Lockheart sat quietly in her office, looking through her files on each of the persons of interest in this strange and hectic case. Photos of Rainbow Dash, Sunset Shimmer, Rarity, and even Azrael flashed by her eyes as she flipped through the dossiers, as she had several times in the past month. However, she paused when she opened up Daniel's file, one of the emptiest files she had ever seen.

Sure, her agents had gotten plenty of intel on his rather terrifying powers, but the file just kind of stopped after that. Who even was Daniel Hayes? Who was this mysterious berserker who just showed up right when the government decided to make its move? Was he another one of Charade's experiments? No, all the intel they had collected on the mad scientist suggested the opposite. Was he from the alternate world that she had been sent to seal off? Seemed likely, but the previous incidents proved that whatever power those beings had here was situational at best, and nowhere near as strong as this monster. So then who or what was he?

...a total outsider?

Lockheart sighed, dropping the files onto her desk. She minimized what windows she had on her computer, save for one: a live feed of the hole in the dimensional boundary leaking magic into the world. As soon as the rift opened, she had her agents build up this base on top of it, trying to keep a lid on the immense power gushing through. It seemed to be working, but a ton of magic leaked into the outside world before they could finish it, giving immense power to dozens, if not hundreds, of people who couldn't take that responsibility. As if that weren't bad enough, the explosion that opened the hole scattered the people they were already chasing, and all the higher value targets had yet to come back on her radar. Shimmer, Azrael, Charade...and Daniel Hayes.

Suddenly, there was a knock on her door. Lockheart allowed her visitor in, and an agent walked inside. "Ma'am, about the missing fugitives..." he began. "They've resurfaced. All of them."

Lockheart barely kept her jaw from dropping. "Where?"

"Charade and Daniel Hayes made a rather public appearance in Manehattan, but disappeared soon after," the agent mentioned. "Sunset Shimmer and Azrael were seen heading toward Baltimare."

Baltimare, huh? Lockheart considered. Thatch was approaching that city as well, last time he checked in. Still, even with his new powers, Azrael was beyond his level. There was only one real answer to this situation. "I hope you boys don't mind holding down the fort. I'm off to handle this personally."

Daniel walked down a lonely road, surrounded by a seemingly endless see of grass. Occasionally a car would pass by him, and sometimes the passengers would give him weird looks, but those were the only real traces of civilization, and they were surprisingly few and far between. Not that Daniel cared.

Do you even know where you're going? Luna asked him within his mind.

Heading back to Canterlot, he answered. I need to close that dimensional rift before Charade can get anywhere near it. Not sure how I'm gonna do that, but I will.

I'm...a little surprised you care, Luna replied. Clearly, she was still upset and worried after the episode in Manehattan.

I get it, but you should have a little more faith in me, Daniel told her. Okay, yeah, I have several reasons to not give a crap about anyone, but I can't just sit back and let them get screwed over.

I see, Luna replied. I'm glad to see you still have-

Humanity, yes, Daniel finished for her, before pausing. What term do ponies even have for that, anyway?

Luna paused, thinking of some sort of response, before dodging the question entirely. As noble as your goal is, it makes me ask again: do you even know where you're going?

As she asked this, a structure finally emerged from the sea of empty plains. As Daniel approached it, it became clear that the object was a road sign, clearly telling him that Canterlot was quite a bit further down the road. Well, I do now.

With that remark, the sign was suddenly engulfed in a fiery explosion. Though he was pushed back a little, Daniel stood firm. Huge chunks of the massive sign flew toward the reaper, and he summoned his scythe from astral mist to slice through them. When the flames died down, the demonic Baphomet stood in the sign's place, staring Daniel down.

"Oh hey, you're still alive," Daniel greeted him flatly.

"Where is the girl?" Baphomet demanded.

"Gonna have to be more specific there, bud," Daniel replied. "Got about seven or eight girls you could be talking about."

"Don't you dare play dumb with me, boy!" Baphomet roared. "You know who I mean! The girl with hair of bright scarlet!"

