Hunter's Harmony

The eight friends had left the arcade and had left the frozen yogurt place with their dessert in hand. Leila couldn't taste any of the flavors, or any of the toppings, but she found the cold dessert's texture to be pleasant. "That guy was a real jerk, Leila, don't let him get you down!" called out Rainbow Dash to break Leila from her analysis of the frozen yogurt.

"Indeed, darling, he was a bit rude," Rarity chimed in.

Leila lightly punched the athlete in the arm with a smirk on her face, "Thanks for being considerate of my feelings, but I was analyzing the frozen yogurt that we got. We don't have anything like this in the world that I came from. It's kind of a fascinating food," she stated.

"Oh yeah, because you come from a world that's already gone through an apocalypse and is currently going through another one," Twilight Sparkle stated.

The Reploid heard this and started to laugh, while it was true that the Eurasia Incident had happened and the Elf Wars were underway by the time she had vanished. But that wasn't the reason that frozen yogurt didn't exist anymore at all, "Frozen treats in general where I came from fell out of favor in the year twenty-one fifteen. Which would be around the time that Commander X was activated. Just the world wasn't as into them as it was before that time, eventually it and Ice Cream just vanished," she told them.

This left Pinkie Pie curious, "So if there aren't any sweets, what do people eat to feel happier?" she asked.

The Maverick Hunter smiled and shook her head, "I never said that there weren't any sweets. Warm desserts made a large resurgence, even though none of us machines can taste them, ever. I was upgraded with the ability to cry, but taste is something foreign to me still. It's funny, really. We have the ability to eat and convert the food into microfusion fuel, but we don't have the ability to taste. Though to be fair, we Reploids are capable of eating substances that humans would find poisonous. Such as we can eat all the parts of a pufferfish without any ill effects, mainly because we don't have any biological systems to be attacked by any toxins," she stated.

"That sure must come in handy at times, are ya able to know what is poisonous to humans?" Applejack asked.

Leila placed her hand to her chin, "Yeah, I can tell what's poisonous to humans. So how about this beach, you girls wanna spend some time there? We've got eight hours before I go back," she said to her friends.

The seven others nodded and agreed with this plan, "Let's all get ready for the beach and head on over there in our vehicles. It'll be just like old times!" Sunset exclaimed.

"Um, are you going to wait with one of us, Leila?" Fluttershy asked.

"Nah, I think I'll meet you there, there's something really cool I wish to show you about Reploids," the Maverick Hunter told them.

"Wait, so how are you going to get there?" Twilight asked.

"Emergency Acceleration System and Global Positioning Satellites," the Reploid replied with a smirk.

"But, I thought that didn't work for long periods of time?" the scientist asked, confused.

Leila got into a lowered crouching position and she started to dash, then planted her feet onto the ground to leap into the air, carrying her momentum through and into another dash. Surprising everyone, the Maverick Hunter continued this movement all the way to the beach. Though it took her about half an hour to reach the beach, she still go there ahead of the others. She walked towards the water, taking her armor off as she did and placing it on the sand to give the others a marker. With just her body suit, the red haired Reploid walked into the water, sinking into it as she did. Her sensors told her that there was life in this water, it was a pleasant experience.

She fully submerged herself and being a machine, no bubbles exited her being. Her frame was watertight, none of her components could get wet and this pleased her as sea water was corrosive to mechanical components. However, a lifeguard quickly dove into the water after her, afraid that she was drowning. The man swam under the waves, looking at the machine before him. He was wearing an expression of shock that the being before him wasn't distressed at all, she seemed comfortable instead. The two of them looked at each other and Leila threw up a thumbs up, causing the human to surface and start swimming away. Since she wasn't drowning, a lifeguard wasn't needed. Though to be fair, as a machine, she couldn't drown.

The Reploid waited til her sensors told her that her friends had arrived at the beach, she could hear them worried that they found her armor, but not her. She changed her left hand into a buster and configured it to a harmless stream of light. Her systems adjusted for the refraction difference and she aimed in a position where the beam would exit the water above her exact location. With a single command, the buster fired. The beam of light harmlessly passed through the water and exited, telling everyone where she was.

Much to her surprise, it wasn't one of her friends that found her first. Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna dove under the waves to find the Maverick Hunter standing on the bottom of the sea, fully submerged. The Reploid gave a sheepish grin and a thumbs up and then signed out that she can't swim, but also doesn't need to breathe. The two humans nodded, a bit confused as to what this meant, but swam up for air. The first one to find her ended up being Fluttershy, who came down with a snorkel. She surfaced and waited for her friends, then all seven of them came swimming down to the Maverick Hunter.

