//------------------------------//
// "Click Here" 
// Story: Of giants. Of ponies. 
// by Steel Heart 
//------------------------------//

"Not cool, AJ".

"Why did you make the nice monkey leave? Now I'll have to reschedule the party".

"Darling, was that any way to thank something who had just saved the town, even if it did so in a cruel and violent manner?"

Applejack trudged behind her friends, with the solar and lunar princesses in the lead. They had ventured deep into the Everfree forest to try and find Jake, she didn't really want to be near the townsponies at this current point in time. Her friends harsh words still rang in her ears, even as they swiveled around to keep check of their surroundings to prevent any predator to sneak up on them. The trail was still fresh, as fresh as it could get by counting all the knocked and flattened vegetation, leaving a very battle suit like silhouette in the thick undergrowth. The deep depressions in the forest loam, the shape of the foot prints dictating the exact path of the titan and it's pilot. Pinkie on the other hand (hoof(?)), continued to have her snout firmly on the ground, like an over energetic bloodhound.

"There's a clearing up ahead guys!" Rainbow Dash called out from her post above the thick canopy, "And I think I see something!"

Sure enough, the odd group stepped out into a small glade, and in the middle of said glade stood their target. It had its huge armored back to them, but it stood still and ever so silent, like the forest had placed a monument to show that it would stand the test of time. Pinkie jumped up and gave a whoop, Fluttershy and Rarity had shrunk as much as possible to present a smaller target to the behemoth, Rainbow gave gave an "Awesome", while the three princesses and cowmare simply looked apprehensive. 

And sure enough, Pinkie merrily trotted her way out to the sleeping titan. "Pinkie, git back here. He might try to hurt y'all!" Applejack called.

"Oh, Applejack. If he wanted to hurt somepony, he would of just destroyed ponyville. Besides, we have the three bestest princesses here to help," Pinkie replied with a smile, still bouncing her way to the seemingly inactive battle suit.

"She does have a point. Besides, he never did hurt anypony, and he did throw the wyvern where it could do no more collateral damage," Twilight stated, causing Applejack to groan and mumble an agreement.

So the small group of ponies made their way out to the behemoth. When they got there, they found Pinkie hugging the daylights out of Jake, and shouting things about parties, cake and birdseed in rapid fire succession. Jake had a pleading look in his eyes, as he scanned the group, begging for the pink whirlwind to let go and let him breath. Eventually, Pinkie did release her grip on the more than disturbed human.

"Mother of god! What kind of drugs are you on?!" the human asked as soon as he managed to feed air into his starved lungs. "And I thought Dusty was bad enough...".

"Oh oh, who's Dusty? Is she a friend of yours? *gasp* Can we meet her?" the hyper pink pony rattled. 

Eventually, Jake got his hyperventilation issue under control and looked to the expecting pink pony, "Dusty was a he, and a fine technician at that. Heh, if you have him the carcass of a light suit, you'd end up with three assaults," he said with a slight longing smile on his face.

At this, Twilight decided to pipe up. "How does that work? How can you make three of something bigger than itself with one?"

Jake just chuckled, "It's a figure of speech Sparky. He was just that good, he's the one who helped me make the mods for my swords and autocannon," then Jake gestured to the titan behind him. "Goliaths aren't really designed to carry hand to hand weapons, nor have a fold away gun. They were supposed to be not much more then an attack support platform". This earned him mostly blank stares of confusion, "... Artillery and sniper fire. My brothers one did that, but I wasn't a ranged fighter, so I had to improvise".

"Artillery? As in those huge cannons at Canterlot?" Rainbow asked from her position above the group.

Jake looked up and gave a nod, as if he were confirming something, "Well how about that. So you can use your wings".

"Well duh, of course I can. What's it to ya?"

"Oh nothing, it's just that ponies aren't really designed for flight. Not to mention that your wings a bit small for your overall body size," Jake calmly replied while climbing back into the cockpit, only to grab something and climb back down. "No offense there, Skittles, but nothing much else other then bugs, bats and birds used to fly naturally where I'm from".

