The Great and Powerful Trixie thinks ponys are too trusting
"Celestia is really stupid" Trixie thought out loud. She was almost Impressed with herself for coming up with such a brilliant scheme, but after all she was the Greeeeeat and Powerful Trixie, so what else was to be expected? On the other hoof, she was extremely impressed at just at how trusting the government is in its citizens. All you had to do was falsify data on a couple forms about financial losses and the government actually paid you! They didn't even discover the tax fraud no matter how many times she lied, and how little she did to conceal the fact. "Stupid trusting Celestia."
Trixie was in her Caravan, staring up at the roof as she lay her hammock, her head lay on a bag full of bits that she had rightfully earned, after all, she was the only one to figure out how to exploit the system, and the wealth gave a constant reminder to herself of how great she truly was.
A poof of magic could be heard outside the Caravan, and the door burst open. An angry lavender Alicorn filled the doorway. She was no Celestia, but the anger in her eyes burned brightly like the sun. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork I have to do to fix your mistakes!?” She shouted at Trixie.
"Twiliiiiigt" Trixie whined " close the door, you're letting in the fresh air, and I work really hard at making this place stank just the way I like it." She shot Twilight a smug grin, daring her rival to challenge her. After all, twilight had failed spectacularly the last 2 times they had done battle, and with little doubt The Great and Powerful Trixie could defeat her easily once more, even with her being an alicorn now.
While a lesser unicorn would have certainly shot right up at the sudden appearance of a demigod, Trixie rather lazily just slumped off her hammock and onto the floor. There was no need for a timely response to Twilight, she may be an Alicorn now, but that would not stop the Great and Powerful Trixie from defeating her rival. “What do you want Twilight?” she asked, not making the minimal effort to break from her half-asleep state, she already knew the answer, but she didn’t really care, it was fun for the Great and Powerful Trixie to mock the Alicorn.
Twilight glared at her “It’s unbelievable, inconceivable, impossible, I’ve never seen such terrible math in my entire life! The number of mistakes you made on your tax forms.” She pulled some papers from her bag and hovered them in front of Trixie. “Trixie, you spent 1000 bits setting up a show last July and only made 500, but you somehow wrote down that you lost 500,000 bits. How did you make such major mistakes!? I’ve never seen such bad math; before this I couldn’t even conceive of such bad math!” appearing as though she was on the cusp of hyperventilating, twilight switched from anger to full blown panic mode as the thought of such atrocious math skills disturbed her to the core of her being.
Trixie scoffed, pulling herself out of her tired state she gave twilight a cocky look. “My math is just fine Twilight; don’t you get it? It’s a scam, and there’s nothing you can do about it” She stated confidently. “Why did you even come to bother me anyway? Doesn’t the Pony Revenue Service have some sort of enforcement team?”
Twilight looked slightly less panicked at this remark, but as her panic dissipated it was quickly replaced by that of confusion. “The Pony Revenue Service or ‘PRS’, is basically just a bunch of accountants, there’s rarely ever a need to correct errors, and ponys are so honest actual issues are fairly rare, so since I’m an official in my district, I get to deal with you”. Twilight looked back at the piece of paper, but upon seeing Trixies math, Twilight quickly averted her eyes in an effort to pretend such horror could not exist. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about Trixie, despite the stereotype of unicorns being smart, a lot of unicorns aren’t good at math. Don’t worry though, we can get you free lessons any time you would like.” She finished with a big and confident smile.
Trixie gave Twilight a side eye. Maybe Twilight didn’t hear her right. “Twilight, I made the mistakes on purpose so I would get a huge tax refund” Trixie gestured to the big bag of bits that she was using as a pillow.
"You made math mistakes on purpose” Twilight stared ahead blankly. She stopped blinking, and Trixie wasn't even sure Twilight was breathing.
Trixie waved her hoof in front of Twilights face “Hello, Twilight, anypony home?” Oh, my Celestia, the Great and Powerful Trixie had somehow managed to short circuit Twilights brain. “Twilight! Wake up, Twilight Nightmare moon is back” No response “Twilight, look it’s Star Swirl!” No response. “Twilight, I’m going to go burn some books”.
