Taylor and the Chaos Gacha Part 17 (Patreon)

"Did you get anything good?" Amy asked Taylor, not taking her attention away from where Stopwatch was trying to show a naked Scarlet how to properly kick people by one of the training dummies.

"Good enough for silver," Taylor replied as she tapped her platinum card, causing it to flip over and reveal an ornate skeleton key. "I got Micro Pyrokinesis which gives me atomically precise control over flames, the sheer power is crap but the control is useful and a Tax Evasion skill that basically makes me insanely good at legal and illegal tax evasion and money laundering."

"I'm not sure you're supposed to admit that in front of a bunch of heroes," Timestop offered with a snicker.

"There's nothing illegal about knowing how to take advantage of loopholes," Taylor argued. "Maybe if I abuse them enough, the people in charge will be forced to close them."

Timestop laughed. "Considering most of the loopholes were left in intentionally, I doubt it."

"I also got a trait that lets me smell magic so you should probably avoid using a bunch of necromancy spells unless you want me scrubbing you with a wire brush and stinky soap," Taylor warned him.

"Would that help?" Timestop asked.

"No, but the brushing will continue until morale improves," Taylor replied with a grin.

"Fair enough," Timestop replied with a grin. "Amy was nice enough to make sure my father wouldn't have to worry about his cancer again, so I don't have to worry about learning necromancy."

"I'm still surprised you didn't mention that before," Amy grumbled.

"I'm chalking that up to Clock being too stressed to think straight," Timestop admitted.

"Been there," Amy admitted, thinking about her time at the hospital and how she'd let it consume a large part of her life. "What about the platinum card?"

"I got a magic key," Taylor replied as she pulled the Lake Key out of her inventory, stuck it in the air and twisted, causing a portal to appear which showed a cavern lit by glowing crystals in the walls, a sandy shore and a lake of crystal clear water that glimmered with potential, which she thought might be it trying too hard. "It's basically a pocket dimension with a magic infused lake."

"What type of magic?" Timestop asked.

"It's magically infused water, it's supposed to help with alchemy and with recovering energy if you're in it," Taylor explained as she walked through the portal and glanced around.

Timestop followed her through the portal. "It's warmer than I was expecting."

Amy walked through the portal, floated up in the air a couple of feet and slowly spun around so that she could look at the entire cavern in all of its sparkling glory. "This would be a nice place to relax."

"Or have a beach party," Vicky said as she stepped through the portal onto the sand.

"No trash," Taylor warned her.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Vicky assured her as Sirius and Tonks walked through the portal. 

"It feels like I just had a couple of shots of espresso," Tonks mused as she walked over to the edge of the lake, bouncing on her toes.

"We should grab a couple of bottles for Snape," Sirius suggested as Hermione walked through the portal with Harry.

"Why?" Harry asked as he glanced around, feeling like he was being hugged by something ethereal and warm.

"Because he could probably make something impressive and because it would drive him crazy when he ran out," Sirius replied with a grin.

"That's cruel," Hermione scolded as the rest of the group started making their way through the portal.

Sirius shrugged. "I'm aware."

Taylor shook her head. "I don't have a problem giving him a couple of bottles."

"Speaking of magic, can you duplicate a wand with your Enchanting?" Amy asked Taylor.

"I should be able to, most of the wands aren't particularly complicated," Taylor replied as she used her Metallurgy to create a silver ring.

"Most of them?" Sirius asked.

"Harry's wand is a bit strange, it gets a boost against Voldemort," Taylor explained as she used her Enchanting ability to turn the ring into a magical focus, cobbling the design together from the various wands she'd examined. "I need a volunteer to test the ring, it should work like a wand."

"I'll do it," Scarlet offered.

Taylor tossed Scarlet the ring. "You might have to wave your fingers or hands around or something."

Scarlet slipped the ring on then gestured at a rock with her other hand as she whispered, "Leviosa."

Sirius watched as the rock floated off the ground with a smile. "I'm going to want one of those."

Tonks glanced at the hand with the ring that was at Scarlet's side. "I'm surprised that you didn't have to use the hand with the ring."

"I was curious," Scarlet replied with a smile as she mentally moved the rock around without moving her hand. "It's a bit harder without moving your hand but it's just focus."

"This is going to be awesome!" Horizon squealed, already thinking about ways that she was going to be able to use magic to capture criminals.

Stopwatch shook her head. "I'm suddenly glad that I'm not a villain."

Expanse snickered. "It’s for the best."

"Does it have to be a finger ring?" Chronobreak asked thoughtfully.

"No, what are you thinking?" Taylor asked.

