Taylor and the Chaos Gacha Part 9 (Patreon)

Thomas Calvert's heart lurched when he woke up and realized that a naked woman with cheap plastic gloves was sitting on his desk holding his gun, the gun that should have been under his pillow. His heart rate sped up again when he realized that she'd somehow tied him up without waking him up. "What do you want?"

"Don't bother using your power, it won't help," the woman warned him.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, I don't have powers," Thomas said as he used his power to split the timeline and promptly felt both timelines collapse back into one.

"If you do that again, I'm going to shoot you in the knee," she warned him.

"What do you want?" Thomas asked, trying to buy enough time to figure out what was wrong with his power.

"I want you to leave the Bay," the woman told him.

"Why would I do that?" Thomas asked, wondering what her angle was and why she was naked in his bedroom.

"I'll give you several reasons, the most important being that if you don't, I'll kill you," the woman replied with a smirk that was strangely familiar and disturbing. "Your power has been glitching which means you can't be sure that you'll end up in the right timeline which means everything is going to come down to guesswork."

"Is that your fault?" Thomas asked, annoyed that she knew about his power glitching since he hadn't told anyone that it hadn't been reliable the last couple of days.

"No, it's a side effect of an experiment," she lied. "Unfortunately, it's just going to get worse if you stay and we both know how you feel about gambling."

"The house always wins," Thomas mused. "I have contacts and connections here, I could help."

"We both know that you're not going to forgive someone for breaking into your house and tying you up with rope, so you're either going to leave and never come back or I'm going to kill you and cut my losses," she explained. "And before you consider lying I know a thinker that can find capes and that can knock people out. It doesn't really matter which timeline you're planning on keeping, he'll find you and kill you if you cause trouble or stay in the Bay."

"Why leave a loose end?" Thomas asked.

"Two reasons," the woman replied. "I happen to know that the Director would hate the fact that you're on a beach on a tropical island somewhere enjoying the good life while she's stuck in the Bay and two, I'm a ghost in the system, you're not going to find me."

"Emily would hate that, wouldn't she," Thomas mused, wondering how much the woman knew since she seemed to know things no one else should. "Why do you want me to leave?"

"My employer wants to clean up the Bay, we don't need a Bond style villain sitting in the shadows causing trouble or rocking the boat," she told him. "You've been playing games and moving pieces but let's face it, you'd make more money hitting a couple of casinos on the weekends than you would having expensive mercenaries committing petty crime."

"The casinos would figure it out," Thomas argued.

She laughed. "Bullshit. They're trained to watch for thinkers and cardsharks, you're just a guy on vacation. Grab ten thousand dollars and a book, use your power and then walk into a casino and start playing in one timeline and read the book in the other or watch a movie. If you win more than you lose after two hours, you walk out of the casino, use your power and hit the next one. If you don't, you keep the timeline and then you hit a different casino. As long as you're not acting like a smug bastard in the casino, you'll probably be fine."

"That's not as much fun, I hate losing," Thomas admitted.

"Don't think of it as losing, just think of it as burning a little bit of time to sell the con, you'll always win in the end," she assured him. "You had your fun being a Bond villain but we both know how that ends, eventually the hero kills them or a villain calls in some favors and you get your throat slit in the middle of the night."

"What about my teams?" Thomas asked.

"Already taken care of," she replied with a smirk. "I shot your medic for being a creepy bastard and paid the rest of the mercenaries for one last job along with a decent severance package so they won't have any hard feelings."

"No point keeping the bastard around if the mercenaries are gone," Thomas admitted, willing to admit that having him dead tied up some loose ends. "What job are they doing?" he asked, curious if she'd tell him.

"They're painting the streets red," she replied with a grin. "You had a lot of information about Lung's operation and his people, we're basically killing everyone that runs any of his brothels and most of the people running his protection rackets."

"That is going to drive Lung into a rage," Thomas pointed out.

"Absolutely, it will give us a chance to deal with Oni Lee and cripple the ABB," she explained.

"Why?" Thomas asked.

"Spite and curiosity," she replied with a grin. "I want to see how badly I can fuck up a couple of gangs in a day using stolen resources. I sent a sniper after Max Anders, with any luck he'll be dead before he realizes there's a problem causing the Empire to fracture. Lung for all his power, can't be everywhere."