Rainbow and the other ponies watched as the human held up the object in his hand. It was roughly cylindrical, and looked like it fit around one of his arms, "The names Rainbow Dash. The fastest flier in all Equestria".

Jake just muttered out an "uh huh", as he grabbed the object and snapped it open down the middle, and placed it over his left arm and snapped it closed. The ponies all watched as Jake then flipped open a small panel on the top side of it, and began to act like he was using a type writer, as his fingers gracefully danced over it. "But it doesn't mean to say that without the help of science, engineering and physics it can't be done".

At hearing three of her favorite subjects, Twilights ears picked up, "What do you mean? Humans can fly?"

Jake let out a small huff of amusement, "Fly? That's child's play, we've been to the moon several times, and were planing on another planet in our solar system". At this, Luna's face lit up with unbridled joy that any being would make it to the moon, "We were going to try for Mars, but shit went down so we had to forgo that little project. Luna obviously knows why, as she's seen what our world is now".

Again, Rainbow pipped up, "Ha, bet you guys couldn't do a sonic rain-boom. In the only pegasus to do it!"

Jake was really tempted to hold a jar under the boasting pony, and sell the pure and viscous byproduct of her... Humble mannerism. "... Woopie... Don't get me wrong, getting that fast by sheer muscle alone is very impressive, but we humans have gone a lot faster and higher then such a... Modest pegasus such as yourself. It was quite a regular thing for us, especially when the Concorde airliners were running. And they used to be civil aircraft".

Applejack gave a snicker at how her friend Rainbow's boasting attitude was wiped away by the calm matter of fact ease Jake did it in. Then she looked up to the suits eyes, and noticed them glowing a pale white rather then their ghostly blue. Then all of a sudden, a large glowing window of sorts suddenly appeared in front of the human, who now used his hands to interact with it. She looked over to Twilight who squeed in excitement.

"A hologram?! You can do holograms?!" Jake just continued to scan, flip, shove, poke and prod at the now dizzying array of floating screens that hovered in front of him. "And you can interact with them! That's amazing!"

Jake then pulled two of the screens aside from his view like a pair of curtains, "Sparks, calm down. I'll try to explain them to you when I can. At the moment I'm trying to run a diagnostic," and pulled them back together again. "Oh by the way, what happened to the pink one?"

Twilight shook her head, "Wait, what? Pinkies gone?"

"What were the odds of her name being that? Yeah, she suddenly left in a cloud of smoke not two minutes ago" came back the reply.

Then Twilight remembered what happened when she first came to ponyville, "Oh, ok. I think I know why".

After a few moments, the screens all started to lessen in numbers until one was left. "Oi, Skittles, check these bad boys out". At this, Jake hit a small symbol in the corner of the screen, and three large holographic models sprang up from the ground and started to slowly rotate. Naturally, Rainbow started to berate the human about her name, but was left speechless by what was in front of her. Two of the three glowing models were long and sleek, with what she assumed to be the wings being very short and confined to the rear of the craft, and making up the majority of the tail as well as the rest of the wing. The third one looked rather blocky, with square stubby wings and two tails. One each over the odd circular ports at the rear. And each one had a cockpit built into it, but the thirds cockpit stuck out like a blister on the fuselage. Being a creature of flight herself, she noted that these things were built for one purpose. Go VERY fast.

"These my colourful friend, are just a few of our craft that can break the sound barrier. This one," he said as he gestured to the long white and blue one with four massive (what Twilight assumed) engines under the one huge wing, "was the civil aircraft I told you about. Now obselite, it was a well known plane that could skip around at about Mach 1.7". The ponies all gave looks of astonishment, bordering on disbelief that a vehicle as large as this could so readily break the barrier of sound. Then Jake pointed to the long black one, "This is the SR-71 Blackbird, now retired, it could go as high as 80,000 feet, and go Mach three or faster".

