If they had paused to stop screaming, maybe Rainbow and Daring would have noticed how tightly they were clinging to one another. Instead, they gazed with wide eyes as the cylindrical walls of the otherworldly elevator shaft shot up around them. The platform below strobed with swirling circles of bright green energy. All of the sudden, the swirls stopped, locking in place with a dim pulse.
Just a few seconds later, the lift slowly hummed to a graceful stop, quite unlike the rapid drop it took to bring all four ponies there. Rainbow and Daring panted and panted, gazing at the rigid stone frame of a dark entrance looming in front of them.
"Yeah, okay." Rainbow gulped. "Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay." She spun around, facing Maud and the glowy-eyed Trixie. "Does any other mare no longer need to go to the bathroom?"
"Weeeeeeeeee!" A pink fluffball sailed down behind them. WHUMP!
"Ooof!" Rainbow slumped to the floor with Pinkie sitting on top of her.
"Hey, b-ouncy!" Daring summoned a brave smile. She leaned down until she was staring Pinkie square in the eyes. "You didn't happen to outrace about two ounces of urine on the way down, did ya?"
"Wuh oh!" Pinkie grinned wide. "I forgot to unpack my umbrella hat!"
"Pinkie...!" Rainbow wheezed. "Get off!" she bucked.
"Whoah!" Thud! Pinkie fell on her side. "But I didn't sing the 'ashes, ashes' part yet!"
"And you!" Rainbow stood up, frowning at Daring. "Why didn't you use your wings to fly somewhere and find a mechanism that could stop this stupid thing?!"
"Wh-what?! Are you for real, champ?!"
"You're the resident mistress of traps!"
"You have wings too, y'know!"
"Much good I could have made of them with you friggin' hugging me the whole way down!"
"You were grabbing me!"
"I was trying to shake you off, ya freakazoid!"
Pinkie Pie stuck her head in, wall-eyed. "RAWBLE RAWBLE RAWBLE RAWBLE!" The air in the steep shaft silenced. She blinked, then grinned at both mares. "Awwww?! Why does everypony stop right when I join?"
Daring and Rainbow huffed, folding their arms and looking awayf rom each other.
Dead silence.
Maud blinked and muttered, "I hope I did not turn anypony deaf with my outrageous screams."
"Look, we're here now... as opposed to there now," Rainbow grumbled. "Let's deal with it."
"Pfft!" Daring tilted her nose up. "Are you kidding?! I always deal with it!"
"Then fine! Be my guest!" Rainbow pointed past the stone archway. "Go on and explore, Miss Adventure!"
"What? Hah! Buck that!"
"Where's your sense of Daring, Daring?!"
"It wasn't my fault we came down here! This was something you guys set off."
"Are you for serious?!"
"Darn right, I am!" Daring barked. "I only go into holes that have a back door!" She frowned. "I'll only leap down a whale's gullet if I know there's a sphincter somewhere on the beast!"
"Hey... uh..." Pinkie Pie spoke up from the other side of the lift. "Sorry to interrupt your conversation about marine colonoscopies, but have any of you noticed our Great and Powerful Fuzz Friend here?" She flicked Trixie's horn and watched as the end of it wobbled in place. "I think somepony broke Trixie!"
"She's been like that ever since her sorting horn betrayed her into premature somnambulism," Maud droned. "Also, I think she's answering to wheels."
"Heehee! Well, who doesn't, these days?! Am I right?!"
"What's the Great and Powerful Tool's problem, anyways?" Daring asked.
"Something's... like... possessed her horn," Rainbow muttered. "Freaky unicorn stuff. Maud and I tried everything, but we couldn't get her to snap out of it."
"Well of course, silly!" Pinkie giggled. "You girls simply didn't try hard enough!" That said, she licked the end of her hoof five times over and stuck it deep into Trixie's ear.
"Ughuuuuu..." Trixie's eyes suddenly flashed to normal. She wriggled away from Pinkie. "Blblblblblbbb!" She frowned. "Who gave the Great and Powerful Trixie a wet willie?!"