Synopsis:
The chapter opens with Lucy noting exactly where Fairy Tail's
headquarters is before mentioning that she's found a place to rent
that, while expensive, is in a convenient location for her. As Lucy
gets out of a comfortable bath and looks over how nice her apartment
is, she is stunned when she returns to her room to find Natsu and
Happy there, eating her food. She kicks them both and demands to know
why they're there, to which Natsu simply explains that Mirajane told
him and he wanted to come visit her, despite Lucy's repeated pleas
for him to leave. Natsu picks up some papers off of Lucy's desk which
she immediately takes back and again demands he leave.
In
the end, Lucy makes them both a cup of tea in an attempt to get them
to leave afterwards, but Natsu wants to see all of the 'key guys'
that Lucy has. She declines saying that it consumes a lot of magic,
but she does show him the six keys she has. She explains that there
are silver keys that anyone can buy, of which she has Horologium the
clock (whom we saw in chapter 2), Crux the Southern Cross, and Lyra
the Lyre. On top of that there are much rarer golden keys that open
the gates of the Ecliptic Zodiac. Her three from that group are
Taurus the Bull (whom we saw in chapter 3), Aquarius the Water Bearer
(whom we saw in chapter 1), and Cancer the Crab.
After
showing off her six keys, Lucy finally remembers that she hasn't made
a contract with the last key that she bought back in Harujion -
Nicola the Canis Minor. She agrees to show them how a Stellar Spirit
Mage makes a contract, which Happy wonders if it involves blood seals
(which Natsu mistakenly hears as 'butt seals'). Instead of seals
however, Lucy holds the key out into the air before her and says a chant, eventually summoning Nicola who is revealed to be a small,
weird snowman looking creature (that may look familiar if you've ever
seen a certain anime or read it's manga). Lucy and Happy think it's a
dud, but Lucy thinks it's cute and says that while this summon
doesn't use much magic, it's a popular spirit. Lucy then makes a
contract with Nicola, who responds to her with various 'puuun'
sounds. The contract consists of agreeing what days she may summon
the creature, which she explains as being an 'unbreakable promise'
between the Mage and Spirit.
Lucy
decides that she needs to give it a name other than it's usual
'Nicola' title, and decides to call it Plue. Plue suddenly starts
doing various gestures, and Natsu is somehow able to understand what
it's saying. Natsu admits that back with the Balkan, he hadn't been
sure if Lucy should come along, but her summons had proven helpful,
and she seems to be a good person, so he agrees to Plue's idea - they
should form a team. Happy explains that though everyone in the guild
are friends, they often make teams that travel together, so that
difficult requests will go more smoothly. Lucy agrees to join Natsu
and Happy's team, and Natsu says he's already got a mission for them.
Looking
over the assignment, Lucy reads that all they need to do is go get a
book from the Duke of Evaroo's mansion and they'll get 200,000
jewels. The catch however is that the Duke is a pervert and a
womanizer, and he's currently seeking to hire a blonde maid, and Lucy
can't help but wonder if Natsu planned it this way all along, while
Happy suggests that she practice by calling him 'Master'.
Back
at the guild headquarters, a woman is looking for the Evaroo Mansion
job listing, but Mirajane says that Natsu and Lucy have already taken
it. Makarov tells Levi (the woman) that perhaps it's best she didn't
go, saying that the job just became a little troublesome. Mirajane
asks if it was cancelled, but Makarov says the reward was just raised
to two million jewels. Everyone in the guild freaks out, many saying
they just missed a great job, while Gray overhears this and thinks
that things are getting interesting.
On
a carriage that's taking them to Shirotsume Town where the Duke is,
Lucy takes pleasure in Natsu's usual transportation trauma, while
Happy still insists she should practice calling him 'Master'.
Thoughts:
This chapter opens up with a nice bit of location stuff, telling us
exactly where the town Fairy Tail headquarters is located in is, as
well as stuff like there's a church nearby Fairy Tail - which I can't
help but wonder is a joke towards the traditional 'rivalry' between
those types of organizations. It's all fairly interesting stuff, but
I really hope it's not crucial to remember, as I'm really bad with
this sort of stuff.
