The White Rose leapt down from the roof. The car appeared to be empty, and the back door to the building was slightly open. He swung it open, standing to one side, and heard someone inside saying, "Quickly now, gather up what we need." There was a brisk clapping of hands. "It's time for the next part of the scene, any second now...." He moved in quietly, stepping over the unconscious figure of a large, dangerous-looking man. Now he could hear motion as well.
    At about the same time, Argus arrived; from her angle, she was able to see someone lying down in the front seat, invisible to the Rose. She pulled the gun free.
    Out front, Vanguard did not react quite quickly enough when his radar picked up a second person suddenly standing behind him—there must have been someone in the other car.... The other person slammed the car hood down on his head and knocked him silly. Vanguard was vaguely aware of being grabbed and dropped on the ground, out of the way, as the two women closed up the car.
    Argus winced at the echoing noise. "Uh, Vanguard? Shit." No way to communicate with the White Rose, and if she ran around front to help the Californian, the villains might use this car to get away. So. She fired a burst into a tire; if this was a mistake she could always pay for it later.
    The White Rose heard machine-gun fire behind him.
    "Excellent, they're right on time. Wonderful," someone said.
    A figure leaped out from where it had been crouched around a corner, headed for the door. She slammed into him, a pretty redhead with a frightened expression. Her clothing suggested she might be a store employee. Seeing what she had just run into, she drew back, wide-eyed, hands at her mouth.
    "Don't hit me."
    He moved silently around and past her, not giving her his back. She grabbed onto him.
    "Please, you have to help me, they're insane!" she whispered. "Please, please, you've got to get me out of here there's gunfire I don't know what to do!"
    "Quiet. Hide," he advised her in a sepulchral voice.
    She let go, shaking, took a couple of steps back and flattened against the wall, then almost tripped over the man at the door, clearly terrified. The Rose faded back into the shadows and continued on toward where he had heard the speakers, in the front display area. They had ignored the (legal) weapons on display and pulled up the floorboards to get at the (illegal) weapons hidden there. He saw six people carrying flashlights, five of them women, one a tall, dashing man whose features were concealed by a Grecian drama mask and who turned as soon as the White Rose entered, as if he had been waiting.
    "Ah. Enter, stage right. And you are not at all whom I was expecting—you must be the White Rose. I'm the Muse; it is a pleasure. Ladies, outside."
    The women headed out the front, weapon cases in hand. Believing that Vanguard was watching that exit, he let them go, concentrating instead on the redhead he knew was sneaking up on him, sap in hand.
    Meanwhile, Argus headed around the building to see what had happened to Vanguard. She heard the car door open behind her and glanced back. The person who had been in the front seat turned out to be an attractive young woman who had just lit a stick of dynamite and whipped it toward the armored woman. It landed in front of the bike; Argus kept control and veered around the crater it left despite being momentarily blinded.
    Dynamite?
    The woman had another lit stick in her hand. Argus unlimbered her machine gun again and let loose a burst of nonlethal plastic bullets—and immediately realized her mistake as the woman collapsed, and a second lit stick and the unlit one fell on top of her.
    "Shit." She spun the bike around and gunned it back toward the car. As she reached for the lit stick it rolled under the car. Argus grabbed the woman and hauled her onto the bike, put some distance between them and the car. "Moron," she castigated herself.
    The first stick's explosion set off the second, of course, sending the car several feet into the air. The shock wave kicked a bit but did not do any harm to Argus, the bike, or the unconscious and no doubt quite bruised woman in the diaphanous silk outfit. Feeling very much out of control of things and not pleased about the fact, she continued around toward the front of the building.
    Muse's cloak swirled dramatically and revealed a fencing saber in the masked villain's hand; he dove in, setting up a series of feints and parries that would prevent the Rose from getting a good shot at him, while the White Rose slid from shadow to display case to shadow to counter.
    "Cleo, out the front please," the Muse ordered. The redhead who had been about to clock the Rose joined the others in leaving. The White Rose heard a number of explosions.
    Out front, Vanguard had regained his wits.
    "I feel kind of guilty, I mean he was nice enough to try and help out a woman in distress..." The woman from the first car leaned down and gave him a kiss and jerked back in surprise as he opened his eyes. He grabbed her to him, continued the kiss, jumped up and spun her away as he drew his pistol, radar seeking the person who had slammed the car bonnet onto him.
    To his surprise, it was another beautiful woman. She screamed and fell to the ground when he fired, so of course he ran over to see if she was all right. With the high-cut skirt she wore he couldn't help noticing that her legs were very lovely, although after one of them kicked him in the crotch he wasn't noticing much of anything at all.
    "How could you shoot a woman," she sniffed, burned but very much conscious as she got back to her feet. The rest of the Muse's henchwomen ran out of the storefront carrying large crates, which they tossed into the two cars as the drivers got in.
    Captain Vanguard groaned as the light rain fell on him. I hate this town.
    Someone dropped down into Argus' headlight; for a moment she thought it was the Rose, but no—he didn't look quite human, his eyes catlike in the light. He grabbed hold of the moving bike and heaved the whole thing up into the air. Argus kept hold of the woman as they flew and curled around her in hopes of cushioning the impact, which she felt even through the armor this time. She used Polish as her cursing language of choice this time around, climbed up to her feet and left her unconscious attacker on the ground. She saw that the... man? who had picked up the bike had then taken up a stance ready to catch the woman, as if assuming that Argus would drop her. The bike was still running in eerie silence, tires spinning madly. The only light was from the headlight, so she still had no good view of this figure. She stepped away from the wall and assumed a defensive fighting posture, wary of this new wild card. The man feinted to both sides and dove; even as she swung she realized that he wasn't going for her, but for the girl. With her over his shoulder he did a twelve-foot vertical jump onto a fire escape and then began climbing the side of the building.
    

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