Suddenly the Tantabus pulsed, nearly doubling in size and knocking away all of the ponies attempting to beat it down.
“Am I crazy,” said Sir Spike the Bold in a nervous tone, riding a giant Derpy, “or did it just get even bigger after Luna said that?”
Twilight looked up at the dream monster that was preparing to breach into reality, before giving one last look around the dreamscape of Ponyville. “Isn’t there anypony else that can do something?” she pleaded.
At that moment, the giant glowing red outline of a symbol flashed in the air above the Tantabus, a circular seal ringed in runic characters around what looked like an ‘X’ with triangles above and below it, accompanied by a disembodied voice.
Engage...Please
The Tantabus pulled down away from the seal even after it had faded, and began squirming. Then Twilight heard a humming behind her, and turned to see a much smaller version of the seal appear horizontally in midair, the center expanding out to meet the rim compressing in. In a glow, a figure dropped out of the seal onto the ground before the seal faded away. Clad in black, wearing a silver belt with a black hand buckle, a black cloak that was red on the inside, red wrist and ankle cuffs, and with red crystal plating on his chest and face, the figure stood up onto two legs, his faceplate bearing silver lines in the same arrangement as the center of the seal.
“So,” said Haruto, looking around, “what seems to be the proble…ah, never mind. I see it.” He looked up at the Tantabus floating over the town. “This is a big one. Well,” he took off the black hand-bearing ring on his right hand and clicked it onto a strap hanging from the left side of his belt, “nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
“Um…,” Twilight said, approaching the new figure, “who are you?”
Haruto looked over at the lavender pony and saw the fear in her eyes. He turned to her and said, “I’m someone who fights to be the one to bring the hope that’s needed in times of despair.” He took an orange-stoned ring from the strap and slid it onto his right middle finger, holding up his right hand to display the silver design on top of the ring’s stone. “I’m a Wizard. And if I’m going to fight,” he pushed a silver tab on the left of his belt buckle up then down to flip the hand design from the left and back to the right, and a circular white seal began glowing at the center of it, “I’ll need my music.”
He held his right hand over the hand buckle and the ring’s stone glowed brightly orange.
Theme, Please
Drums began playing from nowhere, followed by someone singing, “Maji ka, maji de, magic da sho-ow tiiiime!” Trumpets then joined in.
Twilight stared at Haruto. “Really?”
Haruto shrugged. “It’s a dream, I can do what I want. Now…,” he swapped rings on his right hand again, turning towards the Tantabus, “showtime.”
He flipped the hand buckle left and right again, and the belt began chanting.
Lupacchi Magic, Tatchi Go. Lupacchi Magic, Tatchi Go.
He held up his right hand to display the design of this new ring as being a dragon, then held it over the hand buckle.
Lupacchi Magic—Dragorise!
A large red magic seal appeared in midair over him, and he held up his right arm as the red crystals on his outfit began glowing, a burst of flame shooting from his hand at the seal.
Please
The flames formed themselves into a large mechanical black, silver, and gold dragon. This dragon gave a loud screech before shooting forward. There was still one walking “monster house” that the Tantabus had created left, and it was approaching a group of ponies, but the dragon slammed into it, knocking it over and leaving purple cracks across its roof and seemingly in the air above the impact point. The dragon then looped around back onto the town and crashed through another house, this one not monsterfied, leaving similar purple cracks.
“Ah?” Haruto observed. “Uh-oh.”
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Twilight shouted. “That thing’s causing more damage than the Tantabus!”
“A large source of despair nearby must be dulling my influence over him,” Haruto said calmly, taking off the red-stoned ring on his left hand. “Give me a second.” He replaced it with a ring bearing a green stone and pushed the tab on the right side of his belt buckle down to flip the hand buckle to the left.
Oo sha ba doo bi Tatchi Henshin.
He held his left hand over the hand buckle.
Oo sha ba doo bi Tatchi—Hurricane, Please
Fuu, Fuu. Fuu, Fuu, Fuu Fuu.
A green magic seal appeared over him, and he jumped up through it, turning the red aspects of his outfit to green and swapping the round shape of his crystal faceplate with an upside down triangle. He then pushed off from the seal to launch into the air, a cone of green winds swirling around him to propel him.
The mechanical dragon screeched as it continued to fly over the town, smashing the occasional rooftop and leaving behind more purple cracks. Haruto flew in overtop of the dragon to give chase, but the dragon refused to slow down.
“Dragon!” Haruto shouted after him, swapping for another orange ring on his right hand and flipping the hand buckle back to the right before scanning the new ring.
Connect, Please
A green magic seal appeared up ahead of him on the left. He had to time this right. He gave himself another burst of speed to bring himself overtop of the dragon again. Just as he was passing by the magic seal, he reached his right hand over and into the seal, and pulling out one side of a set of handlebars. The rest of the motorcycle followed as he sped forward, and grabbing the other side of the handlebars with his left hand, the bike split vertically down the middle and fanned out, the two halves latching onto the dragon’s small wings and the seat attaching to its back.
Haruto landed in the seat and steered WizarDragon up away from rooftop level with the dragon’s new motorcycle-half wings. He flipped the hand buckle back to the left.
Oo sha ba doo bi Tatchi Henshin.
Replacing his green lefthand ring with his original red one, he scanned it on the hand buckle.
Oo sha ba doo—Flame, Please
Hii. Hii.
