The curtain rose. Maud and Chrysalis sat across from each other at a table, on which sat a hefty bag of bits. Maud had a calculator in front of her and wore an accountant's visor, while Chrysalis wore a stylish suit and puffed on a cigar.
"I'm tellin' ya, Maud, it's a surefire moneymaker."
"The odds of Sombra coming back again are slim to none, Chrysalis."
Chrysalis quirked an eyebrow. "Wait, are you an accountant or an actuary?"
Confused murmurs went up from the audience.
"Nopony knows what an actuary is, Chrysalis. I'm both."
A sigh went up from Ponyville's actuary – who was not, despite what everyone who entered his office seemed to believe, an accountant.
Chrysalis shrugged. "Fine, but still! You ponies have killed him three – wait, no, four times! It's like a slot machine that always hits jackpot!"
"You can't take out life insurance on a dead pony, Chrysalis."
Laughs went up from the audience, though the purple alicorn in the front row's eyes lit up, as did her horn as she summoned her necromancy and tax-law books.
"Aww..."
Chrysalis puffed on her cigar in disappointment and tapped her chin with her hoof. Then she suddenly sprang up and slammed a hoof on the table.
"I've got it! We can short sell Flim and Flam! They always screw up!"
Maud slowly raised a single eyebrow skeptically, the most expressive she had been all evening. Meanwhile, the alicorn in the front row began feverishly taking notes, while more confused murmurs went through the crowd.
"First, nopony in the audience is going to know what short-selling is. Second, that would require Flim and Flam to sell stocks in the first place, which would be an obvious scam."
"Exactly! They're great at obvious scams! And then we can double-down on it by shorting them!"
That got a few snorts out of the crowd, though the front row was becoming increasingly concerned with a particular princess's behavior instead.
Maud stared at Chrysalis flatly – though that was hardly a departure from the norm. "We'd need to convince them to run that particular scam, and that would make us culpable in their schemes."
Chrysalis harumphed and slinked back, chewing her cigar in irritation. "Well, what about shorting Ponyville insurance companies? I'm sure they're—"
"No one even bothers offering insurance to Ponyville anymore."
The ensuing laughter almost washed out the groan of the mayor. Almost.
"We could open our own insurance firm, and then word things really vaguely so we can weasel out of the contracts!"
"Flim and Flam tried that, Twilight found a loophole that bankrupted them."
The laughter in the room didn't stop Chrysalis' determined surge of ideas.
"We could charge for medical care!"
"Free hospitals."
"Burn them down?"
"But that—"
"After selling them insurance!"
"Chrys—"
"And then we short our own insurance firm! It's brilliant! Brilliant!"
Chuckles in the audience swept around while Maud stared at Chrysalis, who was by now standing triumphantly on her rear hooves, with one forehoof planted firmly on the table.
"Are you sure investment is for you? At this rate you should just rob a bank."
"A bank we insured?"
"What is it with you and insurance?"
"I hear it's an ideal career prospect for villains."
The laughter in the room provided sufficient cover for the one insurance pony in the audience to quietly slip away, knowing the jig was up and it was time to move to the next stage of his evil plans.
"That's... probably true, but don't you think we should focus on more realistic prospects?"
"Not as long as Discord is in town."
"Why can't we just invest in Sweet Apple Acres, or something?"
"Oh, or short-sell them, and then—"
Maud sighed. "Burn all of their apple trees?"
"What? No. Open a banana farm to compete with them."
There were some chuckles as Maud slowly blinked.
"Are... bananas evil, somehow?"
"Uh, no, they're just fruit."
"Okay... that sounds like it might actually—"
"Of course, we'll want to collect all of the banana peels."
Maud groaned. "So we can make ponies trip on them, overfill the hospitals, and open our own? With an insurance scam on the side?"
Chrysalis quirked her head. "No, so we can compost them for our farm. For a pony, you sure have a dark imagination."
Laughter went up as Maud's eye twitched in slow-motion.
"I still don't get why you wouldn't just invest in Sweet Apple Acres at this point."
"Uh, duh, one of their workers is probably going to get married and move away, another's too young, another's too old, and the last one is both a full-time hero and a full-time professor. Sweet Apple Acres is on its way out, obviously!"
The laughter this time was partially overshadowed by the wave of realization that hit the audience. One orange pony pulled down her stetson and started thinking over her life choices.
"Tons of ponies have pitched in to help Sweet Apple Acres stay open before. Never bet against S-A-A, every ponyvillean knows that."
A cheer went up from a particular fruit-based clan of ponies.
"Ugh, fine! Well since you're shooting down all of my cool, edgy ideas, let's hear whatever bland goody-two-shoes investment plan you came up with!"
"Oh, it's simple. Twilight's about to move to Canterlot to rule Equestria, so we just invest in a pony-only school to rival hers, like Flim and Flam did, and really play up the whole other-species-can't-be-trusted racism angle. Once tensions have risen enough, we sweep back into Ponyville and sell security devices to paranoid ponies, and when Winter Wrap-Up is a disaster without her organizational skills we can also make a tidy profit off of temporary animal shelters and 'Sorry your town is still snowed in' hot cocoa. Of course, we'll buy out the local weather team and assign them elsewhere for that time period just to be extra-sure. After all of those disasters we can undermine the mayor, sweep the elections, and then get to the real moneymaker - political graft."
Chrysalis' jaw hung open in silence, as did most of the audience's. It was a couple of beats before she finally managed to speak.
"You're basically shortselling Ponyville itself because Twilight's leaving? I thought ponies were supposed to be nice!"
"Can I get that on record? Could help with the whole racism-campaign thing, especially after the Cozy Glow debacle."
"You're a monster!"
With only the faintest hint of a smile, and still in the same utterly deadpan voice, Maud replied: "Yes, I already mentioned that I am an actuary."
And with that, the curtain fell to laughter, both genuine and nervous. A blue dragon in the front was busy demanding to be told what an actuary was, but no one seemed willing or able to help.