"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Twilight groaned as she stood in line alone in the Mr. Toad queue in Fantasyland.

"You know, you wouldn't have had to if you'd let me try my plan..." Spike's voice crackled in through her earbuds.

"That plan never would have worked. Why do you always insist on a fake mustache plan as if that has ever or will ever fool anyone? You are a dog. You are very obviously a dog. A dog with a mustache is still a dog."

"But this mustache was really convincing! It fooled Gummy and Boulder!"

"I'm not even going to begin to get into the list of things wrong with that statement..."

"Alright, alright. Let's just see if this works!"

"Fine..."

As she entered the ride building, Twilight reached into her bag and pulled out something special she'd been working on to allow Spike to enjoy some of the rides. It was a custom camera she'd programmed with a variant of the SelfieBot OS, with all the livestreaming and video capabilities she'd introduced in the second iteration for the Starswirl Music Festival, but intended for use in more low-light areas.

Oh, and the camera wasn't mounted to a drone. It was mounted to the brim of a baseball cap. A cap that, as soon as Twilight put it on her head, immediately began to slump downwards with the weight of said camera.

I really should have thought that part through a bit harder. Always the little things... Twilight mused.

She adjusted the camera's position a bit to keep it balanced better, then switched it on. She connected to it through her phone and gave the command to start broadcasting.

"Alright, it should be live now. Can you see?"

"Can I see the guy standing in front of you really likes his Hawaiian shirts? Yes I can."

"Good, it's working." The hat suddenly slumped forward again, and Twilight had to grab it to keep it from falling off her head.

"Woah!"

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to hold this manually. I really should've spent more time testing this in action, but it was a pretty last-minute project."

She took the hat off, gripping it from underneath where the brim met the body of the hat rather than trying to separate the camera from it. She made it to the front of the line and was directed into her car.

"Alright, I'm gonna put the hat back on and try to keep my head really still. Can you still see?"

"So far, so good."

"Alright, we're about to get started. Hopefully the low-light features work as well here as they did during the limited testing I could do."

The car jolted forward and immediately took a hard right into the main ride. They drove through a pair of thin doors into the Toad Hall library, where the cardboard-cutout-looking MacBadger was teetering on a ladder, before zooming right again and curving around more of the manor. Twilight was having a hard time putting her money where her mouth was in staying still, sliding around from side to side with all the fast turns and having to grip the brim of the hat not simply to keep it stationary, but to keep it from toppling over.

"How's it looking?"

"A whole lot of motion smears, camera noises and bad lighting."

"I'm doing my best!" Twilight hissed. She was getting sick of trying to keep the cursed thing on her head manually when an idea popped into her head. "Of course! Why didn't I think of it before? Hold on, Spike, I'm gonna try something here."

As the car exited Toad Hall, Twilight took off the hat, placed it on the seat beside her and, focusing her powers, levitated it to her eye level. It was working! Even as the car weaved and turned as they traveled through the countryside area of the ride, the hat was holding in place next to her.

"What about now?"

"I... I think it's working! Still dark, but it's not blurry. I can see the police guy in front of us."

"Excellent. I'll work on the lighting." She pulled out her phone again as the car whipped past the policeman and traveled down toward an angry cardboard-cutout farmer, playing with the settings until it looked more suitable. "Should be good now." Just as she said this, the car whipped into a u-turn and Twilight nearly knocked the camera over. "Sorry."

She gripped the handlebar in front of her to steady herself as they u-turned again into a hallway full of cartoon explosives. A "brick wall" opened up before them to reveal a room full of strobing effects, which she knew could only be causing more problems for Spike.

"Aah! It's just a whole bunch of bright lights all of a sudden! What's happening?"

"We blew up all the dynamite in the last room, I think. Now we're in the city!" The car was swerving rapidly to avoid more cartoon police and wound up entering what looked like a pub; Twilight was having a hard time paying attention to the storyline of the ride when she was having to expend an increasing amount of energy keeping the camera levitated properly.

"Geez, this ride is too fast, how's anyone supposed to follow what's going on?"

"Maybe someone could if she wasn't having to try and keep this camera running..."

They passed through another set of doors into a courtroom where they were immediately pronounced guilty of something, then turned a hard right onto... railroad tracks? She could hear the telltale noises and saw the lights up ahead simulating an oncoming train, but all she could think about was how it was yet another blow to the low-light settings. Which promptly got worse when the strobing started up again to simulate the collision.

"We just got hit by a train, by the way."

"I figured out that part."

They turned right again into a red-lit cavern filled with... demons? "And now we appear to be in hell. Which is frankly where I belong for thinking I could pull this off," Twilight grumbled.

They whipped left a few times, and Twilight caught a brief glimpse of a green dragon bearing down on them before they made a right turn back into the loading area. "Alright, show's over," Twilight said as they got within viewing range of other riders; she dropped the hat/camera back onto the seat, gathered it up and shut it off, stuffing it into her bag. She got out and exited the ride.

"Yeah, so..."

"I mean I could kinda see what was happening every now and then. It was just too low-lit, except when it was way too not-low-lit."

"Yeah, I'm, uh... not trying that again."

"What?! Not even for Big Thunder Mountain?"

"I can't wear this heavy thing on my head on a roller coaster, I'll break my neck! And I certainly can't levitate it when there'll be someone sitting next to me! Face it, we tried, it didn't work."

"Awwwww..."

"I'll try to work on some improvements when I get back, okay?"

"...fine. But I still say the mustache plan would have worked!"

"Goodbye, Spike."

"Bye, Twilight!"

Twilight took the earbuds out and set off back towards the castle.

Next Chapter: Frontierland Shootin' Exposition (Applejack & Fluttershy) Estimated time remaining: 21 Minutes