Exhaustion.
It was something Rainbow Dash had become all too familiar with over the last two months, her job as head of Ponyville's weather patrol and her entry into the Wonderbolt flight academy would have been tiresome for any pegasus. But next to those two things Rainbow also managed to find time to look for her missing sister and friend, she had already scowered the massive area surrounding ponyville and Canterlot and by now she had expanded her search area to the Manehattan coastline.
But even she had need for some rest so after hours of searching she finally headed home. Arriving at her cloud home in ponyville she landed right at the front door and stumbled inside onto a couch.
"Rainbow darling, is that you? A voice with a distinct Canterlot accent came out of the kitchen.
"Yeah, it's me Rarity." Rainbow called back, begrudgingly getting off the couch and walking into the kitchen where she found Rarity sitting at her dinner table wearing a necklace enchanted with the cloudwalking Twilight had made. With the necklace getting into the house would have been easy since Dash had lowered her house and build a staircase for Scoots.
She had been so excited about it.
"I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty to clean your kitchen while I waited for you." Rarity motioned to the rest of her kitchen that now was in a pristine condition, Rainbow hadn't cleaned it in a long time.
"Thanks for that, but that's not why you're here is it." Rainbow said slightly annoyed due to her tiredness as she took a seat across the table from Rarity.
"No, it's not. I'm here for you, I and the others have been getting more and more concerned about your searches. We're afraid that you're burning yourself out completely, you can't even take care of yourself properly anymore! Just look at the state of yourself or the state I found your kitchen in!" Rarity was right, Rainbow looked like a flying disaster. Her mane was completely disheveled, bags adorned her eyes, and her coat had patches of mud stuck in it.
"I'm fine! I'm just really busy!" Rainbow not liking how Rarity had insinuated that she couldn't take care of herself.
"No, you're not! And I'm not the only one who sees it. The Princess also have concerns about you!" Rarity countered.
"So trying to find my friend and sister shouldn't take priority over anything else I do?! Do you even care?!"
"Rainbow Dash! Don't you dare say that I or anyone else for that matter doesn't care!" Rarity shouted very unladylike, "Tell me do you know when pinkies last party was?"
"I -"
"No, you don't because you haven't been to Ponyville in Celestia knows how long! Pinkie hasn't thrown a party since Twilight and Scootaloo disappeared!"
"That's not even all, Fluttershy has just about locked herself up in her cottage. She only comes out to feed her animals, I haven't had a spa day with her in weeks! Then there's Applejack, if you thought she was a workaholic before than you haven't seen her now. O and the Crusaders have stopped crusading without Scootaloo. Moving on, then we have Spike! he has been blaming himself for what happened at the library all this time! He hasn't been himself in a long time, he doesn't even have an appetite for gems!" Rarity ranted on and on.
"And then there's YOU! You've been trying your hardest to commit suicide by exhaustion doing something the guard could do ten times more efficient than you EVER can!" Rarity stopped to let her rant sink into Rainbow.
"I.." Rainbow didn't know what to say, she had let her friends down when they most needed her. What a brilliant element of loyalty she was.
"Rainbow, Princess Luna made a proposal you should take a look at." Rarity pulled a document with the royal seal stamped on it and gave it to Rainbow Dash, "Princess Celestia told me that Spitfire had been complaining about your performance in the academy, but she knows she can't just kick out the fastest flier in Equestria, first mare to produce a sonic rainboom, and element of loyalty. The political backlash would be enormous."
Rainbow put down the document back on the table and looked Rarity straight into the eyes, "So you and the Princess want me to join the Night Guard?" Her voice sounded bitter, "Give up my dream of becoming a Wonderbolt?"
"Read the second document Darling." Rarity said as she levitated the second paper on top, "Princess Luna said you were something called a 'lucid dreamer' it means that you have complete control over your dreams, your ability to fall asleep almost anywhere on command is apparently also part of it."
"Wait you can't do that?"
"O no, it's apparently a very rare ability and the first step to dreamwalking, which is part of the second proposal. By joining the Night Guard the Princess will teach you how to walk the dreamscape with her so you can search for Twilight and Scootaloo in a place no guard can look, and when you're awake you can be here in ponyville with us since Luna wanted a few night guards alongside day guards to be stationed in ponyville anyway. It would also do wonders for the morale of the others if they have."
"But that still means I have to give up the Bolts Rarity."
"No you won't, Princess Luna assured me that she would release you from your vows if either Spitfire deems you capable for the Bolts or Twilight gets found and you want to quit and if Spitfire deems you capable you'll be transferred to the bolts from the lunar guard with whatever rank you have achieved there." Rarity explained, Rainbow now seriously contemplating if she should take the deal, her searches weren't getting any results and with the night guard, she would get experience valuable for the Bolts.
"What about the weather patrol in ponyville? Who would take over the captains position?"
"Thunderlane has already expressed interest in the position, so if you left he would probably get it." Rarity answered, having already visited mayor Mare to see if Rainbow leaving the weather team would be an issue.
