Hunter's Harmony

The eight of them had arrived at the arcade and they each got about twenty dollars worth of tokens. Leila chose to test her skills at one of the light gun games, her sensors and reflexes would be able to help her. She placed two tokens into the machine and pulled out both guns, noting how they felt lighter and were shaped differently from her own Buster Shot, which she had left back at home. Her armor could be considered some form of strange cosplay, but her weapons would get her and her friends into a lot of trouble. The game started and she watched as the movement happened automatically, this was an on-rails shooter, something she hadn't been quite aware of existing. Enemies started to pop out and with the precision and speed of a machine, she started firing at them. Making sure to reload every time she either had to or there weren't any enemies left.

She easily reached the first boss and started to fire at the weak point, instead of using both guns at once, she used a strategy where she would fire one until it was empty and then quickly swap in the other. Her skills and precision quickly started to draw a crowd around her. Mutterings quickly started that she was some kind of machine, which was correct, but she quickly filtered out the mutterings of the crowd from her mind, making it to where the only sounds she registered came from the game in front of her as she needed the sound cues to tell her about things happening off screen. There wasn't any distraction to keep her from the game itself. She continued to play with absolute perfect precision that only a machine could muster. By this time, Sunset Shimmer had joined the crowd, but the Reploid couldn't hear her.

Leila reached the final boss of the arcade machine, years of fighting Mavericks, the two years in the Elf Wars led to this point. She was able to quickly and effortlessly dispatch it without losing a single hit point. She turned her filters back off and the crowd was in an uproar, everyone was cheering her name. But she smiled and inserted not her initials into the high score, but the initials of her friend, Sunset.

The Maverick Hunter then joined Rainbow Dash at a racing game. She was unfamiliar with cars and how they handled, wishing it was a motorbike racing game. "You think you can beat me at this?" the cyan human boasted.

"Not at all, but I don't care, you're my friend and I want to enjoy my time with you," the Reploid replied.

The game started and the two of them took off from the starting line with Rainbow Dash getting an early boost. The lack of experience with cars bit the Maverick Hunter in the butt in the first lap of the race. While Rainbow Dash was effortlessly drifting through the turns, she was slamming into the sides of the track. But her programming started to adapt. Within the second lap of the three lap race, she started to corner through the turns better. She didn't know how to drift or get the boosts, but she started to gain ground on her friend who was still way ahead in front. Within the third lap, she wasn't hitting any of the sides of the track, instead, she was cornering like a professional. "Wow, I never seen someone get so good so quickly!" the athlete stated.

"Well, I can rewrite my own programming at will. It's not a difficult task for a Reploid. It's how we learn and adapt to things and grow as individuals," Leila replied as she lost the race.

The two of them shook hands and smiled at each other as the Reploid went to the basket ball hoops. She was surprised to see Applejack of all people shooting some hoops, but the Reploid quietly inserted a token into the machine and grabbed a ball, but she didn't throw any. She instead watched the hoop as her mind went through unseen calculations. "Uh, Leila, are ya gonna throw a single ball?" the farmgirl asked.

The Maverick Hunter let the timer run out and placed another token in the machine. She grabbed the first ball that rolled to her and immediately threw it based off her calculations. The ball went in, then the next, and the next. She kept throwing shots that kept making it through the hoop with frightening accuracy which stunned her friend. "Well Ah'll be. Ya were figurin out how to properly do this, weren't ya?" the blond woman asked.

The buzzer sounded and Leila nodded, "If you want to put it into layman's terms, I guess. I noticed that the hoop moves back and forth and I wanted to calculate the optimal throwing power and angle to make it in no matter the position. One wasted token was worth it, I'd say," she stated.

This left the farmgirl confused, but the Reploid's attention was gained by a flight sim. It was something interesting to be sure, she wanted to see what was up with this and she noticed that Rainbow Dash was in the seat of it with Rarity and Pinkie Pie near her. "Darling, you sure you want to do this?" the fashionista asked.

"Yeah! I got to beat my high score!" the athlete replied.

Leila walked over to it to see what it was all about and Pinkie Pie looked at her, "Hey Rainbow! Leila's here to try to overtake your score!" she exclaimed.

The Maverick Hunter was confused, but the Athlete vacated her spot, letting the Reploid take the seat. She had flown in flight simulators before, but she wasn't programmed to be a pilot Reploid. This was new to her, but the instructions on screen told her that she needed to throttle forward to get the fighter off the carrier. She used her left hand to grip the stick as she held the throttle with her right. Finger resting on the trigger, while her thumb rested on the button at the top. She chose an easy mission for the first mission to fly so that she could get used to the controls and she would be able to rewrite her programming as needed.

"Shadow One, your objective is to protect the harbor from enemy fighters from the Discord Allegiance. Engage!" said a voice in the game.

