Sweetie Belle did as she was asked for her big sister and gave the donation to Locks of Love, even donated a small clip of her own. The new look took some time for her to get used to, though she was not uncomfortable with Rarity being punk. Rarity in the mean time was working on her new voice that would match her punk look. She also needed a name for it since she didn’t have one at the time. That was on the back burner for the time being.
There was a distinct bizarre irony going on as Rarity would teach her little sister or remind her of things that a Lady should do looking like she did. As she look very butch and masculine. In fact on the rare trip she actually went out of the house, no one recognized her but a few did complement her about being open of her...life style choices. A negative stereotype Rainbow has often been accused of herself. Rarity, while she did correct them that her butch punk look was not a statement of such, she had no problem of two mares who enjoying each other’s company. She was just more traditional.
Once when Rarity went to pick Sweetie Belle showed up for class, it was quite a shock. Cheerilee who recognized her as she read the magazine said it brought back memories of her younger days during the 80s. Though she swore to secrecy, it did cause a few of the foals’ jaws to drop, and some asked Sweetie about her ‘other’ sister. Sweetie Belle explains that yes it was her who gave her the costume ideas during the old talent show contest. Scootaloo was in awe and insisted that she meet up with Rainbow Dash some time.
She needed a name for this new look & identity. Something that was close to her name but fitting that punk look. Looking in her vanity mirror she took a bit to readjust herself. She added necklace with a micro padlock on it feeling it would add to the look. She turned to side, getting a good look at her cutie mark through the fishnets for an idea. Taking her time to remember some of the roller derby names she had heard when spending the day with Babs Seed. Hmm...and then inspiration hit, “Rhinestone. Perfect. Now about a voice, should make it something more simple since it’s me. But I need a bit of that tough flare. Bit more Gilda.” She paused for a moment, “Back off dweebs.” She tried to mimic a bit. “Eh...close. I guess to be 20% cooler, I need dash of Rainbow.” She giggles a bit at her little pun. “Aww yeah, Radical Rhinestone is totally awesome.” She tries to mimic. “Hmm...” She needed to sound tough yet like herself. Her mind turned to Spike. She couldn’t imagine his reaction her new Rhinestone look. She remembered how proud she was of him when he refused to smash little Peewee’s egg. He’s certainly grown defending himself against that bully Garbbel. Then she remember what she said, “I’ll rip you to pieces if you touch one little scale on his cute little head!” Hmm...much too angry, “I need to be firm yet with a graceful tone.” She tried yet again. She paused for a moment, “Huh...you know when I tried that I sound just like Princess Luna. How odd.” Then a following thought occurs to her, “You know now that I think about it Pinkie & Fluttershy can sometimes sound the same too. Weird.”
Shrugging she’ll have to work on that. The good news is that she wasn’t expecting any pony to visit for the rest of day so she could work on the voice later tonight and tomorrow. But of course there is one pony who is the sole definition of the phrase: Expect the unexpected. “HI RARITY!” Pinkie shouts with a blast of her party cannon.
“Ahh!… Pinkie! I know you love your party canon but please! You're getting confetti everywhere and I just swept this place!” Rarity whined.
“Oops, sorry. I’ll help clean up promise! But I need your help. I was talking to Mayor Mare and She said she saw you at the school with Cheerilee & they got to talking about your cool punk style look and they started talking me and I liked the idea & we were wanting to a retro-punk style Time Capsule party!” Pinkie says excitedly bouncing up and down all the while pulling her vacuum from out of nowhere and cleaning her mess and speaking so fast it was a wonder Rarity managed to hear her out.
“A Time Capsule Party?” Rarity asks making sure she heard her right.
“Yeah! It’s party where lots of people are dressing up from different styles of fashion! And since they were super busy with stuff they asked me if I could ask you to help make and sell a whole bunch of retro style costumes! And Twilight said she heard this thing called retro punk fashion you might like, they have like these really neat styles of what the future would be like if we use one certain style of technology. Like Stone Punk is if we were all still prehistoric and used things like rocks & volcano and dinosaurs and leopard print outfits! It’ll be so much fun! We’ll have cake, candy, balloons, streamers, punch and all kinds of games and it be super huge! Cause we’ll have all kinds of stuff to play with before we born and never seen before!” Pinkie explains barely able to contain her excitement.
Rarity thought for a moment. She had to admit the idea of her Punk outfit being the inspiration of an entire themed party for whole town to enjoy was rather flattering. Though she had to admit to pull off such an ordeal to help fill the copious about amount orders of costumes, plus her usual work load, she’s gonna need a lot of help. Especially because she’s barely heard of the retro punk fashion style. She seemed to remember one person in Manehattan talking about Steampunk and use of steam power for a movie at one point but that was about it. Then again a chance to reinvent older fashions and possibly put a modern spin of them would give her and over flowing amount of inspiration & ideas to work with. “Alright Pinkie I’m in. However I’m gonna need some help. I’ll need to see if Twilight has any history books I can filter through.” She finally agrees.