A red magic seal appeared in front of WizarDragon, and Haruto steered him right into it, his outfit’s accent color changing back to red in a burst of flames as WizarDragon flew through.
Hii Hii Hii!
Haruto flew WizarDragon back over the town to the final monster house, now having gotten back up again. Haruto revved the motorcycle’s handlebars, and WizarDragon shot a blast of fire at the house, hitting and destroying it in a massive explosion.
He turned back to the sky and began approaching the Tantabus overhead. It was quite a sight, even with his experience with Inner Phantoms, being little more than an amorphous cloud of gel-like smoky darkness with a deep indigo hue.
“I can’t tell if this thing is supposed to be 3D or 2D,” Haruto said. Then he noticed one of its tendrils slice a glowing tear in the night sky. “Oh? But it seems to be trying to break the fourth wall.”
WizarDragon flew at the tendril now trying to slink through the tear in the dreamscape and shot another fireball at it. Upon impact, the Tantabus retracted like an amoeba, beginning to squirm again. Haruto steered WizarDragon in a loop around the creature, shooting more fireballs to force it to condense smaller.
Suddenly the Tantabus convulsed and flowed its volume into another part of itself to “relocate” overtop of them. Haruto decided to take it by surprise and steered WizarDragon directly up. The Tantabus shot tendrils down at them, but WizarDragon easily spun to evade them. The Tantabus then flowed more of itself into the tendrils now reaching past Haruto and WizarDragon, expanding the tendrils to form a bubble around them.
The crowd below gave a collective gasp, but a burst of flames shot out of the top of the Tantabus, quickly followed by WizarDragon. Haruto steered him over and down away from the Tantabus, then curved back around for another pass. He flipped the hand buckle back to the right before scanning his orange righthand ring again.
Connect, Please
A red magic seal appeared in midair ahead of him on the right. As WizarDragon flew past, Haruto stuck his right hand into the seal and pulled out a silver sword with a black hand folded into a fist attached just above the hilt.
He jumped up to stand on the seat of the bike, grabbing the thumb of the sword’s hand and pulling it up, flipping open the rest of the fingers into an open hand, a white seal glowing at the center.
C’mon and Slash, Shake Hands
He grabbed the hand with his left hand and the red stone on his ring began glowing, a red magic seal flashing over it.
Flame, Slash Strike.
Hii Hii Hii.
The blade of the sword began glowing orange as flames spun around it in the pattern of winding magic seals.
Hii Hii Hii. Hii Hii Hii.
WizarDragon flew at the Tantabus. It tried to back away, but WizarDragon shot a burst of flames past it, forcing it back towards them. Haruto held the flaming sword vertical as WizarDragon screeched again, the red gemstone on his head glowing. WizarDragon tilted to the right, and Haruto swung his sword around and slashed forward from the right, slicing into the Tantabus’s noncorporeal form. A giant red magic seal appeared in front of them and flew forward along the Tantabus, seemingly freezing in place the parts of the creature it passed over, allowing Haruto to hold the sword stationary and let WizarDragon fly him along the Tantabus, slicing it down the middle and leaving the cleaved edges flaming. As they reached the end, Haruto swung the sword forward to fully separate the creature in half, WizarDragon flying on as the magic seal faded. Behind them, a row of magic seals expanded along the Tantabus from end to end as it became engulfed in flames, and then collapsed back down, triggering a series of explosions that fully incinerated the last of the creature.
Haruto pushed the thumb of the sword’s hand back down, closing the fingers back into a fist as he heard the closing run of trumpets for his theme song. “Maji ka, maji de, magic da sho-ow tiiiime!”
Haruto sat back down onto the bike seat and steered WizarDragon down from the sky. Reality was safe from a living nightmare.
“You were so worried about causing despair in others,” Haruto explained, still armored as Wizard, to the group of ponies in Twilight’s castle back in the real world, “that you didn’t realize that your own despair for yourself was the worst kind, and leaving those feelings undealt with was the most dangerous thing you could have done. It wasn’t the same as the Phantoms I typically deal with, but it used the same principals. Though, the dream jumping part was new, I’ll admit.”
“But the Tantabus,” Princess Luna said, “with all the power it had. How were you able to defeat it so easily?”
“Destroying monsters that feed on despair is my specialty,” Haruto continued, waving a finger in the air as if this fact had been obvious, “particularly those of a magical basis. It just wasn’t prepared for one who had the right tools to beat it.” He turned and began walking to his motorcycle sitting off to the side.
“Thank you,” Princess Luna replied. “Though after all this, I don’t know how I’ll ever get to sleep again.”
Haruto stopped, thought a second, then reached down and unhooked an orange-stoned ring from the belt’s strap. “Try this,” he said, tossing it over his shoulder. “I don’t have any use for it.”
Luna caught the ring in her hoof then lifted it with magic to get a closer look. The silver image against the orange gemstone was of a dragon with its eyes closed wrapped around a circle at the center. Luna looked back up at Haruto, now sitting on his motorcycle. He flipped the hand buckle to the left then the right, scanning the ring on his right hand.
Connect, Please
A red magic seal appeared in front of him.
“Ja,” he said in a more natural-sounding tone than anything he’d said previously. He held up his left hand and waved it once. “Bai.” He drove the motorcycle into and through the magic seal, and it shrunk and faded behind him.
The ponies simply stared in silence, realizing that he’d never actually explained how he’d gotten there or knew they’d needed help.
Luna looked back at the ring and then up at where the magic seal had been. “What an odd wizard.”