“I’d like to register as this filly’s ‘big sister’,” I told the ladies running the signup. It was odd, but I was a bit nervous about it. And not because I was technically not a blood relative, nor because I was legally her mother. I knew from Fluttershy’s memories that both matters had been waved before. For that matter, I saw Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo already enjoying the preliminary diversions together. Nor was it just the nervousness I inherited from the shy pony.

It was that somewhere deep inside I still identified as male, in part if not in whole, and Rarity’s casual sexism in the matter still preyed on my mind. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Nopony who knew about my past would have held it against me. “Of course! We’ve always kept a rather… loose definition of ‘sister’ for these events.”

I thanked them and continued into the little festival. We looked around a bit to see who else had shown up, scoping the competition. Diamond helpfully provided dossiers of the other foals from her school that I didn’t know well, though she only knew so much about their respective sisters. But by far, I expected the other elements to be our biggest competition.

Aside from Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash, the Apple sisters were on the scene as well as Sweetie Belle and Spike. Not seeing Twilight or Rarity, I headed toward the latter pair curiously. “You here to give your marefriend moral support?” I questioned.

“More than that,” Spike said. “I’m her ‘big sister’ for the day. No teasing! Rarity and Sweetie have been butting heads since you got back from Canterlot, and it was an easy excuse to spend some more time together doing something fun.”

“Great! I’m looking forward to competing with you two then,” I said.

“Yeah? We’ll see you how you feel after the pie-eating contest starts,” Spike said with a competitive grin.

“Any idea where Silver Spoon is?” Diamond inquired.

“She didn’t have a sister to come with her, so she volunteered to bake pies for the competition, as well as the pie eating portion of the race,” Spike answered.

“Oh? We have to join the pie eating contest then,” Diamond insisted. “Silver makes the best pies in Ponyville.”

“Don’t let the Cakes hear you say that,” Pinkie Pie said from behind me, startling me into a 30 hoof vertical leap I couldn’t have managed without my wings. “Not that they have fragile egos or anything, but… seriously, don’t. Never antagonize my landlords.”

“Then they better not enter any pie-baking contests,” Diamond cautioned teasingly.

“Enough trash talk,” I said. “We have some pies to eat.”

We placed third in the pie eating contest, to our regret. We never stood a chance against the Apple sisters, but eventually it stopped being about winning the contest and became about gluttonously over-indulging in Silver Spoon’s baking. Pinkie Pie had managed to enter the contest on her own, and out-ate even Applejack and Apple Bloom. She was still eating when they pinned the ribbon to her mane and the rest of us wandered off to let the excessive amount of baked goods digest.

“Mommy’s got a wittle bitty tummy-ache,” I admitted to Diamond Tiara as we approached a nearby tree to sit down and rest it off. I sat down with my back against it, as my daughter giggled at my choice of words before sitting down with her head and hooves in my lap.

“The Flutter-speech is cute, but I’m glad you don’t talk like that all the time,” she said. “I don’t mind if we sit the rest of the competitions out, but I want to win the race. And for that we need to be as competitive as I know my mom can be.”

“Don’t worry, little Tiara, mommy’s going to bring her A game,” I assured her, earning another round of giggles. “We’ve trained for this. Now, let’s go over the plan again.”

The rules of the race had long insisted on no wings, no weather manipulation, and no horn magic. This was a test of the body, and while that tended to favor the local earth pony majority, it was the rules everypony had long agreed to and wasn’t changing much now. The advent of materia, and in particular Rainbow Dash with her Time materia, had gotten the rule against using magical devices changed from unspoken to painted on a sign in large letters and pointed out explicitly to the mare. Not that Rainbow Dash needed to cast Haste to be fast, even without wings.

There had been some discussion with Twilight Sparkle bringing up the long debated theory that earth ponies’ athleticism held an element of magic to it. The theory being that they were every bit as magical as the rest of ponykind, they just expressed it through their bodies. That was dismissed initially as ‘hokum’, before they more formally ruled that even if earth ponies were somehow fueling their muscles with some internal magic, that it was okay to do so. The upshot was that the ruling clearly covered the mako within me as well.

Diamond Tiara was a relatively poor athlete as far as earth ponies go, but her training as both an Element of Greatness and as my daughter had done much to improve her strength, stamina, and especially speed. But her subordinates had trained just as hard, starting from a life without the weakening influences of being spoon fed by a wait staff every day, Silver Spoon aside. But she was a smart filly, and willing to trust my lead when it came time to execute on the plan we had developed together. We would rely as much as possible on my advantages, while she did her best on the parts that were all up to her.