"Oh, you mean Sunset Shimmer?" Daniel realized after thinking for a bit. "Yeah, sorry, haven't seen her."

"LIES!" Baphomet screamed, his whole body bursting into flame for that instant.

"Dude, things got hectic after you died. I only just found out where I am. What makes you think I'd know where ANY of those others are?"

"You will not keep my queen from me!" Baphomet dismissed him. "If you won't tell me where she is, I will beat her location out of you!"

"Really. Because that went so well for you last time," Daniel reminded him, then shrugged. "But, if that's what you want..."

Before Daniel could react, however, Baphomet rushed him down and grabbed him with a flaming claw. As he was pushed back down the road, he brought down an astral spike, but Baphomet expected this and dodged out of the way. In doing so, however, the demon was forced to loosen his grip. Daniel took adventage of this to break Baphomet's hold on him by causing an explosion of astral mist around himself. With Baphomet temporarily repelled, Daniel took a second to inspect his singed clothing.

"Dammit man, I just got this outfit!" With that, he rushed at the demon and brought down his scythe.

Baphomet simply grabbed the blade. Snickering, he pulled it from the reaper's grasp, and swung it at its owner. Daniel jumped back, and wrenched his scythe back with astral mist. Rather than grab his scythe back properly, he swung the scythe with the mist, using its existing momentum to strike a powerful blow back at Baphomet. This left Daniel open, however, and Baphomet took this chance to rush him down once more. Daniel formed a cloud of astral mist in front of himself and shot out a spike to impale his attacker, but the demon simply dodged out of the way. In doing so, he put himself back in the path of the flying scythe...which he just swatted out of the way. Freed from its astral tether, it flew through the air and plunged into the ground. Daniel raced toward his weapon, only for Baphomet to attack him once more. Daniel simply gave him a face full of astral mist as he made his way toward his scythe. The demon tried to weave his way through the twisting cloud of azure death, but a lucky spike finally caught him in the shoulder. He flinched...but otherwise he showed no signs of harm. Daniel finally pulled out his scythe, and turned around to slash at Baphomet as he approached. He sliced the demon's stomach...and the demon didn't seem to care.

As Daniel stood there bewildered, Baphomet laughed, then slammed the reaper to the ground and pinned him there. "You fool," he mocked Daniel. "I have gained power from the fires of Hell! I could incinerate you right here and now if I so chose!"

With that, Daniel's eyes turned green and reptilian. "How dare you..."

Suddenly, black and red energy burst forth from Daniel's body, blowing Baphomet clean off him. When the dust settled, Daniel was wearing the dark armor of the Nightmare, burning hate-filled eyes trained on Baphomet as astral mist swirled violently around him.

"You know nothing of the power you speak of!" Daniel chastised him angrily. "You think you can take me on with the 'power of Hell'? I am death itself! I was BORN into that power! You cannot destroy me with a flimsy power boost from a pale imitation of my domain!" The astral mist started swirling even more violently, surrounding the two. "And if you dare challenge me again, I'll slaughter you so painfully that you will never WANT to crawl back to the land of the living ever again!" With that, the swirling blue vortex closed around them, slicing Baphomet into microscopic pieces.

Once the demon was gone, Daniel's rage subsided, dispersing the astral mist and vanishing his Nightmare armor into fleeting wisps of black and red energy. Looking back, he saw that the road had been wrecked, riddled with holes and covered in broken asphalt and metal. Ah, screw it, I'll clean this up, Daniel decided. He cleared away the sign metal, and used the broken asphalt to fill in the holes as best as he could.

If I may ask, Luna began suddenly, if you don't care about others, why do you still protect their well-being?

Hmm, not sure I could tell you, Daniel replied. Guess you could call it my conscience. I could never bring myself to leave a major threat alone. Speaking of which... With that, Daniel continued his journey back to Canterlot, hoping to put a cork in Charade's schemes.

Author's Note

This chapter was LONG overdue. This story just got buried in other projects, and the longer I put it off, the more coming back to it felt like a chore. Even so, I still want to see this through.