"Storm!"

You could hear a faint voice calling out to you, but the embrace of sleep was too tight. For once, you didn't have a bad dream, so you wanted to savour the peaceful night you had for as long as you could.

"Storm, will you wake up?" the voice asked, seeming a little more impatient this time.

Wait. Was that-

"Oof!" you cried as you jolted awake. Rainbow Dash had been forced to slam herself into you in order to get you to wake up. Despite it being drastic, it clearly worked.

"Jeez, finally! Hurry up, we're gonna be late!" Rainbow instructed, already turning around to fly towards your bedroom door. Why was she here? What day was it?

"Late for what?' you asked, still feeling the desire to fall back to sleep.

Rainbow stopped dead in her tracks and turned around, giving you a confused stare. Had you really said something that dumb?

"The Wonderbolt's Derby, duh!" she said, which only made you even more confused. As far as you knew, you still had several days until that was due to happen.

"Already? I thought that was in like a week!" you exclaimed, "How long was I asleep for?"

Rainbow continued staring at you, even more confused than before.

"One night. Are you losing it or something?" she asked, beginning to seem a little concerned. You placed a hoof up to your head, rubbing it slightly as if you had a migraine.

"I-I'm fine..." you reassured her, but you weren't really sure what was happening. How had a whole week just flashed by in the space of one night, while the nopony else even noticed.
It simply wasn't possible.

"Ok, well, I'd get ready quick or we won't make it in time!" she reminded you, before turning to the door once again and quickly flying out. You were glad about how excited she was for this.

As fast as you could, you got out of bed and entered the bathroom. Like usual, you got shower, but this time your mind was running rampant with thoughts.

You still had to find out how to control the... determination that you had. You didn't even know if you were going to be able too, unless you somehow grew a horn or something.

Then there was also the fact that you somehow skipped nearly an entire week of your life without anypony noticing. That was simply unexplainable.

Nevertheless, today was a day both you and Rainbow Dash had been looking forward too, and you weren't going to take that happy day away from her.

Quickly, you dried yourself off and made your way down the stairs. Twilight and Spike were both sat on the couches reading, whilst Rainbow Dash was hovering back and forth near the door, excitedly.

"Are you ready?" she asked immediately after seeing you reach the bottom of the stair.

"Morning Twilight, Spike." you said, rubbing your eyes instinctively. They both greeted you with a 'good morning' back.

"You two make sure to have fun, ok?" Twilight said, but it sounded more like a request than a demand.

"Oh, we will!" Rainbow replied, "Can we go now?"

She seemed really impatient, but then again, could you blame her? She had been waiting for this day since you gave her the tickets on her birthday.

"Yeah, let's go." you said with a sigh, trying to hide your laughter. You found it pretty funny that she was being this impatient, "See you, guys!"

"Bye!" both Twilight and Spike replied as you both exited the library.

The flight too Canterlot was gonna be a pretty long one. It surprised you that Rainbow was willing to fly this far, as usually she doesn't like to fly long distances, but then again it was the Wonderbolt's after all.

Much like you suspected, the flight was quite long. It had been almost ten minutes and Ponyville was barely out of view. Ten minutes wasn't that long usually, but it was quite a long time to stay in flight for.
At this point, it was safe to say that you understood why the Mane 6 always used the train.

At last, you finally arrived at the Capital of Equestria. Too your surprise, it looked even grander than it did it the cartoon. Every single little detail of every single building was more detailed; more refined.

"That took way too long." Rainbow Dash grunted, landing on the roof of a building. You weren't sure if it was even legal to sit on the roofs of buildings, but your wings were too tired out to care.

"So where do we go?" you asked. You could vaguely recall the location of the Derby, as you had seen it before in an episode, but where that location was...
There in lies the rub.

"Oh, right! You've never been here before, have you?" Rainbow said, reminding herself that you hadn't always been a pony. She wasn't sure how she had forgotten, because it had to be one of the most awesome things she had ever heard, even if it sounded outlandish.

You responded with a simple 'nope', which seemed to be the answer that she needed.