We
get some nice token fan-service of Lucy when she's in the tub, rather
tastefully done though. Nowadays you can't get away with near as much
in a shonen title, compared to the full chest shots in older titles
like Dragon Ball. Not that I'm complaining or anything, mind you.
...Moving on, I have noticed that so far, everything in these early
chapters has been told from Lucy's point-of-view rather than Natsu's,
so maybe she's more of the lead character than he is? It's an odd
situation.
Speaking
of Dragon Ball, I definitely do get some Goku and Bulma vibes from
Lucy and Natsu's interactions. It's hard to say if Natsu has any
interest in girls at all so far, but he certainly lacks a lot of
social graces just like our old monkey boy did, and constantly gets
punished for it.
A
lot of Lucy's 'talking to herself' moments in the earlier chapters
did have a hint of diary writing to them, and after Natsu grabbed
some papers off of the desk, I'm wondering if that's what it was
after all.
Once
we get into the whole explanation of Lucy's keys, I was enthralled,
as this is what I'd been wondering about from the beginning. Everyone
else's magic that we've seen so far seems to stem from themselves
somehow, but Lucy's seems to operate on an entirely different
principle, so I was looking forward to seeing how it worked. I wasn't
disappointed either, but I am wondering if we'll ever get an even
more in-depth look at it all. I mean, I still have a lot of questions
left over about them. If anyone can buy those silver ones at the
store, does that mean there are multiples of the same summons? If
not, what happens if two people try to summon the same creature at
once? Maybe that's what the time agreements in the contracts are
about, to make sure nothing overlaps. And does somebody make these
keys, or have they always existed somewhere? Maybe just the golden
ones do, and the silver ones were made based off of those? And either
way, do the creatures exist without the keys, or were they created
when the keys were? So much stuff that I still really want an
explanation for!
I'll
admit, I chuckled at the 'butt seals' comment, but mostly because it
blindsided me because at that moment, I had been wondering if it
involved blood seals just like Happy wondered. That is a traditional
'summoning' aspect in a lot of stories with magic, and it could have
been done without being too morbid here - just say, her having to
prick her finger first, or something - but I'm glad that we've gone a
more original route here.
And
enter Plue, excellent. If you thought the name sounded familiar, see
if you've ever seen any of an anime called 'Rave Master'. It was
based upon a manga called simply 'Rave' I believe, by Mashima long
before he would do Fairy Tail, and Plue is - sort-of - a returning
character from that manga. I'm not really sure on the mechanics of
how connected the two series would be because of this as I only had a
passing interest in Rave Master, but I still got a smile when I saw
Plue. I remember liking the guy, and it's clear that his arrival is
meant to be a treat for fans of Mashima's prior series, and I always
love that kind of stuff.
Since
I'm half agreeing with Lucy that Natsu had planned making her join
him all along, I'm not really sure if I buy him understanding what
Plue was saying. He seems earnest enough about it, as does Happy, but
it is a little questionable. That and I have to call into question
how useful Lucy actually was during the whole Balkan material, but eh
- I already considered her a part of Natsu's 'team' anyway.
As
we head into the next storyline, I'm really interested to see what
will happen in it, especially with how much higher that reward just
shot up. I don't think it's going to be easy though, since Makarov
described the change as 'troublesome', but then had a big smirk on
his face.
I
was dead-on with my prediction last time, that we would see another
summon out of Lucy, and it was exactly the one I'd been waiting to
see ever since I started reading the manga. Looking ahead to what
might be coming next chapter...I'm thinking we actually won't see
another summon just yet, I'm thinking Mashima might want to start
varying it up a little bit. We may see one of the previous summons
however, and we will probably see a new one either the chapter after
the next one, or the one after that. I'm also predicting that by the
end of this little adventure, the gang's not going to have the two
million berries due to some mistake or another - probably Natsu
blowing everything up along the way.
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