Rainbow Dash was ready. Trixie’s cheating didn’t matter. Royal Blue’s mopiness didn’t matter. Morning Dew’s dance-skating thing didn’t matter. Derpy’s... whatever didn’t matter. Rainbow Dash was going to put on a show that would leave these ponies on the edge of their seats. There would be no doubt in anypony’s mind that she was going to win it all tonight.

Rainbow Dash launched herself into the air and flew across the stadium, leaving behind a rainbow contrail. She landed hard in the middle of her stage and stood up. Her face had a look of pure determination. She flapped her wings once for dramatic effect. The audience loved it.

“Well, it looks like somepony is ready and raring to go!” Spike said.

“You know it!” Rainbow Dash answered as she took her place.

“Rainbow Dash, what will you bake for us today?” the judge asked.

“Raspberry-filled doughnuts.”

Rainbow Dash crouched down and spread her wings. It was time to show these ponies how a speed round was supposed to be done.

“Miss Rainbow Dash,” the judge said. “Are you ready?”

“Always.”

“Go!”

Rainbow Dash took off. The stage was a blur of rainbow color as she dashed around it faster than eyes could follow. Dough splattered across the stage and sugar across the countertop. Some type of reddish filling flew into the air and fell back down. The stage tilted to one side, then the other. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash was above the stage, holding onto her oven. She stopped flapping, and crash landed. The rest of the stage collapsed in a cloud of smoke, flour, and sugar.

“And th-that’s how it’s, ugh, done,” Rainbow Dash said woozily as she got to her hooves.

“Amazing!” Spike said. “She went so fast I couldn’t even tell what she was doing. Er... what was she doing?”

“About a million, bajillion miles an hour, that’s what! Hey, judges! What was her official time?”

The judge with the stopwatch looked at it. “S-sixteen seconds...”

“A new record!” Pinkie yelled. “Rainbow Dash has shattered the old record into teeny, tiny, little, bitty pieces! It's going to take somepony with a lot of time and patience to put it back together again.”

“Now, I’m sure the audience is wondering just like me, what exactly did Rainbow Dash do?”

Pinkie giggled excitedly. “I’m so happy we’re finally getting a chance to use this.”

“You see those eight unicorns that are creating the magnificent audio and visual display for us? What you may not know is that they have been recording the competition too. That’s right. Be sure to stick around during the halftime show for our highlights and bloopers of this and the previous years. However, a great use for it now is to play back Rainbow Dash’s performance in—”

“—sloooow moootiooon,” Spike and Pinkie said together before laughing.

Pinkie continued, “Of course, it may be called slow motion. But, Dashie was moving so fast, she’ll appear to be moving at normal speed. So it’s kind of a slowed-down, fasterish motion. Or maybe a normally motioned, faster motion. Or maybe—”

“Pinkie...”

“Right! Activate the normal-slow-fast motion replay!”

The magical illusion flickered and began to replay Rainbow Dash’s sixteen seconds of baking.

Rainbow Dash took off. The world blurred around her as she kicked it into high gear. She flipped a bowl into the air and caught it on her rear hoof. Ingredients flew through the air as she bit into them one by one and tossed them. Her body and rear hoof moved quickly, catching each falling ingredient in the bowl, causing them to stack up. Rainbow Dash leapt into the air and kicked the bowl onto the countertop. The bowl landed and spun, dropping the ingredients on to the countertop around it. Rainbow Dash smiled. She hadn’t even begun to bake yet.

The ingredients were combined quickly in the bowl. Rainbow Dash bit onto a spoon and stuck it out in front of her. She flipped into the air and spun herself rapidly. Electric mixers could only dream of spinning this fast. The dough splattered everywhere on the stage. Soon, the spoon caught fire. Rainbow Dash let go of the spoon and landed.

Rainbow Dash left the bowl with the flaming spoon alone and set another bowl on the countertop. She uncorked a bottle of raspberry sauce and flipped it through the air and into the bowl. She grabbed a bag of powdered sugar and threw it into the air as well. A quick beat of the wings and Rainbow Dash was in front of the sugar. She kicked it hard, causing the bag to explode and dump powdered sugar all over the countertop.

The spoon had stopped burning and had become little more than a blackened husk. Rainbow Dash winced. So much for using it on the filling. Instead she had to use her hoof to stir. Once she was done, Rainbow Dash scraped her hoof on the stage to try and clean it a little. She immediately slipped but quickly regained her balance. She looked around at the dough covered stage. Rainbow Dash grinned. She could work with this.

Rainbow Dash grabbed a hoof-full of dough and slammed it on a baking sheet. She repeated this three more times. The filling was poured into a pastry bag. Rainbow Dash bit on to the bag and stuck the metal tip into one of the blobs of dough. She bit down on one side of her mouth to squeeze the bag. Nothing came out. She bit harder until she was afraid of biting through the bag. She removed her mouth and wrapped her forelegs around the bag. She squeezed, but the stubborn bag still refused to let the filling come out. Rainbow Dash began to get frustrated and was soon lying on her back and using all four legs to squeeze the bag. Finally, the end of the bag popped and the filling shot into the air.

Rainbow Dash gasped, quickly got up, and bit onto the baking tray. She positioned the tray under the falling filling. Raspberry filled doughnuts were out. Raspberry covered doughnuts were in. The filling fell and landed on Rainbow Dash’s wings. She shuddered at the slimy feeling. She turned and shook one wing, sending some of the filling onto the doughnuts and then repeated the process with her other wing. Good enough, time to bake. She bit onto the tray.