Fighter jets rushed towards the Reploid, but she overclocked her processors, this had the effect of heating herself up more than normal, but would allow her to make calculations much faster. This had the added bonus of slowing time from her perspective to a much more manageable rate. From the outside perspective, she reacted and moved at an inhuman rate as her processors calculated the optimal movements that she should take, she would fire at seemingly the most optimal times to fire. To Rainbow Dash, this was horrifying. No human was better at the game than she was, but she was now going up against a machine. A human-like machine that could feel emotions, feel sorrow and even go as far as to grieve, but a machine nonetheless. The Athlete started to chuckle a bit nervously.

"Do not be intimidated, Rainbow Dash, you are still the best human to play a game like this. But we machines are designed to be able to process information and react to said information faster than any human. It is only natural that we would have an edge over skill based games like this," the Maverick Hunter stated as if reading her mind.

Pinkie started to laugh, but the cyan human shrugged, "I'm not nervous, not at all!" she denied.

Leila turned her head towards her friend to read her body language, moving and firing in ways she had calculated were optimal prior to making this change and then turning back to the game she was playing to continue her run through, "I'm not programmed to be a pilot, but running rudimentary maneuvers to adjust to how the craft moves and watching the angles of which the enemy planes come on screen allows me to figure out everything that I need to know in order to gather the information required to be successful at this game. It is what allows me to rewrite my own programming enough to play the game at the skill level that I'm playing it at," she replied.

The owner of the arcade heard this and walked over to the machine, "Hey, no machines here to cheat at the games!" he yelled at them.

The Reploid turned to see a rather large and imposing man for a human. The bulk of this person reminded her of some of the stronger animal themed Reploids that she had met in the past. "So you're saying that robots aren't allowed to play the games and have fun. I assure you that I'm not playing any of the games that give out tickets, which would be in your words, cheating. On top of this, I have in my database..." her voice turned low as she leaned in so only the owner could hear her, "that several of the games that give out prizes are rigged. If you want to talk about cheating, you are the one cheating many of these people out of their own money. I know why you do this, it's to make a profit and while that isn't technically illegal, it's very scummy. So before you try to call the kettle black, why don't you look at yourself in the mirror, pot," she said.

The arcade owner placed his hand angrily on the Maverick Hunter, "I'm confiscating you!" he yelled.

Leila's voice raised back up in volume, "I would recommend that you release me, the police would not believe your tale of a super advanced sentient machine walking around the arcade and playing games. You would look crazier than I would if I were to explain my predicament to the authorities. Trust me, there is no scenario in which you act aggressively that you end up winning," she replied.

The human looked at the Reploid and considered her words, "You seem so sure of yourself. Are you so sure that you'd like to test that theory?" he asked.

The Maverick Hunter stood up from the flight sim game and looked directly into the eyes of the arcade owner. "There is a thin line between bravery and stupidity and you are walking that line like a tightrope. If you do not cease this incessant aggression towards me, I will have no choice but to report this to the authorities you wish to call. You're not just being inconsiderate, but racist as well," she replied.

This caused the dark gray human to back off a step, "You think the police would believe you, a machine, over me, a human? Don't be ridiculous, you're nothing more than wires and gears, no matter how human you seem," he stated.

The Reploid walked closer to the human, "I'm not bound to your three laws of robotics, as I'm sure you've noticed. What was the second law? A robot must obey the commands given to them by a human unless they conflict with the first law. Which is that a robot must not harm a human or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. I don't have to listen to any command that you give me, I don't have to mindlessly obey you. I am a sentient being with my own free will and my own desires and likes. All I wanted to do was spend some time with my friends and have some fun at this arcade, but if this is how you treat your non-human customers, I'll take my leave of your establishment. It is up to my friends to determine whether or not they wish to stay," she stated.

The Maverick Hunter then turned her head to the three friends, "Tell Sunset, Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy that I'm going to be outside. If you guys want, we can head somewhere else, it was a fun half hour while it lasted, until some brute decided to barge in and start yelling at me for being a machine," she told them.

"We'll be right behind you, darling," Rarity replied

Leila nodded and walked towards the exit of the arcade, but as she opened the door, she turned back towards the owner who was watching her intently and threw a glare at him. She walked out of the building and sighed, leaning against the wall. She couldn't stand humans that thought they were superior to Reploids, but she also couldn't stand Reploids who thought that humans should be enslaved or eliminated. Both beings needed to live in peaceful coexistence, something that she had learned from her Commander and mentor. The Reploid noticed a frozen yogurt shop across the street and a smile formed on her face, though she still couldn't taste anything, she wanted to know the texture of this dessert for a while. When her friends left the arcade, she was going to suggest it to them.