"No cock rings," Vicky cut in.

Chronobreak twitched. "I'm not that stupid, I've heard Amy's horror stories."

"Idiots, so many horny idiots," Amy muttered, trying not to think about some of the idiots that she'd had to heal because they'd done something fantastically stupid. "The sad part is, at least half of the idiots weren't even drunk."

"Even with expansion charms…" Sirius muttered, wondering if it was worth obliviating himself before deciding to just ignore the subject.

"Better than the vegetables with engorgement charms," Tonks offered with a shutter, thinking about some of her mother's stories of patients with questionable intelligence.

"Why would…" Expanse trailed off as she realized what Tonks was talking about. "Ouch."

"Moving on," Sirius suggested.

"I was actually going to suggest a toe ring or a necklace," Chrono offered.

"What about earrings?" Stopwatch asked.

"I can certainly try," Taylor replied, not seeing a reason it wouldn't work.

Vicky reached up and took one of her post earrings off then handed it to Taylor. "Here."

Taylor focused and enchanted Vicky's earring so that it would act as a magical focus, finding the entire process a bit harder than enchanting the ring because of the lack of suitable metal but not hard enough that she'd avoid it. She double checked the results then handed the earring back to Vicky. "Including a gemstone would probably help but that should work…" she trailed off as she realized that Vicky was going to take that as an excuse to drag them shopping.

"No," Amy told her sister before Vicky could open her mouth. "We can go shopping later, let's just make sure everyone has the basics and get started learning to clean and repair things."

"Okay!" Vicky replied with a grin, knowing that her sister needed some bling.

"Speaking of outfits and jewelry, can we get a copy of Tonk's metamorph ability?" Claire asked hopefully.

"That depends," Tonks replied as she turned to look at Taylor. "I'd love a shield and the ability to fly without a broom and a couple of sisters, it would drive Mum crazy."

"That can be arranged," Taylor agreed as she started creating silver rings so she could enchant them, figuring she could always enchant something more interesting later.

"Ron and Ginny?" Harry asked, knowing they'd never forgive him if he didn't bring them in on things.

"And the twins and the Quidditch chasers," Rose suggested.

"Neville, he's solid and didn't believe the shit the Prophet was spewing," Iris suggested.

"Good call," Harry agreed, smiling slightly as he thought of all the people who hadn’t deserted him when the winds of public opinion had shifted.

"We should probably just set up in the middle of the Great Hall and start removing curses from everyone," Amelia suggested.

Sirius shook his head. "You'd never get permission, you'd be better off grabbing the ability and just hitting everyone at dinner without letting anyone know."

"Family curses and security spells?" Tonks asked, thinking about the ways certain dark families made sure the children didn't mention things they shouldn't.

"That and the trace probably counts as a curse," Sirius suggested. "It fails when you turn seventeen but dispelling it is complicated and exceptionally difficult."

"We'll just have to be sneaky," Hazel suggested. "Your ability wasn't particularly flashy, which means we could just de-curse everyone while they're eating lunch or dinner."

Claire glanced at the clones of the heroes that they still needed to turn into magic users then clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "If you don't have magic and you want it, line up on the left and we'll get that fixed so we can loot the Room of Requirement."

"And kidnap people!" Luna added cheerfully.

"Is it really kidnapping if they're friends?" Celeste asked with a grin as the heroes moved over to the left of the portal.

"Yes," Hermione told Luna's clone.

Jasmine snickered. "That just means we have to ask permission, I doubt Ginny and Ron are going to say no to an adventure and we'd have to stun the twins to escape once they realize how much mischief this is going to cause."

"To mischief," Rose offered.

"And mayhem!" Selena Lovegood called out.

"Tits and beer!" Stopwatch called out.

Framestop reached up and lightly swatted the back of her sister's head. "We're running a clean ship, no underage drinking."

"That's fair," Stopwatch agreed. “What’s the drinking age in Scotland? Five?”

Taylor smiled as she started working on enchanting the rings, looking forward to meeting the rest of Harry's friends and finishing up her quest.

0o0o0

"Behold the Room of Requirement!" Chronobreak said cheerfully when the door swung open revealing a massive storeroom filled with lost items and junk from Hogwarts' centuries of operation.

Taylor wrinkled her nose when she caught the scent of something foul coming out of the room. "Looks like the boys were right about something nasty being in the room."

"Your magic scent ability?" Amy asked as they walked into the strange room.

"Yeah," Taylor replied as she started following her nose.

Sirius frowned slightly as he scanned the room, looking for anything useful like old brooms, wands and books. "I'm a bit surprised that we never found this place."

