Salem -- Fate's Watchtower

[doctorfatejsa]

Hector Hall sits alone on a throne of stone in his tower, blood pulsing through his temples. The Helm of Nabu whispers dark things at him, but he pushes the skittering voice aside. He will not fall to chaos. Doing so is unthinkable.

So why don't you just cast off the helm? says the voice. He has no answer. The misery has gripped him since he

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[jla_goldenage]

"Oh, this is going to hell in a handbasket," thinks Rose Psychic, stretched to the limit of her mystic abilities. One wrong move, and they're dead. She can feel this in her blood. But a completely different wrong move, and Atlantis is destroyed, and that won't do, either.

And then there's the force speaking to them, drawing them toward the unknown.

She needs to make a decision. She needs to think. And then it dawns on her.

"It's about Atlantis!" she shouts in desperation to Tempest and Fate. "What's at stake is not the city, but what it represents! The city at the heart of Magic! That's what the Witch Queen's seeking!"

And there's more ... there's more ... something the woman's not seeing. An unknown.

And in that moment of understanding, a decision is made.

"Tempest and Flash, use your powers to create a torrent ... wash Fate and us toward the vortex! The voice is correct ... if we battle here, all is lost!"

And then the voice chimes in, ringing in Tempest's head.

"Listen to her, Garth. Atlantis needs a champion at this moment. Will you stand as that hero? Can you trust in the unknown?"

[violeteyedmage]

He can trust a lot. Has trusted much. It's been a poor investment of faith growing ever more in debt. Dealing is Atlantis's power structure has been that trust into something very dark and sharp to the touch these days. Gods help him, he doesn't trust his own wife - or his son to be near him these days.

Everyone wants a piece of him - for years...since birth. Normally the piece they seem to want is the head off his shoulders. Fate adds himself to that list.

He uses his rage to summon a vortex the likes of which he has not managed in ages.

And now, he thinks ruefully. The JSA bear mistrust and will sow more descent. What has the world come to?

[doctorfatejsa]

The waters surge and pound, forcing Dr. Fate away from his enemy.

Fate is crazed now, manic.

"I will not be the puppet of mystic forces" shouts Fate, but even his great power can't resist the tide. Oh, but he's trying.

Above him, the Witch Queen screams as he combatant is the battle torn from her. Indeed, it seems this turn of events is not making her happy.

"Give me Nabu's pawn, she says, in a blizzard-cold voice. Fate is mine!"

[jla_goldenage]

The heroes in the mystic sphere tumble, knocked by the vortex.

Oh goodness gracious this has gotten out of cotnrol thinks Rose Psychic, but as enraged as Fate is right now, this isn't their battle, and she can see that. And she's starting to get a sense of why The Witch Queen wants them to fight it.

She curses under her breath, and prays that Jay Garrick and the young Jakeem thunder can finsih the job, and see them safely away. To whatever's on the other side of that portal.

And she prays that the young Tempest is hero enough to handle the burden she's just placed on him. He's going to have to be.

[violeteyedmage]

"What is that thing and what weakens it?!"

[doctorfatejsa]

"It is called the Witch Queen, says Fate, regaining his balance even as the others are washed toward the portal.

"And if she has any weaknesses, we know them not.

Fate is already fighting against the torrent, already unconcerned with Tempest's attemtp to seperate them. It's clear he wants to rip her throat out.

[violeteyedmage]

Great, just great...

For all of about two seconds, he contemplates suicide by supervillain. Then he things of his son and those under his rule. Instead he extends his arms and blasts each of them - his power being spent at a phenonminal rate.

"This is not your place of battle, Fate! Go!"

[doctorfatejsa]

Fate blasts again at the Witch Queen, who now easily paries and retalieates with a force blow that knocks the mage backward through the water.

She seeks to enslave me, to enslave the power of Fate to her evil doingl. I cannot allow it.

And then, the mysterious voice, ringing in both Fate and Tempest's head.

She wants this fight. Ask yourself, why does she want this fight?

That makes Fate hesitate ... possibly, just possibly, he can be reached.

[violeteyedmage]

Tempest might not be the person to best do this.

"Flash, get him out of her before he lets her win!"

[jay_garrick]

"Fate! We go now!" He holds out his hand. "Please... trust me."

[gemma_masters]

"Let's go Hector." She's been strangely subdued since the Witch Queen spoke. Something Craddock said to her once was sticking in her mind now, "What are you, little witch? I can see death clamoring at your heels, but I don't know you."

Maybe this was it.

[doctorfatejsa]

Jay ... Gemma ... these are voices Hector Hall trusts implicitly, even when he's not entirely in control. With a glance at The looming Witch Queen, and then at Tempest, he swears under his breath, and then, in a display of light arcing into a hawk ... he draws the heroes through the portal.

Your Gods be with you, and with Atlantis he says to Tempest, before following last through the portal, which vanishes entirely.

The Witch Queen screams, a sound that carries in the water for miles.