"Without Oni Lee around to kill people, you could just keep shooting his enforcers and vanish when he shows up," Thomas mused. "What about the Merchants?"

"If they survive the weekend, I'll be surprised. Squealer is already talking to the PRT about rebranding and Mush doesn't have the connections to keep the drugs flowing or the charisma to talk his way out of a wet paper bag. Trainwreck isn't going to stick around once you stop paying him."

"What about the Travelers?" Thomas asked, annoyed that she knew Trainwreck worked for him since he'd been careful about how they stayed in contact.

"Lisa explained that you had a gun to her head and leverage on the rest of the team and that you weren't trustworthy so I gave them one last easy job and told them that all debts were paid if they finished it. That should keep them from going after you."

"What was the job?" he asked, wondering if she'd tell him.

She laughed. "I sent the Travelers to kidnap Alabaster and to stick him in a coffin. We can probably ransom him back to Hookwolf or occasionally send pieces of him to terrify people if Hookwolf doesn't want to pay for his release."

"Why Alabaster?" Thomas asked.

"He's an annoying racist piece of shit and I needed a crime that wasn't morally objectionable, just illegal."

"And the Undersiders?" Thomas asked, thinking about Lisa.

"Nothing horrible, I gave Lisa six million as a severance package, the keys to the base and the location of all of the explosives in the base," she replied, rather amused by the way he was staring at her in disbelief.

"Why?" Thomas asked.

"Honestly? The base was already compromised, all it was going to take was one of the mercenaries saying something they shouldn't on a date or including the location in a file and mailing it to someone in case you stabbed them in the back. Giving Lisa the money and the base will drive her up the wall waiting for the other shoe to drop and looking for traps that aren't there."

"So I just get to ride off into the sunset?" Thomas asked, knowing it wouldn't be that simple.

"We both know that killing you would get messy. If you're willing to retire, we're willing to ignore the fact that you're a bastard and let you have fun fucking over the cartels down in Mexico or sitting on a tropical beach drinking overpriced drinks with a couple of rather attractive girls."

"And if I cause trouble, you'll kill me?" Thomas asked.

She hopped off the table. "Or worse."

Thomas considered the idea of retiring and realized that retiring on the beach and getting the last laugh actually appealed to him. 'Did I get mastered? She has a point about the Bond shit, I was just waiting for someone to catch me, to prove that I was smarter. Maybe it's time to fold or at least relocate,' he decided. "I have a request."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Pay the new cape to heal Director Piggot, it would drive her crazy and it would be better for the city," Thomas suggested, knowing it would drive Emily crazy to get healed by a cape.

"That actually makes everything easier," she mused, her mind already coming up with the best way to screw him over while granting his request, especially since it would make Piggot want to kill him.

"What?" he asked.

"I emptied most of your villain accounts and dropped five million in your civilian account. That sort of money is generally automatically flagged, especially since you're a consultant. If I take fifty thousand out to pay the healer, Piggot is going to connect the dots."

"As long as she can't prove it, I don't care," Thomas replied with a grin, knowing the fact that she couldn't prove it would eat at her. "I'm guessing you also sent a text informing the PRT that I quit?"

"Of course," she replied with a smirk. "You should be able to get out of the ropes in about ten or fifteen minutes, best of luck escaping the city before someone finds you."

"Or you could untie me," Thomas suggested.

"Not a chance," she replied with amusement as she walked out of the room and headed for the front door, picking up speed once she was down the hallway as she doubted the ropes would take him more than five minutes of work now that he wasn't distracted. "Mission accomplished, he'll be gone by morning."

"Good," the wraith replied as it activated one of its powers and vanished from sight. "Make some noise when you leave, the boss can change your appearance later."

"With pleasure," she replied as she slipped her feet into a pair of sandals that Thomas only kept for appearance sake, grabbed her 'twin's' go bag from the couch and left via the front door, leaving it open so the police had a reason to investigate on the off chance that he didn't manage to escape the ropes.

"Good Lord!" Thomas' neighbor declared in a high pitched and snooty tone when she saw the naked woman walking out of her neighbor's house, causing her yappy lapdog with delusions of importance to start barking and growling. "Harlot!"

"Shut your fucking mutt up," Thomas's clone ordered as she walked down the sidewalk toward the road, happy that she didn't have to be even somewhat pleasant to the bitch anymore.

