes lit up a bit, hope welled up within her. There was a chance for her to see her friends one last time, another chance to get the closure that she desired so desperately. "Two thousand and twenty in the human world. They should all have graduated high school by then. Last time I was there, Vice-Principal Luna threatened to have me escorted out by the police. And after tossing her effortlessly after she tried to restrain me, I think regardless of if I sign up for a visitor's badge, she'd call the police on me. I don't want to take that chance," she replied.

The purple Alicorn nodded and her horn lit up, a portal appeared between the two of them. "If you are capable of going through this, it will only last for twelve hours regardless of what world you are in. If you stay in Equestria, it'll last for twelve hours there and if you go to the human world, it'll last for twelve hours there. You will be returned to the point in space-time where you left, so you will arrive here almost immediately from our standpoint, coming out of the portal in the opposite direction you went in," she informed the Reploid.

The Maverick Hunter nodded and took a deep breath even though she didn't need to breathe. She walked into the portal and found herself in front of Twilight Sparkle once more, but this one looked surprised. There was a purple dragon near her as well. "Twilight, are we expecting any strange visitors in the throne room today?" the dragon asked.

The Princess of Friendship looked down at the new visitor, "No, but something tells me that she's not here to cause trouble. Tell me, why are you here?" she requested.

Leila's sensors told her that the portal behind her vanished. For better or worse, she was stuck in this time for the next twelve hours. "Can I have a cloak to wrap around myself? I wish not to have my identity compromised when I go to the human world," she requested.

This got the past Twilight curious, "Why do you want to go to the human world? Do you have business there. Furthermore, why aren't you a pony right now?" she asked, her mind full of questions.

The Reploid's brow furrowed and she sighed, "I wish I had the time to answer all of your questions, but my time is limited. I want to go see my friends one last time before I can't ever see them again, now please, can you grant me a cloak. All I can promise you is that all will be revealed to you when we meet again, but for now, I'm in a hurry," she stated.

The Princess' horn glowed and a brown cloak formed around Leila, the Alicorn instantly knew the identity of the Reploid upon hearing her mention her friends, "Do you know where the mirror is, Leila?" she asked.

The Maverick Hunter's eyes widened, there shouldn't be any way that this version of the Queen of Equestria knew who she was. "I do, but how do you know my name?" she asked.

"Sunset told me," Twilight Sparkle said with a smirk.

The Reploid nodded, "Please do not tell them that I'm coming, I want this to be a surprise," she said as she adjusted the hood over her helmet.

The Princess' smirk turned into a soft smile, "I will respect your wishes and wish you the best of luck," she stated.

Leila gave a thumbs up and walked through the corridors of the castle until she reached the chamber with the mirror in it. She placed her hand on the surface of it and watched as the mirror rippled. It was going to work, it was going to take her to see her friends again. She closed her eyes and steeled herself for the trippy experience between the two worlds and stepped through, ready for what was going to be on the other side.

Author's Note

I didn't really think of how a hood would fit over Leila's helmet. I just figured that Twilight Sparkle, being the intelligent Pony that she is, would design a cloak that would be capable of doing just that.