I stood on my cloud; number seventeen. The numbers have apparently been handed out at random, because there were a lot of ponies who came before me and had larger numbers. To my surprise, next to me stood Rainbow Dash, and on the cloud number one was nopony other than Ditzy Doo. She always seemed to have very good luck, almost as if it tried to compensate for the attitude of others in her life.

I looked at Rainbow Dash, who was slightly shaking and had a very nervous look on her face. Ditzy, on the other hoof, was mostly oblivious, like always. I couldn’t help myself and just smiled at the thought. My smile was followed by a grin aimed at Rainbow Dash. She cowered a little when she saw it. Heh... stage fright is bad, am I right? I too was slightly shaking, but with excitement, as we heard the countdown...

“THREE!”

“TWO!”

”ONE!”

“AND THE RACE BEGINS!”

In a heartbeat, I plunged myself forward, nimbly dodging two pegasi in front of me. Just as I’ve expected, Rainbow Dash immediately took the lead with me flying just a hoof’s lenght behind her. What I didn’t expect, however, was that Ditzy was keeping up with us quite efortlessly and visibly enjoying the speed. We went through the first pair of turns, Dash losing few inches of her lead because she made too wide curve in the turn. I resisted the urge to use my magic, take the lead and just disappear, because no matter how much have I trained, I still felt tired afterwards. I saved it for an emergency.

There was a short straight part after the L turn we went through, with a single cloud exactly in the middle of the track. Rainbow Dash smirked and zoomed past it, making it spin, thinking that she’d create a wind obstruction for me and Ditzy. What she didn’t know was that neither of us forgot our dance with the bubbles and what we learned from it. So, instead of slowing us down, both of us caught the stream of air from the rotating cloud under our wings, accelerating us and shooting us past her. Me and Ditzy were in the lead now, neither of us having an advantage over the other.

“That showed her! I really liked her, in fact slightly more than liked, but she buried it the moment she opened that big mouth of hers,” I shouted at Ditzy, her response being a loud giggle.

“You were sayin’?” I heard as a rainbow blur zipped past us.

“Damn.” We both laughed and picked up our pace. The three of us weren’t giving it the most, and seemingly none of the contestants behind us were either. They were all saving their energy for later, but I saw that some of them were starting to lose hope. It must have been an awesome sight to see us three in the lead – Rainbow Dash in the front, mercilessly tearing her way through the air, Ditzy with her up-down, left-right dance, using the wind and hot air currents to her advantage, and me, having the level of neither one, but by combining their styles, being slightly faster than both.

We were now reaching the speed I loved the most, where the wind sang as I flew through it, gently caressing my mane, and cooling my sweating body. After this point, there were only two speeds left – the unpleasant one, where the wind stopped being gentle and started whipping my face and mane violently, being very uncomfortable and the second speed I never reached – the kind of speed only one pony has ever reached, that pony flying few feet ahead of me. But today, I was determined to change that if necessary. We zipped through the turns, earning more and more space between us and the rest of the contestants every minute.

We were slowly approaching the inside loop. I started to ignore the scenery, the sounds around me, even Rainbow and Ditzy. I slightly picked up my pace, nearing Dash every second. We went through a couple more turns where she lost some more of her lead because of making too large of curves again. We were now perfectly next to each othen, neither of us had or let the other gain even an inch. Ditzy was left few feet behind us. There were several cloud collumns in front of the beginning of the loop. Me and Dash easily dodged them, but Ditzy got distracted by the rainbow trail Dash was leaving and smashed right into one of them. I hoped that she was alright. But now there wasn’t time to worry about her, now was the time to keep up with Rainbow. The determined look on her face meant that she’s finally starting to go all-out, which forced me to do the same. Luckilly for me, the years of practice and racing steeled me enough for having a slight reserve even when she was accelerating as fast as she could.

