Part 1 of 2: Taylor vs The merchants

Chapter 8

Hard times had caused the creation of multiple slums around the city, but most paled when compared to the northeast of Brockton bay. The buildings had long been looted for anything worth money, the property abandoned to their fate by their owners, and the denizens remaining were those squatting in anything with a roof. Abandoned by the city, those remaining were free to do what they wanted, a fact the merchants enjoyed.

Toward the edge of the slums overlooking the harbor a two-story gift shop remained untouched by the local degradation, in comparison that is. Compared to the boarded-up windows, cracked doors, and tagged walls the light house-style gift shop that only sported one broken window and slight merchant tags a few drugged-up members drew on themselves looked like a mansion compared to everything else.

This being the merchants' main hangout, Skidmark had insured it be livable to at least his standards.

Tonight like most nights when they were not out causing mayhem, skidmark alongside a majority of his gang was resting up, insured no one would dare attack them so far into their territory. Why would today be any different, it's not like no one had ever known they lurked here, it wasn't even hard when their base was the only one sporting working lights in multiple city blocks.

Not that people didn't want to wipe out the small competition, but the PRT didn't see a benefit when they considered merchants to be a minor threat and the territory wasn't worth reclaiming. While for the gangs taking out three capes no matter how weak would require far too many capes from the empire and even then their movement through merchant territory would alert skidmark, and the man would disappear if he felt threatened enough. While the ABB's lung wouldn't waste his own time attacking those he saw so far beneath him, instead only regular gang members would be tasked with pushing the borders. If any would it would be coils group, but like the PRT he likely didn't see the territory worth it when he obviously preferred the most profitable areas.

That is why no one suspected there was two unseen individuals currently occupying the air space above the lighthouse. Today they would introduce themselves officially as heroes and demonstrate that the current ones were ineffective. Yes, Ainz wanted to gain the people's favor, and demonstrating concrete progress would help cement himself as an effective hero and any action against him by the prt/protectorate afterwords would spark outrage among the locals or so he hoped. It would also shower light on how possible it really was to take down a gang, something the heroes seemed not to believe in.

Other capes seem to like fighting skirmishes in the hope of slowly crumbling the enemies' power. An idiotic strategy in Ainz's view, in his experience gathering Intel and then launching a full-on attack was the only way to destroy your enemies. While the heroes instead acted like newbies who only target mobs outside a dungeon scared to risk entering until their level was so high they couldn't possibly lose. Indeed it was like that by how lax the jail system was, he even could say mobs respond daily by how fast those spots got refilled. The strategy wouldn't be horrible except for the small fact heroes didn't grow in power in this world but the gang slowly grew in size. Every day they allowed the problem to get worse with some unexplained belief that something would appear to fix everything before the city collapsed. 'Well I guess they were not wrong as I am here now, but really what kind of faulty system is this? Even the cautious Punitto Moe would think it's idiotic to be so cautious.

Yes he was aware this wasn't a game and gang dynamics may differ, but the strategies should work the same. Taking down powerful enemies and their complete guilds or gangs was something he was very well suited for.

Still, it would be so easy for him to destroy them alongside the other gangs. With enough time and summons he could likely eliminate all the capes in a day, two at most if any happen to be hidden. Not that he would with the obvious chaos that would result from thousands of gang members acting out when their leaders get jailed. Instead, he was focusing on the smallest gang being the least likely to create any fallback from their removal.

His secondary reasoning was how important this was for Taylor, if he did it all she wouldn't have a chance to be a hero. By letting her "prove herself" against them she could have her fun fighting three capes he saw to have lackluster powers. Squealer being the only possible threat if not by how obvious her creations were, he couldn't see them taking out Taylor while he was there. He would just support her if things got tough and the best part would be how little his own skills would be shown with this approach. If all went well most would just think they got lucky and that both just happen to have decent powers, last thing he wanted was for anyone to learn how destructive he could really be. If they learned before he was cemented as a hero by the people he could easily be labeled an S-class threat and really did not want to deal with that.

As she slowly made her way down, he got to see her begin preparations on her part before engaging them.

He nodded in approval to Taylor's decision to summon multiple skeletons and have them hide for an emergency ambush. When she cast invisibility, his undead vision allowed him to follow her progress into the building. He could guess her strategy, knock out as many powerful combatants before being caught then retreat outside and have the skeletons ambush, not bad but he was still disappointed. She could have easily used summons to accomplish it without risking herself. Possibly she wanted to do it herself, he could understand that as multiple of his friends preferred to fight face-to-face over ambushes. The other possibility was that she forgot, but that couldn't be right.

Skidmark's pov

Skidmark had been having a good day since his lieutenants had reported a high number of sales this week, he had been getting squealer to polish his rod, and his goals to grow the merchants were on track. Sure those other bitches thought he was content where he was, but no he wanted to be king of the city. For that, he needed to get as many people in this fucking city addicted to his goods, in a dying city like this it was only a matter of time. He knew how people worked, when everything came crashing down they would seek him out, those cocksuckers who would have sneered at him would be begging him for a way to forget their shitty problems.

He loved it.

Those good thoughts didn't push back the current unease he felt. It's why instead of satisfying his cock with squealer he got up to check on his men downstairs.

