"Rias, what's the plan?"

I don't know if it was a result of growing up in Brockton Bay, joining my peerage, or just because of their personalities, but once the initial shock wore off, all three of my girls turned to me with expressions saying they weren't going to run and hide.

Actually, considering a decent number of the now fleeing crowd must have grown up here as well, it probably wasn't that first one.

Victoria was halfway out of her seat. "You guys should leave. I'll deal with these creeps. Get out, call for help, and stay out of the way."

"Wow, rude much. Sorry Vicky but we aren't going anywhere. We can help." Clover said, slamming her hands on the table and rising out of her seat to stare at the other blonde.

"Yeah, you know we can!" "We'll definitely help out." My other two pawns added.

"We don't need normal civilians running around getting in the way." Glory Girl emphasized while giving me a pointed look, but I was more distracted with the growing chaos outside to immediately respond.

Unfortunately for the both of us while all three of my pawns could be incredibly observant, on occasion they missed super obvious things right in front of them. As proven by Clover manifesting a spell circle that swapped out her clothing for a red bodysuit and domino mask similar to my own with Sam and Alex following suit a second later with a yellow and green suit respectively.

"There. Now we aren't random civilians." Clover said smugly.

Vicky just facepalmed. "You idiots, I was trying to tell you to go get changed where people couldn't see you!"

"Huh? What for? You and Amy already knew we had powers." Vicky just used her free hand to point at a wide eyed and slack jawed Dean. "...oh, right. Um, oops?"

"Don't worry about it." I commented distractedly, watching out the window as a trio of Metools followed by a Sniper Joe rounded a corner and began heading towards an electronics shop. How many were there if four could slip away from the other heroes we saw earlier? Who was leading them? "It's not like it would take a genius to figure out the three of you were the same three girls hanging out with the other Cape that is pretty free with her identity."

And since no one was watching anyway, I swapped to my own body suit. No need to risk ruining my actual clothes.

I paused at that thought and then opened my dimensional pocket and dumped the rest of our shopping in there as well. There, no risk of getting dragged off for another shopping trip for a bit because a lucky shot ruined something.

"Right. Girls, you pick out names yet?" I pulled my attention away from the window for now. At the three's sheepish head shakes, I just sighed. "Okay, then I'm declaring the mall hostile territory. Clover, you're going to be Rook for now. Alex, Knight. Sam, Bishop. Go ahead and promote to those pieces." As useful as three Queens would be, none of my girls had the stamina to support that much power for more than a few minutes just yet. I couldn't risk them burning out too quickly when we had no idea what we were dealing with.

"Promote? Wait no, you have powers? All of you? Since when?!" Dean sputtered, breaking out of his stunned daze.

I had no intention of filling him in. Vicky's boyfriend or no, Dean was still a member of the Wards. Anything we told him was going to eventually get leaked to the PRT and I could just see Dean mentioning I was a 'power-granting Trump' causing me trouble in the future.

"Sorry, no time to explain." I deflected. "Vicky, can you take your sister and your boyfriend to a safe place? You're right about him getting in the way and I don't want someone getting jumpy about an unknown Cape taking Panacea somewhere. Me and the Girls will handle the robots."

"And why would you do that? Aren't you Villains?" Amy almost sneered.

"Well, Rias kinda is but only because she refuses to do anything about that, and we haven't even gone out yet so I guess we aren't anything just yet." Alex rambled, scratching her cheek with a finger.

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"Guys, seriously not the time." I said as something else exploded. "We can have this argument later if you really want."

Thankfully, my girls nodded and got serious while the heroes moved out of the way.

"What's the plan?"

I had been thinking of one the entire time and I hadn't chosen who promoted to what at random. While all three of my girls were pretty athletic already, Alex was the most flexible and had the best reflexes. Having her use a Knight's speed to run reconnaissance and help guide any civilians still trapped in a store or something made sense. Clover was the only one with some actual practical fighting experience at the moment since she surprisingly had a black belt in karate but that required her getting close to Wily's robots, the strength and defense bonus of a Rook just made sense. And Bishop just made sense for Sam as the only one to reliably use offensive magic even if it was just a 'mana ball'. She would be able to support the other two from a distance if needed.

The plan was also pretty simple. Alex would scout ahead and focus on getting anyone still trapped in the mall away, Clover would either destroy the robots she came across or get them out of the stores, and Sam would cover them both or assist Clover when needed. I would help out until we found the leader and then focus on taking him out.

It wasn't perfect but this was my girl's first fight. Making a complicated plan was just going to stress them out more than they already were and likely fall apart immediately anyway. It was best to follow the K.I.S.S. rule.

'Ready for this, Ddraig?' I asked as my gauntlet appeared on my left arm.