Of course, it all came down to one little trick that wasn’t against the rules, but might well be next year if we pulled it off. The rules specifically didn’t allow the younger sister to ride around on the elder sister’s back, something that had apparently happened once upon a time, and not been allowed since.

But there was no rule against picking up your little ‘sister’ in your hands and throwing her.

“You ready to lose?” Rainbow Dash taunted.

“Not yet,” I said, continuing to stretch with Diamond Tiara. “Maybe next year.”

“Maybe we should…?” Scootaloo said to her mentor, pointing at what we were doing.

Dash looked about to deny her to be contrary, but then nodded. “Actually, we really should,” she agreed, and the two pegasi began their own stretching. “It’s almost time for the race.”

“Is this thing on?” the elderly voice of Applejack’s grandmother called out. “Hello!” she called out loudly again, apparently struggling with the use of a megaphone. Seeing the tool in her hooves gave me a weird feeling, like an anti-deja-vu. Like something that should have happened never had, but I had no idea what to make of it. “What is the- e- oh. You have to say so. Confangled modern doohickeys. Now, the event you've all been waiting fer! The Sister Soci- The Socialhooves- Oh, dabnabbit, you know, the big race! We have five teams this year fer the event! So y'all head on up to the finish line, y'hear?”

As we started to make our way over, she corrected herself. “The start line! We have a record-making eight teams this year, so this’ll be a competition to remember!” She waited long enough for everyone to take their marks. There were four pairs of ponies I only vaguely recognized, locals that hadn’t distinguished themselves to me enough. They didn’t have a chance, I knew, but I hoped they had fun trying their best.

Spike and Sweetie Belle were on the far end, having registered first, while Diamond and I had been last to register and thus were in the opposite position. Applejack and Apple Bloom were right next to them, grinning happily as they braced to start the race, while Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash were toward the middle, wings spread as they looked poised to take flight.

“Go!” Granny Smith shouted into the megaphone. And suddenly there was a flurry of hooves beating down the path. The track started with a straightaway, and Rainbow and the Apples took an early lead. They quickly came to a massive mud pit and leapt clear over it in a single bound. I watched several other ponies cross it similarly, a few not quite making the distance and needing to swim through the viscous substance the last few feet. Sweetie Belle actually bounced her way across it, her step somehow light enough to not break the surface tension. Spike simply swam through from the start, muscling his way through in decent time.

I kept pace with Diamond until we reached the edge, before reaching down and picking her up, belly held aloft by a single hand as I pulled back and threw her clear across. I had to back up a bit for a running start before leaping across myself, eyes aglow with mako as I cleared the obstacle.

The surprised gasps from the audience, and follow-up commentary came and went, with nopony making a fuss about it, so I went ahead and repeated the maneuver a few times, catapulting my daughter forward from the middle of the pack to second place, between Rainbow Dash and Applejack, my mako powered legs helping me make up the time and come up fast.

We came to a set of barrels laid out in two lines. For the elder ponies it was a stretch, as they needed to plant their hooves in alternating barrels, far enough apart it was a bit unpleasant for them. Spike and I had the advantage here, as it was easier for bipeds to manage and we both gained on our equine adversaries. The smaller fillies leapt entirely from barrel to barrel, and Diamond Tiara lost us some time. I felt it important as a matter of fairness that she complete this obstacle herself.

Then I threw her to the next obstacle, a pile of crates to scramble over. She sailed right over Rainbow Dash, landing at the base of the crates. Her knees bent to absorb the impact, then sprung back out, propelling her up to grab the top crate and start scrabbling up, just as we had practiced.

“Look out!” Rainbow yelled just as she crashed into Diamond, sending both tumbling forward uncontrolled, along with the top crate. Diamond was first to recover, getting to her hooves and running toward the set table ahead of her, while Rainbow lost a few positions recovering from the crash herself. The lowered obstacle, however, meant everypony else had an easier time, young fillies leaping clear of a single crate with ease. Even Spike cleared it without losing momentum.

We came next to a table set with sixteen pies, one for each contestant. After burning so much energy, I was ready to tackle another one, and dug into it eagerly. Diamond had a disappointed look on her face as she ate, and I soon realized why. The apple pies were obviously the product of the Apple family; good, but not up to Silver Spoon’s truly gourmet standards. They were made with the same fresh apples, and certainly weren’t bad but we’d been spoiled during the pie eating contest.