They were all confused by this, but Leila activated an emergency flotation system and rose to the surface. She floated on the top of the water as everyone swam and she chuckled a little, "I'm more dense than water, despite the fact that I'm kind of average weight for an adult human, I only weigh around one hundred and fifty pounds. But because metals are so heavily used within my construction, I can't float without some sort of emergency flotation device. Though I suppose it is helpful for the fact that I can walk along the ocean floor. Though I'm not really rated for extreme pressures like submarines are. If I were to fall into a deep enough trench, it'll crush me like a tin can," she told them.

"So ya can't swim and wanted to come ta the beach anyhow? Yer a bit funny, Leila," Applejack said to her.

The Reploid rested on her back, looking up at the sky, she could feel the waves move along her synthetic flesh. A gentle laugh came from her vocal synthesizer, and she closed her eyes with a smile on her face. "I never got to enjoy the beaches during my time as a Maverick Hunter, usually I was sent to fight Mavericks underneath the waves. I've always wanted to just... admire the ocean life and float among the waves. It seemed so relaxing to the humans who did so. It made me envious of them. I'm going back under, I saw some interesting fish down there," she stated.

The Maverick Hunter disengaged her flotation device and sank back under the waves, righting herself as she opened up her eyes and took in the sights of all the different aquatic creatures. All sorts of colorful fish swam past her as she stood perfectly still, almost like a statue. She knew that the slightest movement would scare them off. The entire scene was absolutely serene and she would have loved to just lose herself in all of this, but the sad fact of life was that she couldn't. She was on a time limit and she had to make the most of it. She started to walk along the floor of the ocean, watching as her friends swam around her. Like most Reploids, she was semi-aquatic, having no issues with movement under the waves.

She found a ledge and knew that with their current equipment, her friends couldn't exactly join her at the depth it would take her, but she also knew of a rocky outcropping she could use to her advantage to wall kick up so that she could get back to the surface. She looked to her friends, who all nodded towards her and she took a step off the ledge. Without the gem on her forehead to provide light, everything darkened, but Twilight Sparkle came through with a waterproof flashlight, illuminating where the Maverick Hunter stood.

This didn't satisfy her and she concentrated on her equipment, aside from her Buster Shot and her Beam Saber, it all materialized on her. The azure gem in her helmet lit up, allowing her to see better, but also giving her access to her abilities. She briefly considered using a Lightning Web, but remembered that sea water conducted electricity and that it would harm if not kill anything close to her and with being surrounded by water, the Speed Burner was off limits. She knew from physics that ice floated to the surface of the water, so she swapped to the ice chip and engaged the Ice Burst, firing it from her buster and double jumping onto the surface of the block of ice.

The Reploid rose to the surface of the water, her friends following her as she did so. She sat on the block of ice with a smile, "I have a way to rise back up out of the water," she informed them.

"Wow, so you're able to create blocks of ice by supercooling the water or even the air so that you can generate platforms for you to use at will!" Twilight excitedly stated.

"Uh, yeah. It was one of Commander X's weapons from the Nightmare Incident. For him, it was a weapon to be used against Mavericks, but for me, it's a tool to be used to reach places I couldn't normally reach," she stated.

"Wow, so you have new tools to help you explore, that's... awesome!" Rainbow Dash chimed in.

Leila nodded and her scanners told her that there was an underwater cave down near the rocky outcropping. She slid off her ice block and quickly sank to the bottom of the water. Her gem once more lit up to illuminate her surroundings and she walked towards the cave. Upon entering, she noticed that the cave walls were different from the exterior of the outcropping. It was a very elaborate stone design and her sensors told her that there were crystalline lattices contained within them. The Reploid continued to walk further into the cave, noticing a crystal geode. Bringing some gems from it would be a wonderful gift for her friends, so she adjusted the power of her buster and cut off seven chunks, grabbing them into her hand. She walked back outside of the cave and started to wallkick up the rocky outcropping until she reached the top and did a dash jump towards the shallower part of the ocean.

She landed with a splash and walked to the beach, where she found her friends waiting for you. "I found this beautiful gemstone down there and got a chunk for each of you," she stated. Handing the crystals over to her friends.

"Darling, you didn't get one for yourself?" Rarity pointed out.

"I know where it is, I can return to that spot in my time and retrieve a crystal piece," Leila replied.

"Thank you," everyone said in unison to her and the Reploid smiled, she was a bit bashful. "Say, the sun's starting to go down, why don't we all find some place to hang out for a bit longer before we go home?" she offered.

Everyone agreed to this and they figured they were going to go see a movie. This made the Maverick Hunter happy and she smiled once more.