"Don't talk about Fluffy that way!" the woman screeched, not even trying to stop her dog from charging at the naked woman to teach her a lesson.

The clone shot the dog in the head, thinking about the number of times it had woken her up in the morning or woken Thomas up in the morning barking but she still remembered it so it counted. "This is why we have leashes."

"I'll kill you!" the woman shrieked as she charged the bitch that had just shot her dog.

"Fuck it," the clone kicked the lunatic in the stomach, causing her to collapse on the grass grabbing her stomach in pain. "Let me explain something you stupid bitch, if you'd trained your dog or kept it on a leash, it wouldn't be dead. If you get another yappy mutt, I'm going to have my boyfriend shoot it then grind it up for sausage! Do you fucking understand me?!"

"You killed him!" the woman declared like that was going to change something.

"Stop crying or you're next," the clone told her as she walked over to Thomas' car that he kept for the times he had to go into the PRT. 'Stupid bitch,' she complained as she set her go bag on the hood and fished out the keys, doing her best to ignore the people looking out from behind curtains because of the gunshot. 'Hopefully that was enough noise,' she thought as she unlocked the car, tossed her bag in the passenger seat, got inside and shut the door.

She started the engine then cranked the music and took off like a bat out of hell, planning on breaking more than a couple of laws on her way to their next stop. 'I might not be able to kill him without Cauldron showing up but I can certainly make sure he leaves.'

0o0o0

The wraith ignored the arguing from the living room as it quietly and invisibly floated down the hallway, following the 'smell' of pretzels and spice. It phased through the door and floated over to the bed where a brown haired child was passed out wearing a pair of headphones. It used its Eyes of Purification on the girl, wanting to fix any mental issues she might have. 'Step one, now for step two and three.'

It focused as it reached down and pulled the covers back halfway so it could reach the child's arm and so it could drop the clones in the right place. It lightly touched the back of the child's wrist and quickly copied her twice. It carefully pulled the blanket over the naked girls so they wouldn't get cold and wake up early. It briefly considered hitting the child's parents with its purification ability before deciding to save the mana for cloning heroes. It floated through the wall and headed toward her next target.

It only took the wraith two and a half minutes to fly to the next target since she was in the same general area. It slipped through the wall of the apartment and into a room covered in posters of various bands. It used its Eyes of Purification on the blonde parahuman wearing unicorn pajamas to take care of any mental issues then flew over and cloned the teenager twice then flew through the roof and headed toward its next target.

That trip took five minutes and found a red haired teenager unconscious on a couch in front of a television that was playing some monster movie next to a man that looked washed out and sick with a blanket draped over both of them. It used Eyes of Purification on the adult, curing whatever conditions were affecting him then did the same for its target. 'Two clones and then I head to the next target.'

The wraith frowned when the second clone turned out to be a red haired girl. 'Let's try that again,' it decided and used its cloning power again, causing a red haired girl to appear in the hero's lap. It used the power again, creating a male copy of the hero. 'Two brothers, two sisters, I should probably fix that.'

It created a copy of one of the girls then covered the collection of naked teenagers with the other blanket from the chair. 'That should confuse things,' it decided as it flew up through the ceiling and headed toward the next target.

0o0o0 

"What the hell?!" Missy sputtered when she woke up enough to realize that someone else was in her bed. She froze when she woke up enough to realize that one of the girls had her face while the girl in the middle had her face buried in her pillow but her hair matched.

"Doppelganger!" the Missy clone on the other edge blurted out as she rolled off the bed and used her power to put some distance between her and her doppelgangers, causing the room to expand rather than what she was expecting.

"That's my line!" Missy snapped, staring at the naked girl that looked like her, if you removed all of her various scars. "What the hell?!" she sputtered when she noticed the room had expanded by at least five feet.

"Did you fuck with my power?!" the clone demanded.

"Go back to sleep," the Missy clone with her face in her pillow ordered, wanting to go back to her dream about Dean.

"Changer," Missy accused her doppelganger.

"What?" The clone that had been trying to sleep turned her head to look at Missy. "Stop shouting unless you want to wake Mom up."

"Fine," Missy and the clone that had jumped out of bed grumbled at the same time.

Missy sighed. "We're going to have to report this."

"Of course," the clone agreed. "I'm going to report that you're a doppelganger."

"You're both doppelgangers," Missy argued, trying to keep her voice down.