"It's only really found if you need it," Framestop offered, feeling like he'd just walked into a haunted house with questionable safety regulations.

"Don't touch anything," Tonks warned people.

"If we can't touch anything, how are we supposed to sort it?" Valerie asked with a pout.

"Carefully and with magic," Hermione told her. "You basically just sort of wave your hand and say Leviosa."

"What if the objects are cursed to react to the magic?" Expanse asked, trying to ignore the feeling like the room was looking smugly at her. 

"Then we'll scream and Maverick starts trying to remove the curse," Amelia told her. 

Taylor stared at the dust covered diadem that was sitting 'innocently' on a bust that was sitting on a box. 'Is that what fear smells like?' she mused as she hit the diadem with her Eyes of Purity ability, causing black smoke to pour out of it before the smoke dissipated.

Feat Achieved! Destroy another horcrux, bonus points for doing it without destroying the base item and for ridding the school of a major curse.

+1x Platinum Ability Gacha ticket

Congratulations, you've successfully completed your mission. Reward: One Legendary Card.

"Weird," Taylor muttered, a touch surprised that she hadn't gotten any secondary rewards. 'I copied Harry and Hermione, got rid of Umbridge and caused a lot of chaos. Does that mean I can't get additional rewards?'

"Whatever," Taylor muttered as she used her Enchanting ability to double check to make sure the bust was actually safe to touch. She picked up the bust and started making her way back to her friends, figuring she'd give the diadem to Dumbledore so he could put it on display.

Taylor tapped the Legendary card, causing it to flip over and reveal a picture of a man conjuring bars of metal around a monstrous wolf. 'Metallurge, you're able to conjure and control any metal you know the composition of, even if they are legendary metals like Uru, adamantium or vibranium. But the higher rank a metal is, the more energy you need to expend to create it, and you cannot permanently create metals stronger than your rank.'

"Now I just need a convenient portal to Marvel and a couple of days with Tony Stark and I'd have endbringer proof armor, yeah, right," she muttered the last part as she tapped the platinum card, causing it to flip and reveal a picture of a dragon. 'Dragon, this ability allows you to transform into a western dragon either partially or fully, granting you enhanced stats and energy as well as the ability to use your other abilities as breath attacks.'

Amy frowned when she heard Taylor start laughing as she walked out of one of the aisles. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I just picked up the ability to turn into a dragon for destroying the horcrux in the…" she trailed off as an old man in purple robes with a white beard stepped into the room along with Snape and McGonagall. "So much for being on vacation."

Dumbledore glanced over the strange collection of teenagers most that he'd never seen before then focused on the fact that there were four versions of Hermione Granger standing next to Harry Potter and three girls that looked a lot like Harry, if you ignored the fact that two of them had red hair, as well as a confusion of Lovegoods.

"Black," Snape complained. "I should have known you'd be mixed up in this."

"Guilty," Sirius replied with a smirk. "I had some free time and they wanted to destroy some of Voldemort's horcruxes, so Maverick toasted three of them, you're welcome."

"You're actually serious?" Snape asked after a couple of seconds of studying him.

"Yes," Sirius replied, resisting the urge to make a bad joke, if barely. "We got Ravenclaw's diadem which probably anchored the curse on the Defense position, the Gaunt Family ring he left under his mother's family shack and the locket my brother stole when he realized that Voldemort was a complete nutter."

"I also managed to curse him through the ring before I broke its ability to function as a horcrux," Taylor offered. 

"You cursed him through one of his horcruxes?" McGonagall asked warily.

"He left part of his soul in the ring, that means he was effectively standing there as far as magic is concerned," Taylor explained. “It’s a remarkably stupid thing to make.”

"What did you curse him with?" Dumbledore asked.

"Every time he kills anything he'll lose strength and magic equal to what the victim had, he might be a monster but I doubt he'll be able to lift his hand or even light a candle magically after he kills four or five magic users. It's not perfect, but my ability has limits and that was the best that I could do," Taylor explained.

"Using curses often has a cost to the person that casts them," Dumbledore warned her.

Taylor considered the question for a couple of seconds then shrugged. "I'm not going to lose any sleep making sure a monster can die, besides it requires him to do evil deeds to kick in."

"Are you responsible for copying people?" Snape asked, figuring it was a good bet considering the remarkable number of matching people present.

"That depends, who got copied?" Taylor asked, wondering if she was going to have another chat with her familiar.

"Myself and Albus," Snape replied.

"Sorry about that, my familiar was just supposed to clone you, he must have figured that cloning the headmaster would help," Taylor explained.