"You don't have to decide immediately, when you've made your decision just come over to the boutique so you can send a message via Spike." Rarity said as she walked to the front door, "you should get some sleep and a shower, you really do look terrible dear."
With that Rarity left the house leaving Rainbow with the documents and a decision to make.
"So we're going to do nothing?!" Twilight almost shouted into Mack's face, after the alarms went off the two ponies had made a beeline back to the barracks to meet back up with the rest of the ODST's.
"The only thing we know is that there's Covenant activity somewhere on the planet, we can't counter an enemy if we don't know what kind of numbers they have or for that matter where they are in the first place. Recon will do it's thing Twilight and after they've finished you can be sure they're going to send us in to kick the bastards off the planet."
To Twilight's annoyance, his argument made sense, "Then what are we going to do?"
"We're heading to Fort York to meet up with a part of the 65th shock troop division." Mack answered, "Departure is in an hour, so have everything packed and ready before then."
"Mack, the little stuff we own is already packed into the saddlebags " Scootaloo stated, "We're good to go at the drop of a hat."
"Then make sure you don't miss the ride Scoots, I wouldn't want to leave my copilot behind" Zoey responded.
With all exercises dropped the group packed all items they needed and at 1700 hours the loaded pelican took off towards Fort York. 
Scootaloo and Lucy were going over some in-flight procedures while Twilight was writing up some reports for the council.
"15 minutes 'till arrival!" Zoey called out from the cockpit.
"We're going to get a lot of weird looks, aren't we?" Twilight grumbled, not really in the mood to get stared at.
"Cut them some slack Twilight, those guys have never seen aliens that don't want to kill them so it's not like they don't have any reason to be suspicious of you two." Tyler replied to Twilight
After a few more minutes of silence, Zoey started talking to tower control of Fort York and a few minutes after that the pelican touched down at a designated landing zone and shut the engines down before opening the ramp on the back of the craft. at the foot of the ramp, an Officer with a small squad of marines was waiting for the group.
"Sergeant Cross, I've got orders here from HIGHCOM to house two non-hostile aliens on my base I would like to know if they will cause problems here." The officer told Mack.
"Sir, they won't give you any trouble. I'll make sure of that."
"Good, now I want to meet the aliens that have been throwing High command into disarray."
Mack nodded, "Private Sparkle, Hurricane. Get down here!" he shouted into the pelican where the rest of the squad had remained after seeing the officer. The two ponies came trotting down the ramp towards the officer, the marines accompanying him all tensing up.
"Sir!" both ponies snapping a salute and standing at attention.
"At ease ladies, I just wanted to see the first aliens that don't want to kill us. Naval intelligence didn't give us a lot of information on you two so I wanted to see you in person." He told the two ponies, "Anyway, the Marines here will escort you to your designated barracks. Tomorrow there'll be a large-scale exercise to keep everyone on their toes. Meanwhile please try to avoid conflicts on the base not everyone might be as civil with you two due to our current predicament." After which he nodded to one of the Marines and walked off.
''Sergeant would you and your squad please follow us." The particular Marine seemingly happy to see that they weren't alone against to covenant but a few of the others were visibly displeased that they were going to have to play nice with the aliens present.
Although it was getting late in the evening there were still a lot of soldiers walking around and working, only a few spotted Twilight and Scootaloo. Most reactions were just a confused stare but a few looked as if they were disgusted by the ponies.
Arriving at the barracks the group quickly unpacked everything they had with them,
"So what are we going to do now?" Twilight asked
"We could hit the E-bar." Tyler suggested, "haven't had a good drink ever since we picked you guys up."
"Remember the part where we got told to not look for trouble." Twilight replied, "And I don't really drink anyway."
"Wait, what! You don't drink?! That's going to change tonight" Tyler shouted.
"I agree with Tyler." Lucy also chiming in, "have to have been at least shitfaced drunk once."
"Ugh, Fine. But I'm not going to drink anything." Twilight relented, already thinking up all the possible ways this could go wrong.
"A-and thas when ah weeent back in time to warn myself notoo waste my time only to set off the events that caused me to waste time!" Twilight speech slightly slurred by the alcohol in her blood. The evening had started off as she had planned, keeping away from any alcoholic beverages but with good old peer pressure she had relented and gotten a beer, and then another one, and another one. Up to the point that there was now a small collection of bottles on the table, at some point during the third bottle the group had started to telling stories to each other about various topics which attracted a few other soldiers in the bar that were interested in hearing about an aliens life.
Scootaloo, unlike Twilight, had been able to stay away from the alcohol had mostly been listening from the sidelines only sharing a story about when the Crusaders had built a very functional catapult which in turn had led to an interesting discussion about cutie marks and their importance in pony culture.
"So the butt-mark is actually a representation of what your good at? I just assumed it was some sort of dye job like humans sometimes have tattoos." Tyler said, surprised at the significance of the cutie marks. "So you're still looking for your mark then Scoots?"