The clone that was still in bed yawned. "Are you sure?"

"I'm wearing pajamas, you're not," Missy argued.

"Clothes are overrated," the clone near the wall argued.

"Yep," the other clone agreed.

"If I'm the doppelganger, why are both of you naked?" Missy asked. "Wouldn't it make sense that you're the doppelgangers and that I'm the original?"

The clone on the bed sighed. "Or you're both doppelgangers sent to ruin my dream of flirting with Dean, I'm probably still dreaming."

The other clone walked over and pulled the covers off then spanked the other clone's bottom. "Still dreaming?"

"Probably not," the other clone admitted as she twisted space and grabbed Missy's phone off the nightstand. "I'm going to call this in and we're going to sit here and wait for someone to prove that you're doppelgangers."

"What makes you think I'm a doppelganger?" the other clone asked.

"Your power is weird," the clone with the phone replied as she unlocked the phone and selected the number she was supposed to call if there was a situation.

"Maybe she messed with it," she argued.

"This is going to be a long day," Missy grumbled, trying to keep both of the doppelgangers or evil clones in view and ready to react if they tried to frame her.

0o0o0

Dennis woke up with a jolt as something moved on his lap. "What the hell?!" he blurted when he realized that there was a naked girl sprawled across his lap. 

The girl rolled off the couch and stood up, giving Dennis a nice view as she glanced at the collection of duplicates on the couch. "No clue, I think we got cloned."

"Leet?" one of the other girls asked thoughtfully.

"Or Kid Win," the third female clone suggested as she moved off the couch to give everyone more room. 

"What makes you think it was Kid Win?" Dennis asked.

"It's always the quiet ones," she replied with a smirk.

Dennis laughed despite the situation.

"She's got us there," one of the male clones offered.

Dennis' father yawned as he woke up then blinked a couple of times when he noticed the naked people in his living room, two of which looked like his son while the girls looked a bit like his niece. "What's going on?"

"I think we got cloned, we're going to have to call it in," she offered.

"They're going to think this is a joke," Dennis complained.

Dennis' father chuckled. "Maybe if you didn't play so many pranks, they'd take your warning a bit more seriously."

"Betrayal, most foul," Dennis replied with a smile as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, fairly sure it was going to be a long day.

"We're not crazy enough to pull this type of crap," one of the male clones argued.

"That's only because we hadn't thought about it," one of the girls joked.

Dennis relaxed slightly when none of the possible clones tried to stop him from calling things in, giving him a bit more faith that things might work out. 'If nothing else, it's a reason to get Amy here to check on everything.'

0o0o0

"Amy…" Vicky trailed off as she burst into her sister's room to check on her because of the clone bit and saw two naked copies of her sister on the bed kissing each other. "What the hell?!"

"I got cloned," Amy replied from over by her burrow where she was grabbing clothes for the clones since they didn't really care what they were wearing.

Vicky turned to look at her sister, trying not to think about her new sisters kissing each other. "Do you think they're evil?"

The Amy clones stopped kissing each other and looked at Vicky. "We're not evil, we're just horny and we're cute."

Amy tossed her clones a pair of t-shirts. "Get dressed."

"Are you going to tie us up and spank us if we don't?" one of the Amy clones teased.

"Maybe later," Amy told them as she tossed them two pairs of sweats and underwear. "I have a feeling we've got a long day."

"Yeah," Vicky agreed. "The Director was hoping you'd come in and help verify that the clones aren't going to go insane and murder everyone."

"Too much work," one of the Amys offered as she pulled the shirt on.

"How many people got cloned?" Amy asked Vicky.

Vicky shook her head. "The PRT didn't say, they just said that several heroes were cloned and that they were hoping you could swing by the rig and make sure the clones weren't unstable."

"What makes them think the clones aren't stable?" Amy asked.

Vicky gestured toward the clones that were getting dressed. "I had to practically threaten mine to get them to get dressed and they wanted to have a foursome with Dean and I."

"You'd better run, they're completely unhinged, they want to tag team your boyfriend," one of the Amy clones teased.

"Okay, that might not be a sign of insanity," Vicky admitted.

"Amy!" Carol called out from downstairs. "Phone!"

"Don't do anything stupid," Amy told her clones then headed downstairs to grab the phone, fairly sure this was probably Taylor's fault. 'What the hell did you do?'