Everything had seemed fine, most of his men were sprawled around the converted storefront on couches or mattresses lying around. Being a merchant meant he couldn't prevent them from getting high even when their jobs were to guard, but he always enforced those near him to never overdo it like their lower rank members and their best customers.

A few watched him likely wondering why he had come down so fast while others just blankly stared at him likely seeing their gods right now. Not that he paid them much mind as his priority was on finding Mush. That midget didn't partake in their merchandise so he was confident in trusting it to look around their territory and insure nothing was up. Trusting his gut had kept him alive and running the merchants when for so long, he wouldn't discount it now.

His eyes widen the second he found the midget in their kitchen since a figure appearing from right behind him out of nowhere tended to be a problem. Halfway into the fridge probably looking for beer the guy never realized what was going on, Skidmark for his part only witnessed a small cloud drift toward Mush before he slumped down. The figure turned to him and he could swear it froze up, His instincts had him start layering the fridge while hoping to get the cape off guard.

"Who the fuck are you". The creepily dressed cape in brown robes with some weird-ass darkness he pretended wasn't unnerving didn't respond. Instead, it twisted around looking obviously ready to run away. Not wanting that outcome he had the fridge blasted straight at them.

He angrily saw that none of his men had reacted to a fucking fridge and Mush being blasted. His anger only increased when the trespasser who got lucky enough not to be hit, ran towards the entrance while casting that weird cloud from a stick at his gang members all while escaping. By the time they made it out, four more guys were laying slumped dead or unconscious, not that he cared.

"What the fuck are you all doing, get the fucker" To his yell, the men finally focused on the real world a few even began running outside in search of the intruder. "Good, now get some fucking guns and go help them you lazy ass wipes," His piece said, he moved quickly to his phone, he wasn't dumb enough to go chasing a new cape without any backup.

Cucksucking mother fucker thinks they can just fuck with him, no fucking way. Grabbing his phone he quickly called his men, "get the fuck down here, we have a wannabe hero trying to start shit". Pausing a second to listen to whatever the dumb fuck said, he grits his teeth. "No you fucking shit, I don't give a fuck what you're doing. Call the other men and get down here or I'll leave you up and dry" That threat seemed to finally get the dumbass moving. It was the benefit of having an army addicted, he could easily control them without needing to beg or make idiotic speeches. With his demands said, he knew the word would be shared among the most loyal and addicted in his gang. Of course, their loyalty came from the drugs he would reward them with afterward, but that was just expected in the merchants. Only idiots like the racist nazis or the little bitches working for the dragon fucker would do shit out of loyalty.

Walking towards the slumped form of Mush he quickly kicked him a few times to get him up but whatever the bitch did apparently left him out cold. Irritated by the turn of events he walked to the other pieces of shit that got knocked out and kicked each to see if any of them woke up. His anger rose by how useless everyone was "What the fuck are the rest of you cock suckers still looking at, grab some guns and go kill the asswipe". Sighting to their lack of movement he added. "Whichever of you pussies gets them will be swimming in drugs all week"

The hesitation seemed to disappear on the remaining members as they yelled in excitement and ran out, while even the few mentally occupied members seemed to try to just stand up, their brains registering the reward enough to get their bodies moving. Seeing that the only one left was his bitch who had run downstairs still half nude likely due to the commotion, he got a bit upset at her stupidity. " What the fuck are you still doing here bitch, go get some weapons and shit"

"Well fuck you, what the fuck is going on. Can't we just go back upstairs and finish what we were doing"?

Shit like this made him regret getting her so addicted, the only functioning part remaining was whatever made those thinker tech shit she loved to make. Gently so as to not have a pointless argument he explained, "a Cape came in did something to Mush and now is outside fighting our men" seeing that she understood that, he got up and close "so get your fucking stuff and help us kill the bitch" he roared. Really his fucking good day now was being fucked by all these idiots and that fucking cape. At least Squealer's little brain finally realized the situation as she ran towards the back door, likely heading off to the warehouse around the block. Not like they could keep half the shit she made in anything smaller, everything had to be pointlessly big with her.

Walking towards the front door, he really hoped they weren't dead yet because he wanted to have some fun and show all those pussies why people shouldn't fuck with skidmark. Outside he found his men staring dumbly at ten fucking skeletons of all things holding swords and shields currently swarming an idiot who had run out by himself, what the fuck were they doing when they were fucking holding guns and not shooting the shit out of them.

"Shoot you dumb cock sucking pussy shits" Obviously these things were the capes weird as projections so where was that cape at.

Looking for the mastery, he spotted that fucker looking at them from the roof across the street. 'how the fuck did they get over there.

This chapter was originally longer, had the fight included but I just couldn't focus on the whole thing.

So Instead cut this part into its own and went over it until I thought it all fit, now I need to do the same for the fighting scene.

I feel the hardest part for me in this story is that I made Ainz too strong, he is literally strong enough to at least solo an end-bringer, and have no idea how to keep him busy while Taylor does her thing. I won't try to argue about his strength thing because it's a crossover and you could argue many different reasons as to where Ainz stands in power.

A writer .. Hint Hint. Could have ainz be unable to face a endbringer solo, then have him need to gain friends or undead to get powerful enough. Maybe you want Taylor to level up and get strong enough to be help ainz, Idk. Please if you like that go write a story and ill read it.

Well anyways, I'm off to play sons of the forest, please leave your comments to give me ideas. Chapter 9 will be out hopefully next Sunday.