“Oki Doki Loki!” She claps her hooves together.
“I’ll also need a starting spot. So have you and other girls come over with your ideas on what you want to wear.” She requested.
Pinkie gave a salute, “You got it Rar. You’re really lucky, it’s not even the party and already you’re in costume. Which is kind of silly now that I think about it. But it’s looks really good, I hardly recognized you.”
“Oh and Pinkie!” Rarity caught her just time before she bounced out her window.
“Yes?”
Rarity blushed a bit, “I um...would rather you don’t say anything about my look to Spike. Please? Promise?”
“Okay Rarity. I Pinkie Pie promise. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She did the whole gestures of the promise before giggling and bound out of the boutique.
Sure enough about an hour later, giving Rarity a chance to at least finish at least 3 more outfits, the other girls came in each carrying a clipboard of some of their ideas. Twilight & Starlight themselves brought in a large stack of books that hopefully will give Rarity all the help she can get. Starlight even talked to some artist ponies and managed to get a copy of some pictures that would help better convey what she was going to try and recreate. Skimming through some of them already she was actually rather excited at the new prospects. All the while the girls happened to notice her punk style choice and wanted to ask about her new look but were rather hesitant to do so to avoid being rude. Rainbow Dash herself was actually trying to not laugh. Rarity raised eyebrow and noticed the muffled snickering.
“Ugh...I donated some hair to Locks of Love. After what happened to me that created this outfit in the first place I thought it would nice to give up my long beautiful mane for some who aren’t as lucky.” She finally explains.
“I’m sorry Rarity, it’s just...I’m not used to seeing you look so...butch.” Starlight apologizes trying to pick her words carefully.
Rarity flips her her hoof, “Oh posh, after that rotten day, I’ve learned that I can make any style look good. In fact if I may boast, I make this look better than Rainbow Dash & Vinyl Scratch.”
“Yeah right. You wish.” Rainbow scoffs.
“Well you certainly pulled off more so than when you tried to impersonate me.” Aj admitted. She of course was referring to the time she tried to mimic her in order to get Trenderhoof’s attention.
Rarity shutters herself a bit, “Ugh don’t remind me. I was desperate & grasping at straws. I’m sure if I were to try again with a clear head I could do a much better job. Though I do it admit you pulled out a few stops yourself. Now Ms. Dash trying to look fancy that would be something to see.”
Dash merely gagged at the idea. The only time she came close to doing that was when she tried to do a fairly decent impression her trying to make the Wonderbolts like her and change her nickname. “I’ll pass thanks.”
In terms of their actual outfits for the party, the ideas they had were solid enough. Rainbow Dash actually was interested in going as a vintage Wonderbolt. Twilight liked the idea of going as an exotic temple guard she got inspired by her Daring Do books. Applejack was gonna try and recreate some of the old fashions that Granny Smith wore, hopefully with out looking like a grand mother herself. Starlight’s design would be much more challenging in that hers was more Cyberpunk, a future style that was rather dark and heavy on the use of technology with things like robots & virtual reality. Pinkie Pie like Cheerilee and wanted to do something of a more 80s flare. Twilight’s was the previously mentioned Steam Punk, though she was hoping to make it more related to Tesla coils. Fluttershy’s however was probably the most interesting of the bunch. Hers was a new style called Solar Punk. Almost like an inverse of Cyber Punk, it’s suppose to be a future where technology is more eco-friendly, the world isn’t dominated by robots & while not a paradise it’s more of a promise to trying make the world a much nicer & cleaner place to live. This maybe Rarity’s hardest or the easiest base on one fact: It’s so new that there isn’t much to solidify the idea. So one hoof there are very few limits but on the other there also few templates to work with. Despite this, Rarity just sees it as an opportunity to leave her mark on the idea.
However as they were discussing details, there was another knock on the door and a certain voice called out, “Rarity? Hey is anyone home?”
Rarity eyes widen in fear and began to panic, “Spike? Oh not now! I can’t let him see me like this.
“Rarity relax. It’ll be fine.” Twilight assures her. She goes to reach for the door.
“Twilight Dear, please I’m begging you don’t open the door.” Rarity pleads. But it was too late, Twilight opened the door and Spike was let inside.
“Hey Twi, hey girls.” Spike turned to Rarity. His eyes widen at the new mare, “Whoa, Who are you?” This was interesting, he actually didn’t recognize her. Was her disguise that good?