'Hmph, unless these things got significantly more impressive since last time, this will barely be a warmup.'

I smiled at the encouraging words and ordered everyone to get moving. My Peerage raced into the electronic store and almost immediately destroyed the four robots in there. Sam blasted the head off the Sniper Joe while Alex and Clover dealt with the Metools. While it was good they could handle Wily's cannon fodder pretty easily, I frowned at how quickly the bots went down. While yeah, Sam could shatter cinder blocks with her spells it shouldn't have annihilated metal like that. Then the remains poofed away in a puff of smoke just like they had the first time I saw them.

Okay, so Wily was still using the power-created minions and they were still fragile enough a normal person could break one with the right attack. That was good to know. It meant we didn't need to worry too much about taking down all the minions while looking for the leader since they could be handled by the cops or PRT agents with some effort.

And while the minions were still as fragile, they seemed a bit smarter. Another two squads of Wily bots turned the corner and opened fire on me rather than the Dallon sisters and Dean as they ran the other way for now. Or at least I assumed they did. I barely caught a glimpse of them leaving before a yellow ball of energy narrowly missed my head and forced me to pay attention to our new arrivals.

One squad was already being taken care of by my peerage so I focused on the second. And while it might have been fun to roleplay as Megaman for a few seconds, I wanted more of a challenge.

Four spell circles appeared in front of my raised hand and a bolt of lightning from each struck a bot in the second squad, breaking them all instantly.

"All right, ready to find the jackass that ruined our day out and introduce ourselves?" I asked, seeing the others were done on their side as well.

I got three eager and enthusiastic smiles back.

-o-

Even with the robot minions being incredibly weak to my electric attacks and having to deal with three minions of my own, it was taking us a lot longer to get through the mall than I was expecting.

There were just so many of the stupid things running around!

The further we went the less civilians we ran into, though. So that was a good thing.

We also started to hear sounds of another fight closeby. Gunfire, explosions, and something that sounded like someone screaming into a megaphone.

"Sounds like the Protectorate is still dealing with things." Sam - no, Bishop commented. "Should we help them out or keep looking elsewhere?"

"There's still a lot of them going into stores." Knight added, slightly distracted with wiping something off her yellow suit.

"I wanna give the boss of these guys a piece of my mind." Was Rook's contribution. "The heroes wouldn't be sitting still for nothing. He's probably keeping them busy while the tin cans raid the place."

"Let's head towards the heroes." I decided after a brief thought. "It doesn't look like the bots are attacking people running for the south exit like they told them to, so the only people left would be the ones too scared to move or the ones fighting for some reason. Faster we take down the boss, faster this ends. Either cause they run away or cause we have more people helping out."

"Cool, but what if, like, they try to arrest us first?" Knight asked, getting looks from the other two. "What? It could happen!"

"We'll worry about that later." I said. "If they try anything we'll just fly away and teleport out."

"Oh yeah, we have wings…"

I huffed at their forgetfulness but didn't make a big deal out of it. If they felt more comfortable on the ground, who was I to tell them differently? Well, their King obviously. But this was their first time fighting with powers. I could discuss strategies with them later.

The first sign we had found the heroes was when we turned a corner into the center of the mall and found ourselves facing a wall of Sniper Joes…facing the wrong way. A shotgun barked and one of the Joes unlucky enough to be caught with its shield down had its arm ripped off before it exploded into smoke. I caught a glimpse of Miss Militia ducking back down into cover before the rest of the Joes opened fire at the overturned tables the heroine was hiding behind, only for the orbs of yellow energy to plink harmlessly off of them in return. While the Joes were busy providing covering fire, a wave of Metools rushed forward on their stubby little legs to try and overwhelm the position.

A part of me was curious how the trapped heroes would defend against the wave tactic, but it didn't matter in the end because my peerage had reached the back line.

Rook and Knight smashed into the Joes and either sent them flying, crushed them on the spot, or knocked them off balance so they couldn't aim while Bishop started quickly picking the Metools off one by one. I was ready to join in but there was a loud crash that made me hesitate.

Triumph came skidding across the floor until he finally landed in a lump, struggling to pick himself off the ground. Sparks occasionally flickering around him.

I looked where the hero came from and saw the familiar form of Elecman walking towards us.

Unlike the last time, he was walking with a decidedly smug swagger in his step and a smirk on his face. It looks like Wily made some improvements from the last one.

"So more of you showed up?" The Robot Master smirked even more. "I hope you're more of a challenge than the lion guy. So disappointing, but then again. He was facing me!"

I chuckled and turned to face him. "That's my line. Your predecessor was so pathetic I don't even want to call it a fight. Try to do a bit better than him, okay?"