As another day passed, Octavia began to worry for her parents. It had seemed like forever since they had left for their concert, and the Scratches had gotten very little recent news from them.

Then the newspaper arrived.

'Silence as Monsters Shatter City Train Station' read the headline. The Canterlot Train Station had been shut down after the staff were attacked, according to the paper. All that was left was a vast mess of glass shards covering half of the station, blocking trains from getting in or out. The Canterlot guards were brought in to investigate.

"How could one fangire do all of this?" Octavia wondered aloud. She turned to Mrs. Scratch, who was reading the paper at one of the tables in the coffee shop. "Will my mother and father be alright?"

Mrs. Scratch tapped Octavia's head reassuringly. "Don't worry. According to your parents, their train ride back home was meant to be this afternoon. They're just going to be a little bit late, now that they'll have to change their plans to get home."

"In the meantime, we have developed a new technology to stop the fangire," added the leader of the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization, who also happened to be at the coffee shop that morning.

Yuri Aso looked up from the table she was cleaning. "Mr. Shima, you don't mean..."

The older stallion nodded, holding up a large device that matched the colours of the Canterlot Guards: blue, white, and gold. Although it wasn't shaped like a traditional horseshoe, it was clearly meant to be worn on a hoof. "This is the IXA horseshoe. By stamping the ground with the hoof that this horseshoe is worn on, the wearer will become a masked, armoured warrior of sorts. In other words, they will become a superhero capable of defeating the fangires."

"Ah yes, my mother mentioned plans for a device like that a few years ago," Yuri recalled, before her excited expression deflated. "That was before she... turned into glass..."

Octavia's ears pointed up with curiosity. "Is that why you became a fangire hunter, Ms. Aso?" Octavia asked.

Yuri nodded, then reached her hoof to Mr. Shima. "Please, let me use the IXA horseshoe," she requested. "I've been training hard and waiting for this day to come."

Unfortunately for Yuri, Mr. Shima shook his head. "After your injuries from the last fangire battle, it would be too risky to let you use this equipment for the first time. After all, I have someone else in mind." With that, the leader of the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization tossed the horseshoe over to Jiro, who had been silently enjoying his daily cup of coffee throughout the entire conversation. The dark blue unicorn stallion used his magic to lift up the IXA horseshoe so he could examine it. Yuri and Octavia's eyes both widened: the first in plain shock, and the other on fear.

"Mr. Shima, Jiro has barely been on the team," Yuri began to argue.

"And if I recall correctly, you were the one who suggested that I should hire him," Mr. Shima replied. "Besides, you're still injured from your last fangire encounter."

Yuri sighed, not knowing what to say next. After a while, Mrs. Scratch looked at the clock on the wall. "Hmm, your teacher is really late today. Are you sure he holds classes on Thursdays?" When Octavia nodded, the unicorn mare muttered to herself: "It's been almost half an hour."

"Perhaps he thought today's class was at your house?" suggested the coffee shop owner.

"Maybe," replied Mrs. Scratch, getting up from the table. "Come on, Octavia. Let's head back."

* * *

A few minutes after leaving the Mal d'Amour coffee shop, Octavia and Mrs. Scratch had gotten halfway back to Vinyl's house, and the older pony had sent a quick message to Vinyl's dad to let them know they would be home soon. They were on a road that was usually calm, but still a lot emptier than usual.

"Ouch!" Octavia took a step back to look at what her hoof stepped on. Under her foot was a shard of glass. It was then that Octavia realized how close she was to the Canterlot Train Station.

Mrs. Scratch took a close look at the walkway in front of them. "Perhaps you should stay off the ground here," she suggested, letting the filly ride her back for the rest of the walk home. "Looks like somepony decided to be a little rude."

Octavia looked around frantically. "Um, Mrs. Scratch?"

"Yeah?"

"Which train station got attacked last night?"

Mrs. Scratch looked at the train station nearby. "Oh my, I'm pretty sure it was this one."

"And how long does it take for the royal guards to investigate crimes?"

"I'm not quite sure. Depends on how big it is, I would assume."

"So how long were those helmets lying around there for?"

The older mare's pupils shrank. She turned to see what Octavia pointed at: a golden Royal Guard helmet, surrounded by shard of glass. Upon closer inspection, more glass and armour littered the entire area outside the station. Then the sound of crunching glass broke the silence.

Mrs. Scratch glanced at the filly. "Hold on tight."

She galloped as fast as her hooves could take her away from the crime scene, only to get pulled back by a sticky rope of some sort. Octavia turned around to see two familiar hoof puppets holding the other side of the web. "Oh no, it's that pony again!"

The spider fangire giggled. "And this time, I have friends to help me out!"