“Don’t you dare!” shouted Twilight, snapping out of her daze. “Oh right, so how do you explain the errors on these forms?” asks twilights.
“Fret not Twilight, for The Great and Powerful Trixie does not make math errors, I falsified the information on those forms deliberately.”
Twilight stared at Trixie; her brain was going 1000 miles a second. Trixies eyes darted from twilight to the big bag of bits and back again, baffled by Twilights blank stare. “So... you lied... on your tax forms?”
Trixie nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! I lied on my tax form so the government would give me free money, what’s not to get?” Why has this been so painstaking to explain? Finally, Twilight was understanding, she thought.
Twilight shook her head, “No that doesn’t make sense, why would anypony lie on their forms, the money collected goes to Celestia and she distributes it throughout the nation as she sees fit”. Twilight seemed Extremely Secure with this answer. “So, what do you mean you lied on your tax forms?”
Trixie scrunched her eyes at twilight. “What do you mean, what do I mean? I lied on the forms to get the government to give me money.” Trixie felt like she could have face hoofed at that moment. “Trixie did lie on her forms Twilight, because Trixie does not care” she said calmly and slowly to Twilight as though she was speaking to a four-year-old filly.
“How could anybody lie to Celestia? Nopony would ever do that” said Twilight meekly.
Trixie was vexed, “I didn’t lie to Celestia, I lied on my tax forms, I lied to the PRS, and I did so to get a wildly oversized refund.” Trixie rubbed her hoof against her throbbing temple, desperately wanting this conversation to end.
Twilight sat down and rubbed her head. “I don’t understand. Explain this to me again, step by step. You started by lying on your tax forms”. Trixie nodded, “Then you got a huge refund from the government?” Trixie nodded again. “Then you admitted to me that you did your taxes wrong on purpose?” Trixie nodded again, a smile forming on her face as Twilight worked it out. Twilight pondered a moment and turned toward the blue mare. “Trixie, I know you’re very confident, but we were in the same class, and you did fail out after a few years, so there’s no shame in making mistakes. I understand where you’re coming from”
Trixies face filled with anger, “Ok first of all little miss Twilight, the Great and Powerful Trixie did not fail out of school, I simply left when I realized that the curriculum was not challenging enough for me, and secondly, this math is not that hard, it’s extremely clear that I falsified information on my tax forms! All I did was add Zeros to make numbers bigger!” Trixie shouted as her frustration grew, the vein in her in her forehead ballooned. This was not the battle of wits that she had envisioned with Twilight.
Twilight gritted her teeth and looked at the tax forms. Fighting her every instinct to vomit as she laid eyes on the wildly incorrect math. She gestured to it with her hoof. “See here Trixie, you accidentally added extra zeros when subtracting taxable losses, don’t worry though, it’s an easy mistake” Twilight set a copy of the forms and the corrected versions on Trixies table. “Here, you can look at these on your own time. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do better next year”.
Trixie looked like she was in shock, her mouth was agape, and eyes were wide with a 1000-yard stare. “But...Trixie... Great and... Powerful... Something... Something... Taxes” Trixie managed to get out, still in absolute shock that Twilight was still not getting this.
“I still don’t fully understand the situation, but thank you for trying to clear things up, I’ll get this fixed on my end so there's no issues in your record, but in the future, just be careful on your tax forms. We can get you some math tutoring if you would like to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes in the future, or I can assign someone to do your taxes for you”. Twilight made her way to the door and Trixie was for the first time in her entire life too shocked to shoot out one last snippy remark. Instead, only staring blankly as Twilight walked away. “It was nice to see you Trixie, glad to see you’re staying out of trouble”.
Trixie was bewildered. She watched as the Alicorn opened the door, feeling the fresh air flood the musty caravan. Twilight stepped down the stairs and closed the door behind her. With an audible ‘poof’ she teleported away. Trixie stared at the door for what felt like hours, and for all she knew it could have been. After some time, she lost the staring contest she was having with her door and she made her way back towards her hammock and sighed loudly, “Wow, both Twilight and Celestia are really stupid”.
