The Masked Matter-Horn gritted her teeth and stretched to make another crawl. Just one more step. And another. The hurricane was nearly tearing her from the floor even with Mistress Mare-velous’ lasso tied around her waist and pushing down with all mental strength the earth pony could muster.
Lightning flashed, almost blinding her for a second. Matter-Horn instinctively glanced up. The vortex of the tornado had already reached the dome of the power plant’s main chamber. If not for the wind howling in her ears, she would certainly hear the squeaking of the metal plating of the roof under the terrible pressure.
Another lightning bolt flashed behind. Matter-Horn pressed on without looking back. She just had to reassure herself that Radiance would be able to hold her constructs long enough to shield the control terminal and those ponies who were still in the chamber.
Fili-Second had already evacuated most of the electricity plant staff. Only two senior engineers refused to leave their post. They tried to use the terminal, but their efforts to get thunderstorm back under control were futile. As were Zapp’s.
Matter-Horn shuddered, remembering how her friend tried to calm the thunderstorm with the Lightning Medallion. Just when Zapp cried the incantation, one of the lightning bolts, as if a sign of defiance, struck her. In the flash of lightning, Matter-Horn saw how the blue pegasus bounced back, hit a wall and fell to the floor, scorched.
The moment Zapp fell Matter-Horn was torn between running to her and turning back to the terminal to help the engineers. Every second lost brought them all closer to the disaster. And yet Matter-Horn herself failed to be of any help. Even as she knew a lot about magical thunderstorms, read several articles on the subject in fact, what good was all that knowledge if the controls were unresponsive and readings on the dials made no sense?
Frozen for a few seconds that felt like several minutes to her, Matter-Horn suddenly noticed a small piece of paper below the monitor. The wind would tear this paper away long ago if it wasn’t stuck on the terminal with a glue. Why would someone do that? Was it important?
It was apparently some kind of instructions as on the top of it was printed “In case of emergency” however, there was nothing else beside that printed on the paper only uneven letters that someone scribbled in the empty space, “Aim from a silent place that is the same backwards”.
Her first thought was that the note was some kind of prank. But what if…
“Marv!” Matter-Horn called. “Tie your lasso around me. I need to reach the center of the chamber”
“Why?” Mistress Mare-velous cried, barely heard over the storm.
“No time to explain,” yelled Horn back, “I have a hunch.”
“Whatever.” Marv threw her lasso on Matter-Horn and mentally ordered a noose to go around alicorn’s waist and folded wings a couple of times.
Another flash of lightning pulled Matter-Horn from recent memories. How much time passed since Zapp’s failure? She probably crawled for less than a minute, otherwise, the tornado would’ve already torn the dome apart. She had to reach the center! With another effort, Horn made a few more steps ahead.
And suddenly there was no wind around her anymore. For a second Matter-Horn relaxed. She reached the eye of the storm. After the raging howl outside it appeared so silent here. A moment later roar and thunder came back to her. And one glance in the direction of the control terminal where Radiance’s shields were blinking at each strike of the flashes of lightning was enough to refill Horn’s resolve if she ever lost one.
Matter-Horn walked into the very center of the chamber, concentrating, and aimed her horn at the seemingly empty space right above her.
A light beam came out of Matter-Horn’s horn and dissipated a few meters above her. One second she was afraid that she was wrong, but the next moment she felt the storm start to dissipate. She sighed in relief. But then she looked around and understood that it wasn’t all over yet. Many objects that the wind pulled into the vortex started to fall.
Fili-Second in a moment carried a few remaining workers to outside the building. And Radiance caught some stuff that looked valuable enough. Matter-Horn had just to jump out of the way of some heavy box. And the moment the storm subsided completely, she ran towards Zapp.
“I’m okay. Okay…” moaned Zapp, raising on her hooves. “Aww, more or less okay. Uh, I think…”
“Don’t move, please,” that was Radiance, who expressed her concern most vividly. “What if you have fractured a bone or something?”
“No, it’s really nothing.” Zapp stretched a bit, then wiggled her wings. “Just a bruise.”
Zapp winced as a beam of magic came out of Matter-Horn’s horn, scanning her, making her bones shine through, like in an X-ray shot. That was a neat trick that Power Ponies’ alicorn leader added to her arsenal recently and used quite often. Too often for Zapp’s taste.
“I’m okay.” Zapp’s voice became a little annoyed. “I don’t need a full medical check after every fall!”
“If I were smashed into a wall like that, I would be in bed for a week at least,” Radiance said.
"You would, sure!" Zapp rolled her eyes, then looked around. "So? Is everything over? I made it stop, didn’t I?
"Not exactly," answered Mistress Mare-velous. "It was something Matter-Horn did.” She turned to the leader. “What did you do anyway?”
"Just the standard neutralizing spell," answered the purple alicorn. "But I had to cast it right in the center of the vortex. Following these instructions.”
She put the note on the floor for everypony to see.
"It looks like a riddle," Fili-Second was the first one to break the silence.
"And the answer is ‘Eye’," answered Matter-Horn. "The word that is the same when is read backwards. And there is silence in the eye of the storm.”
"The only question is who wrote this riddle." Mistress Mare-velous frowned. "The only way for these instructions to work is if it was written by someone—”
The note suddenly blazed up. Everypony stepped back. And as smoke rose from the flaming note, inside it formed a silhouette.
"Congratulations, Power Ponies!" The voice coming from inside the smoke was a bit distorted, but not enough to hide the female voice and smug tone. "Ha ha! And to think you’ve almost missed my clue.”
"So, the storm breaking out of control was your doing!" cried Zapp.
She just laughed in response.
"Who are you?" asked Masked Matter-Horn.
"Ah. Now here is an interesting question." The silhouette in the smoke giggled. "You can call me Question Mare for now. But you will learn more about me if you pass my tests.”
"Tests? Like the one you did here?”
"Well, not exactly. I prepared all kinds of tests--for your powers, for your smart leader..." Question Mare abruptly stopped. "But I don’t want to give too much away. Let’s just say that for the next test, you will have to dig a little deeper.”
The silhouette vanished, the dispersing smoke making Power Ponies cough. In a few seconds the flames disappeared and there was nothing but a pile of ash where the magical note had been.
"So…" Zapp scratched her mane, trying to find words for the performance she just saw.
"So, we have a new villain on our hooves," finished Mistress Mare-velous.