> Fashion Vigilante > by Regidar > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Deathwish > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you mean, that's not a real issue?" Steep Steel rolled his eyes. Honestly, Celestia didn't pay him enough to deal with riff-raff like this. "Look, as a royal guard, I deal with big, pressing issues," he explained to the white pony before him. "I, and no one else employed as a royal guard, has the time to deal with..." He cocked an eyebrow. "What exactly was your problem again?" "The most insidious of crimes!" The unicorn cried out. "A crime against fashion!" Steep Steel gave the unicorn a dead look. "Uh huh. Right. Well, Miss Rarity, I'm sorry. I can't help you. Stop fucking around and wasting my time." With that, the guard retreated back into Canterlot Castle. Rarity seethed in anger. How dare that guard trivialize such a pressing issue! He obviously had no taste at all. Barely fit to even work in the guard! Looking over at the offender, Rarity blanched. She had remembered how the day had started, perfect as any other. She had been staying in Canterlot to get some especially rare silks when she spotted the horrible atrocity. A mare had decided that orange and green went together on a headdress! The nerve! Rarity looked over at the mare, who was gazing into the window of a flower shop. Narrowing her fabulous eyes, the unicorn mare grit her teeth. "Oh, I didn't want to have it come to this... but really, when fabulosity itself is at stake, I must do something!" Rarity knew what had to be done. She had sworn off that life years ago, yet with fashion taking a blow such as this... an "old friend" needed revisiting. Rarity dashed from her current spot to a lamp-post, sliding behind it. Taking advantage of cartoon physics, which she praised everyday she needed something spatially impossible to work out, she was rendered essentially invisible behind the pole. Reaching into her tail compartment that she had gotten when she had become a level-ten fashionista, she rummaged around for what she specifically needed. She wasn't even sure if she still had what she needed, it had been so long... Smiling as her hoof brushed against something soft, she levitated it out, sliding it onto her body swiftly. Stretching about in her costume, she grinned, and levitated the mirror that was right at the top of her tail compartment, obviously having been used frequently. "I am Fabulosity!" She called out, the mirror levitating before her as she closed her eyes and held her head high, identity safe behind her costume. "Fashion Vigilante!" Opening one eye to view herself, she cringed. A strip of cloth covering her upper middle section and another covering her flanks were the only parts of her costume visible. This wouldn't do at all! It looked like she was wearing some sort of cheap, bedazzled bikini! Looking down to her wrist, she immediately spotting the issue. "Oh dear, I seem to have my superhero costume set to 'sexy' instead of 'practical'! How foolish of me!" Her horn sparked, and the little knob on the wristwatch-like device that controlled her suit clicked into place, causing the fabric to expand, covering the places of her body that were previously left exposed. That issue resolved, Rarity sprung from behind the lamppost, numerous gemstones on her costume sparkling in the sun. Tiny spots of light danced up and down the street, transforming the area into someplace slightly akin to a disco. Staring down at the mare, who had since left the flower shop window and was skipping along the road to places beyond, Rarity sprung into action. *** "Ah, what a lovely day!" The mare chirped happily, her fashion-offending hat fluttering lightly in the breeze. "The sun is singing! The birds are growing! The grass is shining! Everything is going just as it should be!" She twirled a little circle. "And I get to wear my new hat! It's a much bigger hit than I thought it'd be!" Turning to see one of her friends, she stopped and waved a hoof to them. "Hello!" she called out joyously. Her friend waved back, her face split into a grin. "Ooh, I can show them my hat!" The mare said, doomed to be a mare with a singular line of thought in order to drive the plot forward. She stepped forward in an attempt to cross the street to greet her friend, when she suddenly felt a chill creep down her spine, as if somepony were slinking up behind her. Turning around, she saw that nopony was there, yet could almost swear a bush was rustling. Cautiously turning back to her friend, she started to walk across the street when something breezed past her. Turning around quickly, she was greeting with a face-full of hoof. Falling backwards onto the ground, she watched as a sparkling mare flew over her gracefully, intercepting her hat. "My hat!" she called out in horror. "You're intercepting it!" The sparkling pony payed no attention to the mare, and instead clutched the hat tightly in her hooves. "Darling," she heard the blinding mare say. "This is no hat. This is an affront to fashion! And I, the Fashion Vigilante, have sworn to do, I must correct it in order to set the natural balance of the world right again!" "So are you gonna fix it up then?" the mare asked, still laying on her back in the road. "You could have just asked me, there wasn't any need to—" The bejeweled mare scoffed. "Fixed? Oh please. This headdress is far too gone. No, I need to take..." she paused. "EXECUTIVE ACTION!" Rarity levitated the hat out before her, and with a spark of her magic, set the hat aflame. She dropped it to the ground, where the mare on the ground watched in transfixed horror as her hat burned away. "No need to thank me!" Rarity called out, and started to skip away when she bumped headlong into a stallion. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she began, but closed her mouth when she saw who she bumped into. Steep Steel narrowed his eyes. "Miss Rarity, you are to come with me! You are under arrest for assault and for the destruction of personal property!" Rarity gasped. "Excuse me! I am not Rarity! I am the Fashion Vigilante!" Steep Steel rolled his eyes. "The royal guard barracks in Canterlot Castle are at such an angle that when you went to hide behind the lamppost you were still visible to me. Oh yes, thank you for reminding me, you're also under arrest for masked vigilantism." The royal guard levitated a pair of hoof-cuffs out, and fasted Rarity's leg to him. Rarity looked down. "I say, you're only a royal guard! Where'd you get these hoof-cuffs?" Steep Steel grinned. "I really should wash these sometime..." Rarity blanched. "Oh dear heavens..." Steep Steel smiled devilishly as the white unicorn fainted. *** Princess Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes as she pulled out her bit-purse. "How much do I owe you all?" The royal guard stationed at the bail counter in the Canterlot jail looked down at the report. "One hundred and sixty bits, Princess." Twilight sighed. Rarity, who was detained in a cell behind the bail officer, poked her head against the bars of the jail. "Twilight! Please! I've been framed! H-e-e-e-elp..." Twilight levitated out the coinage and rolled her eyes, scowling. "Rarity! This is the sixth time this week! If you do this again, I'm legally obligated to make you get therapy!" Rarity stopped whining for a moment to consider this. "Th-therapy?" "Yes!" Twilight said. "I still have to go to it after losing it a few months before I became a princess, and Pinkie has had to go ever since we discovered she's got that other personality thing!" Twilight smiled cruelly. "And since there's only one therapist in Ponyville, you know what has to be done." Rarity paled, sinking to her haunches in her cell. "Y-you don't mean..." Twilight grinned coldly. "That's right. Group therapy." Rarity let out an ear-piercing shriek of horror.