"Yeah, most of the other fillies already have their cutie mark but me and my friends still don't have them. That's why we started the CMC's, to find out what our cutie marks are by doing stuff together." Scootaloo responded, slightly annoyed at the fact that she still didn't have her cutie mark.
"So you could get your cutie mark while you're here?" Lucy asked, "Like in fighting or something?"
"That could happen, although it would be a shock to everyone at home." Scootaloo chuckled to herself, "I don't even know how a cutie mark in killing aliens would look like."
"THE NIGHT SHALL LAST FOREVER!" Twilight suddenly shouted in her best Luna impression as she was clutching a half-empty bottle of vodka she had somehow managed to get a hold of.
"Someone take that away from her before she knocks herself out." Mack said after which Lucy snatched the bottle from Twilight's grasp.
"GIVE ME BACK MY LIQUOR, WELP!" She shouted as she tried to get up only to flop onto the floor.
"I think that's her cue to leave for the night." Mack decided and picked up Twilight, "I'll see you guys back at the barracks."
Tyler, Lucy, and Woods left shortly after Mack to get some sleep before the exercise in the morning leaving only Scootaloo and Zoey in the bar.
"You should also get some sleep Scoots, unlike you I'm not part of the exercise tomorrow." Zoey advised.
"I'll go in just a bit." Scootaloo replied, taking a sip from her soft drink.
With the squad down to two, a group of marines that had been glaring at the ponies from the moment they had entered the bar got up and walked over to the table where Scoots and Zoey where sitting.
"You don't belong here chicken." The leader of the group said to Scootaloo, who instantly turned to the marine. 'Did that bastard just call me a chicken?!' Scootaloo's temper flaring and feeling her anger rising.
"Don't you jerks have anything better to do then bother us?" Zoey told the lead marine while glaring at him.
"Anything better than kicking an alien chicken out of our bar? Nah." One of the other marines said.
With each time Scootaloo was being called a chicken she only became angrier with the marines standing in front of her and as her anger rose, starting to border hatred, her wings were starting to tingling as if something was running through them.
Unseen to either group the barkeeper was calling base security hoping they could break this up before any punches would be thrown.
Scootaloo jumped up onto the table to get to eye-height with the marine, "Go buck yourself. Ponies never did anything wrong to humanity, we're even helping against the Covenant."
"I don't care, all aliens should just fuck off from humanity's worlds chicken." the leader responded.
Scootaloo spread her wings instinctually to look more intimidating but when she did so she felt the tingling sensation leave her wings causing lightning to arc down towards the table, 'Holy horseapples, am I casting this?' she thought before refocussing on the marine.
"CALL ME CHICKEN ONE MORE TIME, DISCORD DAMNED PIECE OF SHIT!"
The group of marines, except for the leader, taking a few involuntary steps back as they saw the enraged pegasus standing on the table surrounded by the light show of lightning, they weren't the only ones. The entire bar was now on high alert as everyone was looking at the small filly in awe.
"I call bluff, chicken." he said teasing her to her face.
Wrong move.
Scootaloo experimented with her wings to see if she could redirect the lightning.
Eeyup.
pointed her wings forward in a powerful flap and in doing so she felt the energy moving from the core of her body to her wings and out from there.
CRACK
A bolt of blue lightning flying from her wings impacting the marine dead center in his chest, at the same time Scootaloo could feel the energy rapidly leaving her body until none was left suddenly making her feel really dizzy.
The moment the thunderclap had happened a group of MP's had run into the bar thinking someone had fired off a gun only to find a pony with smoking wings, a knocked out marine and the smell of ozone.
Scootaloo weakly looked over at the new arrivals before succumbing to fatigue and collapsing.
My wings still feel like they are on fire but despite that, I've come off pretty well last night.
I and the other shadowbolts have been reprimanded but we've gotten off light due to video evidence that clearly showed the other group antagonizing me and Zoey.
After Twilight woke up this morning, without a hangover which surprised us until she explained that she had cast a spell on herself to remove excess alcohol from her blood while she slept. to the envy of Tyler.
We told what had happened at the bar last night, she was understandably upset and disappointed but when we told her that I created lightning Twilight went into an incoherent rant followed by a barrage of questions.
Apparently, I was experiencing magic exhaustion. Yeah, MAGIC exhaustion. In Equestria, it's nearly impossible for a pegasus to get magic exhaustion, but with the low magic here and the fact that I probably used something that would draw a lot of magic I have managed to get it.
It also means that I'm stuck in a hospital, again. The others are probably in the middle of the exercise by now, hope they win.
Anyway, they said I'll be out of the hospital by the end of the day so i'll just have to suck it up for the moment.
I'm recording this now because I don't think I'll have the opportunity later. Four days ago the base got virtually emptied when the UNSC started their counter-attack, our unit, to my and the others annoyance, was held back in reserve just in case we were needed elsewhere.
And as it appears we are, we just got reports from New Alexandria that there are Covenant forces assaulting the city.
There are still civilians there.
Sorry, got to go the others have already loaded the falcons. Sure as hay hope that this won't be my last recording.