Madison's car never held the distinctive odor of cigarette smoke, even though she herself smoked at times, but I had never lit up any sort of tobacco product before. Now as we merged onto the interstate for the short drive to the spattering of stores that we could dare to call a shopping center I reached for the pack of cigarettes between us on the seats and drew one out for myself.

"Lighter?" I asked as casually as I would if I'd done this sort of thing all my life.

Another eyebrow arch in my direction.

"You're going to make yourself sick," she said before clicking on her turn signal and shifting into the exit lane. A song I recognized vaguely was pounding from the speakers and Madison was dancing, the only way that a person in the driver's seat could dance and yet in a style that only she could pull off. She was one of those people that you either adored for what she could get away with or hated because you'd never be able to get away with those sorts of things yourself without coming off as a total ass.

I chose the first option.

"All right, all right," I said, pretending to be annoyed as I laughed, setting the unlit cigarette back inside the pack. "But after we find an instrument for kicking ass that suits my personality, I'm lighting one up with you."

"Deal."

Allow me to stress, first and foremost, that we did in fact live in the stereotype of a 'college town'. Meaning there was nothing else around except the university itself. And if you were a first-year student with no means of personal transportation (i.e. yours truly), you were basically screwed unless you made friends with a kind soul who had said coveted, personal transportation.

Thankfully, I'm a relatively likeable person.

Madison and I made 'the rounds', as we like to call them. Of course, by no means did we make our normal stops. We strayed away from our usual Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble spots and kept to more selective tastes.

For security purposes of those involved, in case this story is ever revealed to eyes or ears that are too smart for their own good, I'll refrain from including the actual names of where we stopped. I don't want innocent people who were only doing their jobs questioned because of my own personal agendas. But I will say that Madison and I stopped at about four different weapon suppliers before finding something that caught our eye.

Rather, it screamed out for our attention.

The shop was a smaller one, in the surrounding area by the mall and other convenient stores, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. I was expecting a secondhand sort of atmosphere, but the place actually appeared as a well-kept pawn shop with a more than decent variety of merchandise. Had it been any other day I would have immediately selected the knee high silver boots to go with the fur-trimmed pink suede coat hanging for all to see on the back wall, paired them with a skirt and called it an outfit.

I could tell that Madison was experiencing similar feelings. Our tastes were similar, yet varied enough to where we never vied for the same article of clothing. And while again she was usually the one with the shorter attention span, this time she was the one snapping her fingers to get my attention.

"Later, Helen. We have a job to do," Madison said levelly, meeting my eyes with that 'do-you-really-think-I-care?' look that never failed to get my attention. And I didn't disagree for a moment. She was right. Clothing could wait. I'd need something along those lines as well, but not now. Nodding without another word we changed direction, walking back this time towards the glass-encased counter at the back wall of the shop.

A middle-aged man with painfully thinning hair was watching us through lowered glasses, but I watched his leer fall into a look of a surprise and then smooth into a professional sort of smile. His teeth were clenched a little too tightly, but that made me want to laugh again all the more. I don't care about what you're thinking, I thought smoothly, just about what's inside of that glass case.

"What do you have in the line of swords?" Madison asked, her voice so formal that had it been any other time I would have needed to stifle laughter. But she was aware as much as I was that we were dealing with underhanded people that would easily try and con me out of money that I was going to need for travel. I couldn't afford to take chances.

"Everything with a blade is in the case here," the man replied, slapping his palm against the top of the glass. At that I knelt down and peered through the transparent surface, biting lightly into my lower lip as I scanned through the gleaming and slightly dulled blades that lined the glass. It wasn't going to be a terribly long blade. I didn't need one of those for what I had in mind. It was a carefully designed plan, and I knew just what I would need for it.

Madison's reflection came alongside mine, and together we scanned the gleaming rows of blades silently. Too long, too flashy, not sharp enough..nothing was working. Nothing was really speaking to me, as my mother would have said, and I was near to giving up.

Breathing an inner sigh I sat back on my heels, pushing slightly as though in preparation to stand up, before Madison caught me by the wrist.

"Helen." Her voice was level and calm, so calm that it stopped me in mid-movement, and I crouched back down beside her, curiosity in my eyes. She didn't look at me, though. Her eyes were focused on something inside the case. Questioning now even more than before, I followed her gaze –

And coughed. Once. Harshly. My eyes widened so quickly that I thought they were going to spring from their sockets and attach to the plate glass in front of me. Madison's mouth curved into a smile then, lightly on the left side, and without looking at her I knew she was having the same thoughts I was.

The object of our current attention focus looked like it came straight from some sort of samurai film and then fell into the hands of someone with very expensive taste. Rockefeller, I thought inanely, shaking my head once. The hilt was a metallic sort of silver, tinted with the faintest hint of a color that might have been pink, if that wasn't a completely ludicrous notion. The blade itself was near to as long as my forearm, sharpened to a point that could have more than likely done serious damage with the slightest of pressure from the wielder. But I don't think that was what had caught Madison's attention.

No, it might have been the fact that the blade itself was shining.

And I'm not talking newly-polished-silver shining. No, I'm talking shining like fucking crystal. That perfectly polished, clear, glimmering shit that you can hold up to the light and watch the rainbows sparkle inside of it. It was the weirdest damned thing I'd ever seen in my life.

It looked as though the blade was made of liquid diamonds.

Again, too bad that was ludicrous.

"That's it," I said levelly, my voice quiet and calm. Madison looked at me then and nodded her agreement.

At that point I did stand, and shifted my purse to rest on my other shoulder. Wallets held credit cards, not cash, I thought with a smile. And in this case I was planning more accordingly than I'd ever meant to. My parents would never think that I'd bought a blade at a thrift shop, but they wouldn't look twice at the charge on the card.

Oh, the little deceptions.

The card was clear with its lovely little blue holographic thing in the center that everyone looked at whenever I was about to make a charge. I always knew my father had to be experiencing some sort of attack of insanity to be giving me a credit card with that kind of limit on it.

You know, the limit of the nonexistent kind.

I looked directly into the greedy eyes of the man behind the counter and said two words that I never wanted to say in my life.

"Charge it."

I didn't even want to know the price. It didn't matter. What mattered was that I had finally found the perfect tool.

And I already had the perfect plan.