“Spike, it’s Ra-” Twilight started to answer.
Rarity cuts her off by shoving her hoof in her mouth and started speaking with a more tomboyish tone that seemed to be the kind of voice she wanted earlier, “Rarity’s cousin. Name’s Rhinestone. We got similar talents, I like to bedazzle threads like her you know?”
Spike nods, “Cool. Well I actually came to see her, so..if she’s not here I’ll go. I’ll guess I’ll see you later.” The little dragon sounded a bit disappointed Rarity wasn’t here but he didn’t appear to dislike Rhinestone’s look.
Rarity coughed bit and rubbed her nose with her hoof, “Uh hey short & scaly that’s a no go on the visit there dude.”
“Huh? Why not?” The little dragon gave a confused look.
“Rarity took like a radical va-ca for some R&R so she asked me to watch her pad while she's gone.” She explains. Inside she was secretly feeling horrible lying to him like this. Especially it was only now did she forget that he was originally gonna help her with some of her projects.
Spike lowers his eyes giving a disappointed look, “Oh...”
“But hey don’t sweat it bro. Tell you what why don’t you lend me a claw? I’m sure she's got a ton of stuff that needs done & I need someone to help me get like in the groove of things. You in?” She offered her studded hoof for hoof bump.
“Uh...sure. Okay.” He bumped it with his fist.
“Cool catch you later bro.” Rarity smiles and slicked her mane back with her other hoof.
With that Spike left and Rarity could finally take a sigh of relief that he was gone. That was embarrassing. Everyone else gives her a surprised look on their faces. Rarity turns to face them with a puzzled look of her, “What?”
“Since when you are 20% cooler?” Rainbow Dash exclaims.
Rarity giggles a bit, “Heheh I like to think of myself 30% more Radical.”
“It will never catch on.” Pinkie whispers to the readers.
Twilight had a more serious question, “Rarity, why did you lie to him?”
Rarity blushed turning a bit pink, “I-I didn’t want him to see me like this. It’s embarrassing. Besides it’s only until my hair grows back out. He’s my Spikey-Wikey, he adores me as a lady of grace.”
“Rarity, he likes you for you are. I though we were through this?” Starlight reasons.
“Look, there are some lines I just can’t cross okay? Spike is special. Sometimes a lady has to keep up with appearances. I know I shouldn’t let other people judge me by my appearance but I also hold other ponies opinions in high regard, Spike’s more so. I would be so embarrassed if he knew. It would simply be, THE, WORST, POSSIBLE, THING!” She says frantically.
AJ smirked a bit, “Worse than the Raricown incident?”
Rarity’s face turned beat red, “I thought we agreed to never speak of that again?!” She says with a scowl.
The girls just started busting up. All except a confused Starlight. “Come on! It was really funny!” Rainbow chuckles.
Starlight asks,“The What cow?”
Twilight giggles with a roll of her eyes, “Well, see it all started with me trying to see, if only temporarily, if I could turn myself back into a unicorn.”
“STOP! SHE’S ALREADY HEARD TOO MUCH!” Rarity yells still blushing like mad. She then finally looked down her hoof, “Can somebody please get me some tissues! Ugh who wipes their nose like that? That’s disgusting!” She yells in disgust and runs off to wash her hooves.
Rarity couldn’t believe she did that. Not just the nose wipe thing but that whole Rhinestone act. Right on the spot to with no practice. She couldn’t believe it worked too. Spike didn’t recognize her at all. With her other outfits, she at least made them to hide as much of herself as she could so ponies wouldn’t recognize her. But Rhinestone was different. She wasn’t wearing sun glasses, or contacts, and her improvised voice she admitted was not nearly as good as her other impressions. It just seemed like she was using more baritone voice that was not quite Luna’s voice but not quite a stallions either.
She was also regretting her offer that she made. She really could use Spike’s help, especially now with this huge order of specialized costumes for all of Ponyville she would have to make. She felt guilty over the fact she was not only lying to him about not spending time with him but also who she was. She didn’t think she could keep up her act for long it would take time for her mane & tail to grow back but that might not before the Retro Party is over. She placed her hoof to her forehead sighing, “Oh what I have gotten myself into.”
The girls had left Rarity her things and decided now was a good time to leave. And despite her desire to tell Spike the truth, Starlight & Pinkie both convinced Twilight not to spare her feelings & hopefully she’ll come around and tell him herself.
When they were sure they were far way from the boutique Starlight got a grin, “So anyway Twilight you were trying to become a Unicorn and the what happened?”
“Well Rarity stopped by and...” Twilight continues.