"Why did you want to copy Snape?" Sirius asked, unsettled at the idea of more Snapes being in the world.

"I needed someone to start aggressively harassing Death Eaters," Taylor replied as she used her Mystic Eyes of Purity on Snape, causing his dark mark to 'burn' away without causing any pain or damage to his arm.

Snape blinked a couple of times when he felt a weight lift off his mind and his general level of background pain dropped by a decent amount. "What was that?"

"That was probably your dark mark vanishing, it smelled like fear and rot so I got rid of it," Taylor explained. 

"You can't just dispel a dark mark…" McGonagall trailed off as Severus pulled his sleeve back and she realized that his dark mark was gone. "How?"

"My magic is different, one of my abilities lets me break curses," Taylor explained.

"Does that work on blood curses?" Albus asked thoughtfully.

"Probably, it works on just about everything including curses and diseases," Taylor admitted, not seeing a point in mentioning the gacha curses that she hadn't managed to dispel yet.

"In that case, can I talk you into staying for dinner?" Albus asked hopefully. "There are some students that you should probably meet."

"Sounds fun but we should probably check in back home and make sure the city hasn't blown up first," Vicky piped up.

"Why would the city blow up?" McGonagall asked.

"You have Death Eaters, we've got a couple of villains that like causing trouble," Vicky replied, not seeing a reason to explain all of the villain groups.

Taylor pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it to Vicky. "Best of luck," she said, figuring Vicky would have to explain to her mother where they'd vanished to.

"Thanks," Vicky replied as she called Dean to check in.

"Where are you from?" Albus asked.

"A different version of America," Taylor offered as she started making some goblin silver rings to enchant with Mystic Eyes of Purity, having figured out the metal from the Diadem.

0o0o0

"This is creepy," Sirius muttered as he walked through the Forbidden Forest with Tonks, Snape and an attractive black haired woman that was occasionally giving him bedroom eyes.

"Because we might get ambushed by a bunch of giant spiders and trolls?" Tonks asked quietly.

"No, because Snape is practically giggling," Sirius grumbled.

"I've been waiting for this moment for nearly fourteen years, I'm allowed the occasional smirk," Severus argued as he stepped over a large piece of webbing.

"You think we haven't?" Sirius asked as he ducked a web.

"Relax," Vivian Snape suggested in a voice just above a whisper. "You already did your part luv, we're just here as backup in case something goes wrong and because Hagrid might have tried to give Severus the wrong directions if we weren't here."

Sirius shook his head. "Unlikely, he would have just sent the spiders a message if Albus hadn't approved the mission."

"Hush, we're getting closer," Tonks ordered as her spider detection spell let her know that they were getting close. "Two of them."

Severus brought his wand up as a giant spider dashed out of the darkness at the group and chanted, "Portus!"

"That isn't going…" Tonks trailed off as the spell struck part of the chitin on the giant spider and it vanished.

Vivian pointed her wand and hit the other spider that had jumped out of a tree toward Sirius with another portus spell, sending the spider to Nott's ballroom where Voldemort should be holding court, knowing he'd kill it or it would kill him.

"We're clear but they're going to notice shortly," Tonks offered. "I thought you were going to charm a rock or something under them, how did you target them directly?"

"The outer layer of chitin isn't really alive," Severus explained. "It's the same way you can hit someone's clothes and have them yank someone into a lake."

"I'd heard about that, your fifth year, right?" Tonks asked.

"Wasn't me," Sirius grumbled as they headed further into the forest.

"The teachers weren't able to find the people responsible, everyone assumed it was James because they'd been harassing Lily," Tonks said thoughtfully.

"Wasn't," Sirius admitted. "James figured we'd get caught for sure and Lily said that she'd already taken care of it and to drop it." 

Severus' lips twitched into a slight smile as he remembered Crumbee's terrified nightmares about falling to his death for the next three weeks after he'd picked up a cursed book.

"Did you ever consider that it might have been Lily that got revenge?" Vivian asked with a smirk.

"We considered it and discarded it," Sirius admitted as he silently tossed up a shield, blocking a horse sized spider from dropping on the group, "if she'd snapped they would have found themselves in the ocean or the middle of the forest."

Severus tagged the giant spider with another portus spell. "She had a wicked temper."

"Something we both agree on," Sirius admitted as he blocked another spider from escaping, letting Severus tag it since he knew exactly where it was going.

"That should be enough, any closer and we'll have the whole colony after us," Tonks pointed out.

"Four of them should have caused enough trouble," Vivian mused with a grin and a wink toward Sirius, rather amused at the thought of how he was going to react when he realized who she was.