"Well fear not, Storm! I will show you the way!" Rainbow replied, which made you laugh a little.

Seeming to have recovered from the long flight over, she began to lift off of the house. She began flying in a direction, seeming to head towards the edge of Canterlot.

Thankfully, she wasn't flying too fast, as your wings still hadn't recovered. If there was ever a time for your determination magic to activate, now would've been nice.
How amazing it would have been for your magic to come alive and fully recover your wings in an instant, relieving any and all muscle ache you had.

Of course, at this point that was merely a dream, as you still had no idea what the magic could do. That and you also had no idea how to use it.

"Look down there!" Rainbow exclaimed, pointing a hoof down towards something. You had been following her at a slow pace for a few minutes, so it would make sense for you to have arrived.

Following the direction she was pointing in, you spotted a track made of clouds, hovering over a large drop. On one side of the track was a grand spectator seating area, where many ponies were already gathering.

This must've been it. It looked nearly identical to the one you recognised from the show.

"Well let's go down there!" you said, wanting to get a closer view of the track before the derby began.

You assumed that you could simply fly on in, considering it was literally hanging off a cliff's edge, but you were wondering what you needed the tickets for if that was the case.
It would've been pretty annoying if you didn't even need the tickets, especially after you had just spent all of your bits on-

"Stop right there!" a pretty bulky looking Pegasus in armour said, holding out a hoof as if attempting to force you to a halt. You weren't about to argue with a royal guard, and hopefully Rainbow wouldn't either, "You can't go down there without tickets."

"He's got the tickets! Show him, Storm." Rainbow said, seeming to get a little impatient once again. You couldn't really see why, especially considering there was still a good 15 minutes until the event started.
Funny how she had woken you up saying that you were going to be late, but even despite the long flight you had still ended up arriving early.

Obliging to Rainbow's request, you pulled out two tickets from your imaginary pockets.

Wait...

How long had you known how to do that for? You don't remember learning it. Who knows, maybe it was something you had just picked up over time.

Satisfied, the royal guard took the two tickets from your hoofs, and began to fly over to patrol the outskirts of the track once again.

"Have a good day." he said, before quickly flying off stop another group of Pegasi from entering the event illegally.

You weren't surprised that there were multiple ponies entering through the air. There was probably an alternate entrance for Earth Ponies and Unicorns, but most Pegasi were most likely going to want to fly.

"Now we can go down there." you said, giving Rainbow Dash a smile.

The two of you quickly flew down into the stands and awaited the start of the event. If this was a race between the fastes Wonderbolts, then you were looking forward to seeing who would win.

"So..." you said, striking up conversation, "Who do you think will win?"

"Huh?" Rainbow replied, seeming to snap out of a trance. She seemed to be engrossed in the surrounding landscape. You figured that was something you were going to be doing, but you couldn't really blame her.

"The race. Who do you think will win?" you asked again, hoping she would understand this time.

"Ohhhh! Well, I'd say my money's on Spitfire." she explained, no surprise there. She was the leader of the group after all, "What about you?"

Quite honestly, you had never seen the Wonderbolt's in person yet. You had only ever seen them in the show, so you couldn't really gauge their differences in flight speed.

"I've never met the Wonderbolt's, so I can't really say." you explained.

"Hey, that's ok! But trust me, Spitfire is the fastest out of-" she was cut out by the sound of a loud echo resonating throughout the nearby area.

The event was starting.

Speaking through a megaphone was the Alicorn who you had wanted to meet for such a long time. Princess Celestia.

"Fillies and gentlecolts! It is my honour to announce the annual Wonderbolt's Derby!" the princess announced, cheerfully. This was clearly a major event if the house were having one of the princesses announce it.

Speaking of which, where was the other princess, anyway. Princess Luna was nowhere in sight, but then again, she was the princess of the moon.

As soon as Celestia finished her opening, you could see a large crowd of Wonderbolt's gathering down at the raceway, preparing for the race. At the front you could see the three main members: Spitfire, Soarin and Fleetfoot.

Rainbow watched excitedly, as did you, as Princess Celestia began to speak into the microphone once again.