Mrs. Scratch, who was now stuck in place, tried to turn her head to see what was going on. "Oh no, he's got puppets," she said sarcastically, before using her magic to lift the puppets off the fangire's hooves and throw them into the station.

The spider fangire gasped. "How dare you!" He ran into the station to retrieve his puppets. "Hang on Bob! I'm coming Sam!"

With a smirk, Mrs. Scratch scrambled to get untied and continued to run, only to stop as two more fangires jumped out of the bushes and in her way. glass structures nearly as big as Octavia's head surrounded the two ponies, with the sharp end of each piece of glass pointing at them like fangs. Mrs. Scratch quickly conjured a force field around her and the filly, only to see that the glass was sucking up the energy of the field.

"Give up, old mare," said one of the fangires. "You'll be a goner either way."

As her energy started to fade away, a familiar violin case appeared, slapping the fangires in the head and distracting them for a moment. Behind them was Otoya Kurenai, with pieces of sticky spiderweb on his familiar bright formal jacket.

"Well, that wasn't the most ideal way to start violin class," commented Otoya, trying to untangle some the spiderweb from his mane.

"Forget the violin classes for now," Octavia told her teacher. "Duck!" Otoya ducked just in time before the glass fangs could get to his neck. The fangs hit each other instead, shattering.

At that point, a metal whip appeared and hit one of the fangires at the side. Yuri and Jiro arrived at the scene, the latter holding the IXA horseshoe. As Yuri used her weapon to distract the fangires for a little longer, Jiro placed the horseshoe on his hoof and stomped in into the ground.

A robotic voice came out of the horseshoe. "READY."

"Transform," Jiro said, causing a magic hologram to appear from the horseshoe and grow into the shape of a suit of armour. In a flash of light, the suit materialized on the unicorn: a black full-body undersuit, with white armour accented with gold and blue. A matching helmet had also appeared on his face, with the golden details opening to reveal the crimson eyepieces of the helmet. In barely five seconds, he had become IXA.

With a single punch, IXA managed to knock one of the fangires off-balance. A white and gold sword appeared from the IXA horseshoe, giving IXA a weapon to slash the monster with.

As Yuri kept the other fangire at bay, IXA took a whistle from the strap around one of his forelegs, and blew the whistle. This caused the sword to light up with electricity. At the same time, the sun seemed to shine much brighter than usual, blinding the fangire before IXA shattered it into a thousand colourful pieces.

Everyone else turned in shock, including the other fangire, who fled before he could be destroyed too. Yuri put away her weapon and Jiro de-transformed, while the other ponies took a sigh of relief. Jiro, exhausted by the fight, immediately fell to sleep on the ground.

* * *

Later, at the hospital, a nurse was talking to Mr. Scratch, while his wife rested in the hospital bed in the room. "Luckily, there's nothing wrong with her vital signs. A lot of rest is recommended, and she should refrain from using too much magic for the next few weeks," the nurse told him. "We can also book an appointment with the magic therapist..."

During their conversation, Octavia was telling Vinyl all about the events of that day.

"Whoa. So you're pretty much saying you guys got ambushed by fangires?" exclaimed Vinyl. "And you survived?!"

"Yeah, thanks to the werewolf pony of all people," replied Octavia. "For someone that secretly attacks ponies, he was quick to save us."

Vinyl smiled. "Well, I'm just glad you're all alright." She gave Octavia a big hug, and then went over to the hospital bed to give her mother a hug as well. "Mom, you were so cool! Standing up to the fangires with your bare hooves! Well, with your magic powers too, but still!"

Octavia couldn't help but smile as well, with Vinyl being so upbeat and optimistic.

Just then, Otoya poked his head into the room. He had been a few rooms away, where Jiro was recovering. "Uh, have any of you seen the IXA horseshoe?" he asked. Octavia and Mrs. Scratch shook their heads, while everyone else just looked at the stallion with confused expressions. "Well that's no good. Jiro forgot to bring it back with him from the train station, and Yuri doesn't have it either."

Vinyl and Octavia looked at each other, then at the violin teacher, then back at themselves. "That's a bad thing, isn't it."

Author's Note

Sorry that I have not updated this story in a long time (I don't even know if anyone is still reading this. These days I do less writing. I mostly just edit for other toku crossovers like Shining Lucky Stars by Axle the Red Exorcist. If you want a toku crossover that is more consistent with it's chapter-posting schedule, check it out!)
However, I felt it would be unfair to leave the story right where it was, without giving Yuri Aso the Ixa powers. So yeah, spoilers for the next chapter.

So if you happen to still be reading this story, thanks and I hope you enjoy it!