Rainbow's jaw just dropped from her face, as Jake went to the third in line. "This is an F/A-18 Hornet. It's an attack and interception aircraft that was still in use by most military forces world wide. It's only enemies in regards to speed and agility in combat were the F-22 Raptor, which was so bloody expensive, and the F-35. But it's a little tamer in the speed department, at around Mach 1.8". Rainbow couldn't handle it anymore. She leaped up and flew straight for Jake, intent on showing him who was the dominate flyer.

Jake foresaw this, as he grabbed her outstretched hoof, and pirouetted on the ball of his heel, bringing the brash mare to a screeching halt at the belly of the war machine. Jake then placed his hands on her shoulders, and held her there pinned against the hull. "You have nothing to fear from me. I won't be able to build one of these. I did agricultural and automotive engineering at school... Not aerospace, so don't worry," then with a smile, Jake let the bested mare fall to the forest floor.

As jake turned around to address the other ponies, he saw Applejack and Twilight in a readied stance. "Oh, c'mon you two. Your both acting as if I'd try to rip your throat out," Jake said in a tone of mocked hurt as he made a gesture that made the hologram revert back into a glowing window.

Applejack snorted, "Yeah, how do we know if y'all aren't trying to?"

Jake shrugged his shoulders and continued on with his work, "Meh, good point. But if that's the case, then why haven't I tried to kill you all at the moment?"

"'Cause yer not in that infernal machine of yers," came her reply.

"I don't need my battle suit to do it. A stick with a point on the end would suffice," was his calm, yet bloodcurdling reply. "Now, I know who the colourful one is, along with you three," he said as he gestured to Applejack, Twilight and Luna, "so who are the rest of you?" he said as he "shrunk" the hologram and began to fiddle around with the device on his arm.

Now Luna decides to enter the convocation, "Please except our apologies. This is my sister, princess Celestia. And these are the elements of kindness and generosity, Rarity and Fluttershy," she stated as she pointed each individual accordingly.

Jake just gave a casual two fingered wave as he continued to tap the object on his wrist, "G'day, sorry about earlier."

"Darling, what on earth are you wearing?" Rarity asked with a slight hint of shock.

Jake gave her a confused look, then shifted his gaze to the rest of his pale body. As he did, he now knew why she had asked him, a plain pair of "pilot shorts". A shiny black and skin tight, these shorts went as far down as his knees. Supposedly, they were meant to help enhance the feedback to the sensors in the leg compartment, but most pilots only wore them to look somewhat decent after returning to their base after several months in the field. "Oh these?" Rarity nodded, "They're my pilot shorts. Snazzy aren't they?" at this, Jake struck a pose that a model on a cat walk would pull, with a pout to boot. Rainbow completely forgot her anger towards the human, and rolled on the ground clutching her sides in laughter.

"Well, if you'd like, I could make you a set of clothing. What do you say?"

Jake shrugged his shoulders, and sat cross leged on the grass. Making the ponies wince at how his hind legs can bend like that, "Well... I'd love to get some clothes, but I don't have any cash on me, and I left my last tin of SPAM back home."

"Oh don't worry about payment. Ridding Ponyville of that vile wyvern is payment enough," she said with a smile. "By the way, what's SPAM?"

"Ah can assume its an "acquired taste" of yours?" Applejack pipped in.

The rest of the ponies gave confused looks towards the human. "Yeah well, some say it smells like dog food and others say it taste like cat food, but I like it. SPAM stands for Spiced Ham, and the stuff will last years. It's actually a commodity where I'm from, so much so that we use it as a currency for really expensive items. I was actually trying to save it to get a new Defender model mech. Three times the size and power of my suit."

"Ham?" Fluttershy whispers from the back of the group.

"I'm going to throw it out in the open. I'm an omnivore, and ham is essentially pig, but don't worry, I don't eat ponies. It was a socially unaccepted practice to eat equines in most western countrys, and I wouldn't eat something sentient. Anyway, I'm done with this place, let's go."