Hunter's Harmony

Leila found herself being tossed to the ground from the mirror, but being a Reploid instead of a human gave her increased reaction speeds. She was able to catch herself and from there, easily stand back up. She looked up and noticed that she was on the grounds of Canterlot High School. It seems that she had made a mistake in assuming that she'd be placed somewhere away from this building. However, much to her relief, no one was on the outside of the building. She swapped to infrared vision, causing her eyes to turn red, which was a new addition to her systems to let humans know what spectrum she was looking into. A file within her mind told her that it was added while she was offline by Twilight Sparkle so that future humans would be able to more effectively work alongside the Maverick Hunter. There were hundreds, if not thousands of heat signatures in the building which was not the optimal scenario she had hoped for. She had to be careful to not be caught on the grounds of the school, lest Vice-Principal Luna try to have her arrested.

Much to her surprise though, it wasn't Vice-Principal Luna who walked out the doors. It was Principal Celestia. "Excuse me, but are you lost?" she asked.

The Reploid switched back to her normal vision, returning her eyes to the violet that they were normally. "I'm not lost, I just arrived here through the portal and I'll be leaving now, if you don't mind," she explained.

The principal smiled, "I understand what you mean," she said.

A memory flooded into Leila's mind and she grabbed her head in agony as pain seemed to rip through it. She remembered that day on the farm, when Celestia had tried to stop her. The Reploid's eyes softened and she sighed, pulling the hood tighter around her face. "Are Luna and Cadance okay?" she asked.

Principal Celestia nodded, albeit confused as to the question, "They're okay, but why would you ask such a thing?" she asked.

The Maverick Hunter didn't give a response, just a soft smile knowing that at least three of the people she attacked years ago had made a full recovery. This put her mind at ease and she turned around to leave. "Wait, you... Leila?", the principal stated, her tone showing shock at this revelation.

The Reploid turned her head and placed her finger to her mouth. "Don't tell anyone that I'm here. I want to surprise my friends with my presence. But if you can, tell your sister and Principal Cadance that I'm sorry for attacking them the last time we met," she said just loud enough for Celestia to hear.

The principal nodded, "I will, that I can promise," she stated to the Reploid.

Leila silently left and navigated with her own built-in GPS. People gave her strange looks, but it was preferable to the looks they would give her if they saw her fully armored. She had a single destination in mind, the place she had called home for the month and a half she was here until she was taken offline. Fear rose up within the Maverick Hunter because of her having gone Maverick the last time she was around this world. She didn't know how anyone would react to seeing her, especially the ones that she had fought.

It took only twenty minutes, but she arrived at the house and noticed the lab. Curiosity overtook her and she instead of knocking on the door of the place she once saw as her home, went to the place where Twilight Sparkle was usually found. However, there wasn't any Twilight Sparkle, just a pod standing up against the wall. Inside the pod was her past self, which was enough to cause her to have a minor existential crisis. She had died back then and this was the coffin she had been set up with. Yet now the Reploid was standing only a few feet away from it, looking at her offline frame.

She couldn't help but to reach out to her pod when a voice spoke up, "Who are you!? Where did you come from!? How did you get in here!?"

Leila recognized that voice as belonging to Night Light. She turned around and placed her hands on her hood, lowering it so that her adoptive father and her could see each other face to face. When that did nothing to help with the confusion of the man, she placed her hands on her helmet and removed it, holding it under her left arm. The look of the blue human turned from fear to confusion. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I can explain," the Reploid started.

Unfortunately for her, it was too much for her adoptive father to handle and he just fainted. She quickly moved to catch him and lifted him into her arms, being sure to gently place her helmet on his midsection so she could carry both. The Maverick Hunter walked to the house and then realized that it would be a difficult endeavor to open the door without a free hand, much less knock. She looked around for some alternate entrance and just gave up, lightly kicking the door with her foot.

Twilight Velvet opened the door and gasped, "What did you do to my husband!?" she asked.

"He fainted, Mom. I'm not a Maverick anymore, that's been fixed and my head has been reinforced so that a blow like that won't make me go Maverick again. It's hard to explain and I only have a limited amount of time to be able to explain, but would you be able to call Twilight Sparkle and her friends and have them come here?" Leila explained, making a request as she did so.

The gray skinned woman nodded, "Of course. Just set him down on the couch," she stated.