We flew on the loop, going slightly up, then completely vertical, turning backwards and gaining even more speed from the fall. We were still going side by side, and both of us started to feel the air friction building up at the tips of our hooves. Could it be..? I was actually keeping up with Rainbow Dash who was about to break the sound barrier, and there was a good chance of me doing the same! We shot out of the loop, having the long straight part of the track in front of us. We looked each other into the eye and continued pushing. We were like a mirror reflections of one another. Our bodies made exactly the same movements, we even winked at the same time. And just as the pressure on the tips of my hooves became unbearable, I slightly slowed, letting Rainbow Dash break the sound barrier first. Never did I imagine that I’d actually be in the center of sonic rainboom. It was all around me, blinding me with its radiant color and deafening me with the earsplitting roar. I saw her being propelled at higher speed than I have ever witnessed, her mane leaving the trademark rainbow trail. Another split second later I sent a chunk of magic into my wings, and flapped.

My effect was different. What happened behind me was a roaring inferno of white-hot flames, the explosion violently shooting me forward at the speed even higher than Rainbow Dash’s, leaving a trail of my coat colored flames framed by two trails of jet black smoke, honoring my name. I zipped past Dash, and saw that the sheer force of my sonicboom threw her off balance, and almost slammed her into one of the thunder clouds marking the race track. The rest of the contestants were now far, far behind us. The race was just between the two of us, with me gaining large advantage over her as she was struggling to keep her balance. She had to slow down, and I saw the utterly shocked expression on her face before leaving her behind me. Now there was only me and the speed. The speed I never imagined I could or would achieve. I savored every single second of it, not knowing if I will ever have the opportunity to live this moment again. My flight was now completely effortless. I zipped through the turns, enjoying the feeling of wind under my wings, and the heat of the trail I was still leaving. There was less then a third of the track left when another wave of rainbow washed over me and I realized that I am going to be in a serious trouble in next minute or so. Rainbow Dash apparently wasn’t going to give up. How she managed to pull off a second sonic rainboom was beyond my comprehension. I knew she was good, but that good?

Well, obviously she was, and now it was my turn to do something about it. I began to slowly, very slowly channel magic to my wings, speeding up significantly with every flap. I risked a quick peek over my shoulder, only to find a cyan blur with a hint of rainbow approaching very fast. Ah, ponyfeathers. So much for saving my energy. Well, now was the time to give it all I had. I steadily sped up, but she was still getting near.
Okay, we’ll do it the other way. I kept gaining speed, being careful not to be too rash. I managed to speed up enough for her to fly beside me again, but not letting her an inch forward. Both of our trails combined behind us, and I’d give anything to find out how a burning rainbow looked. I couldn’t, however. I had to concentrate, for there was only the last straight part of the track, right before the finish line. I set my gaze to it, finding out that it was more like a magic wall kept by two unicorns, so that they could feel whoever disturbed it first.

“Come on, show me what you got!” Rainbow Dash yelled at me and accelerated even more.
I ignored her. I knew better than that, distracting your opponent was one of the oldest tricks everypony who ever parcipitated in a race knew.
I just focused on steady movement of my wings, and channelling magic into them. The finish line was getting close.
I still had more magic than I thought I’d have at this point, so I decided to use it to gain the advantage over her. And in first ten seconds, it worked; I left her behind me once again.

Until my left wing decided not to take another second of the pressure put upon it, and the bone snapped.
I screamed out in agony as streams of white-hot pain shot through my back. Time slowed down around me.

I did not come this far to fail right before the finish line.

That was the only thought that flashed through my head.
Through sheer force of will, I forced myself to overpower the agony and send the majority of magic still left to the injured wing, praying to make it work for five more seconds. I did not need any more than that. I felt myself slowing down, but I could do nothing about it. I heard Dash behind me, but I did not care. All I cared about was right before me, closing in rapidly. Her front legs slowly slipped into my field of vision as she once again flew beside me –

And then we smashed through the magic wall held by the unicorn judges and I let myself crash in the clouds, my magic drained to the very last bit. I fell right on the damaged wing, and a whip of agony finally put me out of my misery.