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// Chapter 11: Down Time 
// Story: The Defective Warp Pipe 
// by Level Dasher 
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	Due to our newest discovery about the time lapse, I decided to spend an extra week or so in Ponyville before going into the mines to search for the Augmentation Stones. This decision not only induced more jumping up and down from Fluttershy, but it gave me some extra down time. We all knew that I would still need to search for the stones eventually, but I figured Mario wouldn’t mind another seven minutes in the time loop.
I decided to spend my week like a casual citizen of Ponyville, with no pressures on my mind (other than everyday pressures like everyone else). I realized the only ponies of the six that I hadn’t really spent any time with were Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.
I visited Pinkie at the Cakes’ and she made me a special batch of cupcakes that I gladly accepted. They were like nothing I had ever tasted; I couldn’t quite put my finger on it... As I spent the afternoon chatting it up with her, I realized why Pinkie was so hyper all the time: considering how good her own baking was, she probably downed a minimum of 13 cupcakes a day.

Despite my ability to… sort of fly, I still wasn’t able to sit on clouds like Rainbow Dash, and I most certainly wasn’t as fast as she was. Since we couldn’t do any sky shenanigans that would satisfy her, Rainbow Dash brought me to the lake by northern Ponyville to hang out. It turned out to be a nice, relaxing day. Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Spike all came to the lake as well, so it was quality hang-out time for us all. We asked Toad to join us, but he decided to stay cooped up in Fluttershy’s shed. I was growing somewhat concerned, but he said I didn’t need to be. He just wanted to keep to himself. He was sporting a new robe that I hadn’t seen before, but I didn’t think anything of it. Before I left to go to the lake with the girls, though, I could have sworn I saw him hiding something behind the TV…
That day at the lake turned out to include a lot of story-telling on my part, since none of them really knew much about the Mushroom Kingdom. I talked about Mario and his brother, Luigi, as well as what Toad and I did in our world. Spike and the ponies couldn’t believe all the different adventures we had been on. Rarity was somewhat appalled that Princess Peach would let herself get kidnapped so much that it forced us to go out and get her so many times. I let them in on an opinion that I don’t dare ever mention to Mario, and you better not either: “Honestly, I think she likes getting kidnapped…”
I allowed the Cutie Mark Crusaders to bring me into class one day along with Spike so they could flaunt the fact that they knew me so well, and Scootaloo spent the day boasting that none of their classmates would get to experience what she got to.
Their teacher, Miss Cheerilee, asked me to explain who I was and where I came from. I told a few of the same stories I told Spike and the girls at the lake; some of the students were amazed, while some were just confused. One student with a mane that looked like he had cut it himself asked me at one point, “But how does a... warp pipe... work, exactly?”
I looked at him and said, “When you figure it out, you let me know.” At that, I think a spring went loose somewhere in his brain.
The filly with the silver spoon up her behind, along with her partner, seemed to be glaring at me all day, but the Crusaders assured me she was just incredibly jealous and she wouldn’t actually do anything, which made it all the better for them, apparently.

During my free time I went and talked to Doctor Whooves a few times as well. He began explaining the concepts of time-space loops and what exactly was going on with Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom. With what the Doctor told me, and considering that Mario was only on level 3-2, I realized he had it easy while I spent time in Ponyville. He just had to knock a few goombas and koopas every few minutes, and as long as he timed it just right, the jump that I fell from when I first landed in Equestria was still reachable, despite its difficulty. We had also found about twenty extra lives along the way, so in our time, he would be fine; I had nothing to worry about. However, I still thought I should limit my down time to just a week before searching for the Augmentation Stones. I didn't want to take too much advantage of the time lapse and risk Mario running out of lives.
Not only did Twilight come with me on my visits to the Doctor, but she got a chance to do some one-on-one research on Time-Space loops with him as well. By the end of the week, she was eventually able to develop her own spell to reverse it, even all the way from Equestria. It just meant we had to get an extra Augmentation Stone on our search. It seemed simple enough. And because of how much she had helped me, I forced Twilight to put down her projects on my behalf and go with the Doctor to the Moon. She was ecstatic, and the Doctor happily obliged. Twilight returned from the trip with hoofloads of notes, absolutely euphoric. She sent numerous letters to Princess Celestia all about her moon studies, and the day after she told me she slept like a foal.

Of course, having this down time also meant that I was able to spend more time with Fluttershy. She was perfectly happy to let me spend some time with her friends, but she was always glad to see me come back early from an excursion so we could spend a little more time together. We wanted to cherish the time we had. We didn’t really know how long it was going to last. Overall, it was definitely a good week.