The Reploid walked in and placed her adoptive father on the couch. She sat down in a chair and looked to her adoptive mother, "You know, it's a bit strange that you didn't question how a Reploid that's currently in a pod of some sort is up and walking around," she stated with a mix of curiosity and amusement.

Twilight Velvet walked into the kitchen and brought out a plate of snacks for the Reploid, "Take off your cloak, you don't need it in this household," she said sternly.

Leila grabbed her cloak and removed it from her person revealing the armor underneath. The gray skinned woman walked over to the Reploid in awe, "You look different than when I last saw you. You look a bit more mature than you did when you first arrived," she told her adoptive daughter.

The Maverick Hunter took off her armor, placing it on the floor next to the couch, revealing the full soft green bodysuit that she wore underneath. "Oh, you can put that back on, I just didn't want you trying to hide your identity is all, honey," the purple and gray haired woman stated with a smile on her face.

The Reploid shrugged and placed her armor on, including her helmet and Twilight Velvet couldn't help but smile, "You look so much like a hero instead of some soldier trying to fit in with the rest of us. You've really come into your own, Leila. Tell me, when do you come from?" she said to her adoptive child.

The GA-Class Hunter didn't know if she could be honest with this woman, but something inside of her told her that she had to be, "I'm from over one hundred years in the future. It's a very peaceful world, a utopian dream that my commander, X, would be proud of. Seeing a world like that gives me hope that my world can attain the same peace. Hopefully the conflict known as the Elf Wars had ended before too many other people or Reploids got hurt or lost their lives and the world had a long period of peace and prosperity. Thing is, I'll probably never know if that did happen or not," she stated.

Twilight Velvet walked over to the machine and drew her into a hug. Said machine returned the gesture and smiled, "I missed you, Mom," Leila said to her.

"I missed you too, you've always been so friendly to me and the others," the human woman replied.

The two held their hug and Night Light started to stir, causing them to break up the hug. Twilight Velvet walked to another room to start making phone calls, but the Reploid sat down in a chair, "Dad, I know it's a lot to take in. But I am Leila, I'm the same one that's in the pod in the lab. I'm just from a different time and speaking of time, I don't have a lot of that to spend with you and my friends. In a little over eleven hours, I'm going to be returning from when I came from and I'll never get to see any of you again. I won't be able to come back and in the time I came from, all of you are long gone..." she explained, tears streaming down her face.

The blue skinned man sat up and nodded, "Well, if that's going to be the case, then I guess we'll have to make the best of the time that we've got together. When Twilight told me that you were some kind of robot, I always knew that you'd outlive all of us. But it's not the short time that we'll have together that you should concern yourself with. You will always be our daughter, whether or not you have us in your life and we will always be your adoptive parents. You will never have to worry about that, just enjoy the time you have with us and never forget that time. It'll make your long life worth living, I promise you," he said.

This shocked the Maverick Hunter, she had never thought of anything like this. She hadn't even considered how wise Night Light could be. She reached towards one of the snacks and placed it in her mouth. Like all other food, it was flavorless. She wondered why she couldn't have been modified with the ability to taste things. "How's the food taste?", the man across from her asked.

"Flavorless, everything has no taste to me. They were able to modify me to have the ability to cry, but they weren't able to give me the ability to taste anything," the Reploid stated, annoyed.

"Don't you say that in front of my wife, she's very proud of her cooking. Though I'm sure she'd understand if you told her that you're physically incapable of tasting anything. I wonder what that's like, being unable to taste anything," Night Light wondered.

Leila shrugged, "Well, I can hear sounds that you humans can't, see in spectra that you humans can't, I'm faster, stronger, and more durable. I can think faster than you can, react faster than you can, I have the ability to manipulate energy. On top of all of this, this armor increases my own already heightened physical attributes, but I'd trade it all away just so I can taste food for the first time," she stated to him.

Twilight Velvet walked back into the room, "They'll be here in around two hours. They all have to get off work first. Do you want to do anything?" she said to the Maverick Hunter.

The Reploid shrugged, "Let's just all spend some time together, watch some television,"

The blue skinned man laughed and turned on the TV as his wife sat down next to their adoptive robot daughter who genuinely smiled. She felt great being with the two that had taken her in over a century ago when she had nowhere else to go. She would only have nine hours to spend time with her friends and her sister, but she was determined to make those hours count.