Year X784, the year when Fairy Tail's main story time starts. Lucy should join the Guild this year, indicating the beginning of the main story plot. But with all the changes that Alex made, things might be very different later.
The 1st event that should be the opening of the main story even changes. Lucy should meet Natsu after running away from her home and joining the Guild later. But she doesn't have any problem back home, so there's no reason to run away.
Even so, she still leaves her home to join Fairy Tail this year. The difference is, she leaves with her parents' approval. Her relationship with them is good, thanks to Alex, and her mother is still alive despite being sickly now because of the weak constitution she has since birth.
Lucy has always planned to be a Mage and joined Fairy Tail. It's all because of Alex. He influenced her when he stayed in her family's residence. She really admired him and thought of him as her older brother.
She wanted to follow his steps to be a Mage and wanted to join his Guild. Jude didn't agree at first because it's a dangerous profession, but he changed his mind quickly thanks to Layla who supported Lucy's dream and convinced him.
Anyway, Lucy finally leaves her home to join Fairy Tail this year, just like in the original story. However, unlike how she meets Natsu first, she just comes to Magnolia herself because she has planned this seriously.
Lucy shyly enters the Guild after pacing around in front of the Guild for a while. Everyone's eyes land on her, making her feel anxious. Then suddenly she hears a voice from behind.
"Umm, can you step aside? You are blocking the entrance."
Lucy jumps to the side in surprise and looks at the one talking. Makarov is standing behind her with his usual goofy expression. He walks forward a little before stopping and looking at Lucy again.
"Do you need something from our Guild, Young Miss?" Makarov asks Lucy, startling her.
"Y-yes! U-um, this is Fairy Tail, right?"
"That is correct, we are Fairy Tail. Magnolia's Magic Guild, Fairy Tail." Makarov's answer makes Lucy smile.
"U-um, I want to join please. I can also use magic."
"Oya? So you are here to apply? That's great, we get another member."
They accept Lucy easily because there really isn't any difficult requirement to join the Guild. But they don't know Lucy's magic, so they do a small test as usual. It's to see her abilities so they can assign the correct jobs for her.
She shows her magic by fighting Makarov in the training ground. The old man is a little surprised when Lucy takes out a Gold Key. After all, Gold Keys are rare as there are only 12 of them.
Lucy summons Capricorn to attack Makarov. Capricorn shows some decent attacks, but Makarov can handle them with ease. Then after a while, Makarov stops the fight even though it has only been a minute.
"How many Spirit Keys do you have?"
"Uh, I have 5 Gold Keys."
"5?!" Makarov is surprised because just getting 1 Gold Key is difficult, but Lucy has 5.
She has Capricorn, Aquarius, Cancer, Taurus, and Sagittarius. Layla gave her the keys of Capricorn, Aquarius, and Cancer, while she got Taurus and Sagittarius by herself somehow. Lucy also has some Silver Keys now.
Actually, Layla also has 2 more Gold Keys, Leo and Aries. She got them from Karen Lilica of Blue Pegasus a while after borrowing them to open the Eclipse Gate. Layla rescued Leo and Aries after Ultear told her that their contractor, Karen was abusing them after she returned from the Spirit world.
At first, Layla tried to buy the keys from Karen, but the young Mage refused even though Layla offered a lot of money. After all, she needs the Gold Keys to keep working as a Mage and her hobby to flirt with men.
Karen didn't budge no matter what Layla offered until Layla made a bet with her. Layla challenged Karen into a duel, betting their Gold Keys as prizes. Karen would get 3 Gold Keys if she won, Capricorn, Cancer, and Aquarius that have been returned to Layla by her close aides.
The thought of getting 3 Gold Keys makes Karen very excited. But she still tried to get more rewards, so she asked for some money if she won which Layla agreed without batting an eyelid. Layla was very confident in her victory and so was Karen.
Karen had a great confidence in her high amount of magic power, so she summoned both Leo and Aries at once. Even summoning 1 Zodiac already used a lot of the Mage's magic power, so summoning 2 Zodiacs at once is impossible for most Mages.
Layla was surprised, but she didn't lose her confidence. She summoned Capricorn and used the Star Dress technique. Karen was surprised because she doesn't know about Star Dress as she didn't explore Celestial Spirit Magic that much.
Also, while Layla only summons Capricorn, she actually had enough magic power to summon 2 more Zodiacs. It's just that her body was weak, so summoning more than 1 Spirit will strain her body too much as she used too much magic power, so she only summoned 1.
Wearing Capricorn's Star Dress actually makes her body stronger for a while. But she still doesn't summon another Spirit because she wasn't cornered yet, so there was no need to summon another Spirit.
After their battle started, Capricorn attacked Leo while Layla gave him commands. Her commands were detailed instead of just asking him to attack or use some techniques. She actually told Capricorn where to attack, how to attack, and even the attack time and power.
What's more, Layla's commands were short and sometimes even sounded like codes. Her bond with her Spirits was deep and they knew each other so well that they have their own ways to communicate with each other.
Compared to that, Karen's commands were cruder. At most, she would tell Leo and Aries what spells to use, but she mostly let them fight on their own. Also, she keeps Aries on her side to protect her while supporting Leo from behind.
It was because she was very confident in her Spirits' abilities as she believed everything depended on her magic power. Her Spirits would be stronger the more magic power she had and gave them, and she wasn't really wrong here.
Spirits do need their contractors' magic power to use their abilities on Earthland. So their abilities can really get stronger the more magic power they receive from their contractors.
However, skills are also very important, especially leadership skills because Celestial Mages are basically commanders and their Spirits are soldiers. So trust and understanding between the Mages and their Spirits are very important.
Under Layla's commands, Capricorn managed to overwhelm Leo and Aries despite being alone. He also just mostly used physical attacks, but all his attacks were effective and efficient. He didn't waste too much energy while still afflicting a lot of damage.
"ARGH! DO SOMETHING, YOU USELESS SPIRITS!" Karen became very angry seeing both of her spirits losing to a single spirit.
"You shouldn't call your spirits useless!" Layla suddenly appears in front of Karen. She could move very fast thanks to Capricorn's Star Dress that gave her access to Capricorn's abilities.
"WHA-!?" Karen was taken by surprise. She was standing quite far back and Aries was supposed to protect her, so she didn't expect to suddenly get attacked.
When she looked at Aries, she was surprised to see Capricorn had pinned down both Leo and Aries on the ground. Capricorn coordinated his attack very precisely with Layla. It really showed how great the trust and understanding between Layla and Capricorn.
Layla pushes Karen down to the ground and pinned her down. "There's no useless Spirit. Spirits only do what their contractors wanted them to do. They will follow their contractors' commands even if they don't want to. Their power also depends on their contractors' power. Being a Celestial Spirit Mage doesn't mean you just need to supply magic power to them. You become partners when you contracted spirits. You need to understand your partners and form good relationships with them. If you don't even know them, how will you draw out their real power? If you don't even have good relationships with them, how will you even understand them? There's no useless spirit, only useless Celestial Mages who don't know how to draw out their Spirits' full potential."
This was clearly Karen's defeat and many people from Blue Pegasus witnessed it, so she couldn't run away from the agreed bet. She could only hand over both Leo's and Aries's keys to Layla even though she was unwilling.
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Thank you for reading this story. Please support by clicking like or vote if you like this story. It is much appreciated.
Read ahead up to +50 chapters in my patreon page, patreon.com/GrimFairy
Ch. 149. August vs Acnologia