While Rainbow Dash was walking towards the oven, one of the bolts that was holding up the stage’s support fell out. The stage tilted as part of the support collapsed. Rainbow Dash began to slide backwards. She started flapping her wings, but wasn’t taking to the air. She looked at her wings. The slimy filling had covered her feathers, so she wasn’t getting much lift. Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and flapped harder.

Raspberry filling sprayed through the air as Rainbow Dash’s wings began to shed the filling. She slowed down before reaching the edge and began to start climbing towards the oven. Another bolt came loose and the stage tilted the opposite way. Rainbow Dash was sent speeding forward. She leapt and was able to grab hold of the oven. She climbed on top of the oven and slid the door open. The tray was moved and flipped as Rainbow Dash lowered her head and tried to figure out how to place it in the oven from this angle without spilling. Finally, she got it in turned the right way and shut the door. Rainbow Dash sat down on the oven and opened her mouth to announce her finish. Then the oven started to move.

Rainbow Dash wrapped herself around the oven and began to flap her wings. The oven slowed but was still in danger of going over the edge. Rainbow Dash flapped harder and began to drag the oven to the center of the stage. The raspberry filling was all gone now, and she began to get some lift. Into the air she rose as she took the oven with her. Then, Rainbow Dash sighed in exhaustion, stopped flapping, and let the oven crash. The stage collapsed sending up a cloud of smoke, flour, and sugar.

The magic image flickered and was replaced with the current scene on stage. Rainbow Dash was removing her raspberry covered doughnuts from the wreckage of the oven.

“And there you have it,” Spike said to the cheering audience. “I must say I am equal parts amazed and confused that Rainbow Dash was able to do all that in sixteen seconds.”

“They were probably really long seconds.”

“Er, right. Well, with the doughnuts done, it’s time to taste test.”

The taste tester slowly made her way over the broken stage to Rainbow Dash. She lifted one of the doughnuts and bit into it. Her eyes opened wide, and she began to scream. She dug through the wreckage until she found the remains of a carton of milk then began to pour it into her mouth. She fell over on her back and coughed once, sending up a small cloud of smoke.

“Inedible!” Pinkie yelled. “But what happened?”

“I’m checking with my binoculars now, Pinkie. I have a suspicion that... yes! That wasn’t raspberry sauce at all. That’s hot sauce!”

“Oooo, pass one of those bad boys up here! I want to try it!”

“Hold on, Pinkie Pie. That’s no ordinary hot sauce. That’s Cloudsdale’s own RainPOW hot sauce. That stuff’s made from near one hundred percent rainbow extract.”

“N-never mind...”

“Anyway, it’s time to see what our judges thought of Rainbow Dash’s performance. We have... five, four, four, five, and four! And I guarantee that was a five in speed. With a score like that, it looks like Rainbow is moving on for sure. Let’s go to the judges for the official word.”

One of the judges stood up. “Thank you. I will now give the names of the top four competitors that will be moving on the semi-finals. In fourth place, with a combined score of twenty-three points, Morning Dew! In third place, with twenty-four points, Royal Blue! In second place, with twenty-five points, Trixie! And finally, in first place, with a combined score of twenty-seven points, Rainbow Dash! Let’s hear it for our semi-finalists!”

The audience cheered in approval as the competitors and judges left the field, and a cleanup crew flew in.

“The quarter-finals are over,” Spike said. “I hope everypony is having a good time because we’re far from over. It’s now time for our halftime celebration.”

“We’ll be beginning shortly so if you need to get up to stretch your legs or find some food, now is the time to do it. So, what is our halftime show entertainment, Spike?”

“To start off, we’ll have the Manehatten Marching Band playing. After that will be the highlights and bloopers of both this year and years past. I heard rumors that there might even be a surprise or two waiting for us.”

“I love surprises!”

“We all do, Pinkie. We all do.”

“Did you see her? Wasn’t she amazing? I told you she would do awesome!” Scootaloo was jumping and spinning around, much to Fluttershy’s increasing uneasiness.

“Now Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said softly. “Don’t you—ah—think that—oh—maybe it would—ee—”

“Hey!” Scootaloo said as she jumped down. “We should go see Rainbow Dash again. She must be so excited she came in first.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said as she climbed down from Applejack’s shoulders. “We should also see if we can get some lessons from her on how to bake bad.”

“Then we could—” Sweetie Belle said as she struggled to move, then remembered she was still stuck. “Um, you guys go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“I’ll come too,” Applejack said. “Someone has to watch you youngins. How about the rest of y’all?”

“I’d like to talk to Rainbow Dash and Sweet. I’d also like to meet Royal Blue,” Twilight said as she sorted out her notes then got up and started gathering her bags.

Rarity got up slowly and carefully. “As much as I’d love to come with you, I really must find some way to get Sweetie Belle loose. Preferably, without resorting to scissors.” Rarity awkwardly walked out of the booth with Sweetie Belle across her neck.

Fluttershy started to follow Rarity. “I’ll come with you. That is, if you don’t mind. I think I saw a washroom when we came in.”

Twilight placed her bags on her back and exited the booth. She watched as Princess Celestia got up and walked towards her. “Hello,” the Princess said. “My name is Sunshine. What’s yours?”

“Me? I’m, ah... Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said. She felt odd pretending to be meeting the Princess for the first time.

“Nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Nice to meet you too?”

“Are you heading to the competitors’ waiting area? That’s where I’m going. I really must congratulate my sister in making it to the next round.”

“Prin—Lu—your sister? Here?”

“Yes, my sister, Morning Dew. Let’s go, Twilight Sparkle. I’m sure we have much we can talk about.”

Twilight followed her mentor, who was pretending to be another pony. Tonight really was becoming one surprise after another.