“See ya’ll at the finish line,” Applejack said as I sat down to eat, her and her sister already finished with their desert.

I took my pie tin in my hands, bending it into a bit of a funnel and practically pouring the pie into my mouth, eating it in a stream of pie-stuff, gasping for breath once it was all down. Still far slower than the Apples, but faster than many of the other ponies. Diamond was ready to go as I got back to my feet, and we were back in the race, pulling ahead of our pegasus friends.

The next challenge was a massive hay bale for each team to push down the course, something which clearly favored the strong. The Apples did this for a living, and it widened the gap in their favor. But with mako pulsing through my blood, I shoved the offending block forward fast enough that Diamond needed to simply gallop just to keep up. It put us in a solid second place, going into the u-turn that served as the halfway mark.

Coming past the turn, we came to a row of grape presses. Each was a massive open-topped barrel, with a spigot to let the pressed grape juice drop into a jar below. A pile of grapes waited before each to be thrown in for the younger fillies to stomp until the jar was filled past a marked line.

I tossed the grapes in easily, followed by my daughter. The initial force of her landing crushed enough grapes that we nearly met the fill requirements, and we were right behind the Apples as the fillies clambered out. I saw Rainbow Dash buck Scootaloo into the air, adapting my own move even as I hurled the jar with my daughter wrapped around it toward the stool waiting down the track to receive it.

The apple toss was next: a series of benches laid out in parallel, each with a bushel of apples stacked on one end. The younger fillies ran past to pick up a bushel sized barrel to catch the apples in. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and I simultaneously leapt onto the far end of our respective benches, sending the apples flying. For my own part, I was forced to duck under the projectiles, given my super-pony height, and nearly forgot to tuck my wings down. Rainbow and I were neck and neck as we rushed to the next challenge, Applejack close behind.

The next bit needed some finesse. A series of chicken coops provided eggs to be balanced on a pony’s nose and carried several yards to a series of baskets. Each team had to safely transport five eggs from the coops, and they could only be touched by nose outside of the coop itself. The delicate nature of the work gave time for other teams to catch up. My hands were a great help for getting the eggs balanced in position in the first place, but my height made it impossible for me to enter the coup myself without crouching into a position I couldn’t easily recover from while balancing an egg.

Our solution was simple if somewhat slow. I crouched within the coup and balanced the eggs on Diamond’s snout one at a time, while she carried them forth carefully, and rushed back as fast as she could manage. It dropped us back a fair bit, as other pairs managed two at a time. Spike, impressively, managed to balance his whole stack of eggs on his snout at once, making it in one trip rather than our four round trips plus a final go.

We were toward the back when we rushed toward the final obstacle, a set of wooden hurdles. But the gap was short. Rainbow Dash was already past the finish line, calling cheers on toward Scootaloo, but both team members had to cross in order to qualify.

When I reached the hurdles, I hurled Diamond for all I was worth, clearing all of the wooden hurdles in a single go. Mako continued to surge through me as I bounded over them two at a time, outpacing the competition. Apple Bloom fell behind, Applejack seeming to forget her as she sprinted for the finish line. Diamond was still running for it, but she could see she wouldn’t make it.

“Punt me!”

I wavered, Fluttershy’s influence making it hard to do the maneuver, even though I knew it would be the only way to win. She wasn’t quite fast enough on her own hooves, and the slow down to grab and throw her was too much time. Picking her up and carrying her like a football would almost certainly be disqualified as her ‘riding’ me.

“No, just run!” I finally said, as I reached her. “Do your best!” I slowed to match her pace, as crossing the line without her was pointless.

Her best was second place. Scootaloo edged her out by a nose. “ha ha! We win! You know it! We did it!” Rainbow Dash sung out, dancing about while holding Scootaloo aloft.

“So close,” Diamond said, before congratulating her friend.

“Only because I was too nice to punt my daughter,” I objected quietly.

“What was that? I can’t hear losers,” Rainbow taunted, still dancing.

“I want a rematch,” I said quietly.

“It’s okay, mom, really,” Diamond said, but I didn’t really notice.

“Still can’t hear you…” Dash said. This wasn’t my favorite side of her.

I felt Fluttershy’s inner strength boiling up in me. The same power that fueled her infamous Stare. I would not be ignored.

“I challenge you to a race down Ghastly Gorge!” I shouted, stunning everypony with the ferocity of it.

Diamond Tiara facehooved.