"Wonderbolts, are you ready?" she asked, bracing them for the beginning of the derby.

There was a moment of silence for a few seconds. The crowd stopped cheering, Celestia stopped talking, and everypony was staring down at the Wonderbolts in suspense.

In reply to Celestia's question, Spitfire nodded her head in her direction. Taking that as the heads up to begin, she once again began to talk into the megaphone.

"Go!" she announced, and just like that, they were off.

Already shooting way ahead of the pack was Spitfire, Soarin and Fleetfoot, leaving the rest of the group in the dust. There even seemed to be some new trainees being left in a cloud of dust, way at the back of the pack.

Whilst most of the Pegasi seemed to be flying at a similar pace, the main three shot ahead, already half way through their first laps.

"How many laps are there?" you asked Rainbow, but she didn't seem to hear you. Either that, or she was too focused on the event to reply.

Almost seeming to answer your question, Celestia once again talked via the megaphone, as if commentating.

"And here we see Spitfire and Soarin completing their first lap of five, with Fleetfoot not far behind!" she announced, as the trio quickly sped on to their second lap.

Could she see your thoughts or something? She was the one of the Alicorn princesses after all, but why would she single out your thoughts?

"Woah! Storm, look!" Rainbow exclaimed, tapping you ferociously to get your attention. Well, that broke your train of thought.

Looking down, it looked like the three were getting into some form of formation; Spitfire and Soarin at the sides, whilst Fleetfoot hung back in the middle. It looked kinda like an inverted paper airplane.
Whether this manoeuvre was intended or not, you really couldn't tell, but it didn't seem to be doing all that much.

"What're they doing?" you asked, but were once again met with no response. Rainbow was practically flying above her seat in suspense. While this was exciting, it wasn't as immersive as you thought.

But how was that?

You were literally inside a TV show, experiencing the impossible. But for some reason, it felt normal. Thinking back to your old life, or what you could still remember of it, this world felt more real than Earth ever could.

Wait, it is called Earth, right?

Anyway, you were here for the Wonderbolts, so you should probably have been putting more of your focus onto the race. But now that you were on the topic of the Wonderbolts, that got you thinking.

Why hadn't Rainbow joined them?

As far as you could remember, by this point in time Rainbow at least had some connection to them, but right now she didn't even seem to know them all that well.
Maybe you should try asking her at some point.

And then there was also th-

"And now we have Spitfire leading into the final lap!" Celestia announced, bringing you back to reality. Had you really been that deep in your own thoughts that you had missed out on over half of the event?

As the three crossed the halfway point of the lap, still in their airplane formation, you could see the crowd growing wild with excitement.

"Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh..." Rainbow muttered to herself in suspense. By now, she was literally flying above her seat.

It seemed neck-and-neck between Spitfire and Soarin as they neared the final stretch. Surely one of them would win the race.

But at the last second, Fleetfoot broke formation and shot forward, utilising the other two's streamline energy to propell herself forward.

Just before time ran out, Fleetfoot overtook the other two and won won the race. That was something neither you or Rainbow Dash was expecting.

The entire crowd erupted into cheers.

"Fleetfoot won?" Rainbow asked, seeming a little surprised.

"Yeah! She did!" you confirmed, still a little surprised yourself.

Now that the event was over, you weren't too sure what you were supposed to be doing. You figured you should probably have been going back to Ponyville, and talking to Rainbow about the race, but something in your mind was telling you not to just leave.
Something deep within your consciousness was telling you to leave the racetrack the normal way, without flying. Stay in Canterlot a little longer, and something good will happen.

"So..." Rainbow said, "Now what do ya wanna do?"

You had just the idea.

Author's Notes:

Because I really don't have that much patience, I decided to cut some of this chapter out, and put it into the next one instead. That means this chapter is 500 or so words shorter, but the next one will be longer.

Since this is about normal length, I would've gotten it out yesterday, but I went out so couldn't work on it at all last night. As much as I love creating my own story, and further developing this universe, sometimes a one day break is good to stop a burnout, even if you don't feel one coming.

On a positive note though, Celestia should be properly introduced next chapter