Loke arc

The Loke arc is the sixth story arc of the Fairy Tail series.

After the dust from the battle with Phantom Lord settles thing seem to go back to normal. However, Loke suddenly begins acting strangely which raises the suspicion of Lucy who decides to investigate.

The Never Ending Play
Lucy starts moping since she is now broke and can't make her rent again. Just as she starts losing hope due to her teammates destructive nature, Mirajane gives her a mission she has been saving. The job is helping a theater, where all the cast ran away. At first they didn't want to do it, but Erza instantly volunteered and everyone decide to follow.

After a week of practice, the play started, with Erza playing the knight, Lucy a princess, and Gray as the villain. At first Erza was excited, but when she got on the stage she receives massive stage fright. During the battle scene between Erza and Gray their usual destruction starts and the stage gets destroyed. Later Natsu in a dragon costume carried by Happy arrives but Happy accidentally drops him and Natsu starts setting the stage and Lucy on fire. Erza then slashes Lucy's costume and starts battling Natsu and Gray. The result after the play was a destroyed theater and a surprisingly, pleased audience.

Afterward the play became a huge hit, but the manager starts doing multiple acts in one day and everyone starts wanting to go home, except for Erza who still enjoys doing the job.

New Mystery, The Vanished Member
Team Natsu took a new job which involves subduing some thieves. They managed to take out the thieves much earlier than expected and start to spend 1 day of free time. They then happen to meet up with Loke who greets them, but then runs away again from Lucy like usual. Later at night Natsu suggests a pillow fight which then turned into a pillow war that destroyed the hotel room they were staying at. Lucy then takes a walk with Plue since she can't compete with her teammates, along the way Happy plays a prank on her and she then gets subdued by two criminals who tried to kidnap her before being saved by Loke. This time Lucy refuses to let Loke leave without thanking him and they go have a drink, with Plue and Happy thinking their a couple. Despite having a short conversation, Loke tells her that he doesn't have long to live (which is true), where he shortly laughs off saying is a joke he uses to get girls and gets a slap on the face from Lucy.

Upon returning to the guild, Natsu and Gray are covered in bandages from their fight and start arguing over who won. They try to get Lucy to answer them but she gives them a cold stare, which shuts them up, and people start realizing that someone else can shut them up besides Erza. Shortly after all of Loke's girlfriends arrive at the guild wondering where he disappeared to.

Lucy then decides to investigate a little about Loke, and manages to learn that he has a relation to Karen Lilica, a famous Celestial Spirit mage of Blue Pegasus, who died a few years ago. Shortly after Gray arrives telling her that Loke left Fairy Tail, and joins the search for him, thinking she knows where he went. She manages to find Loke at Karen's grave and tells him that she knows Karen was his summoner, and that his real identity, is celestial spirit Leo the Lion one of the ecliptic zodiac.

The Past, The Present, The End
Loke tells Lucy about his past and his pain for the sin he committed three years ago.

Back then he was a Celestial Spirit of Karen Lilica, a very well known member of the Blue Pegasus Guild. However her fame had left her very conceited and arrogant, especially toward her Spirits whom she treated more like tools then living things. One day she was walking around with an entourage of men following her and trying to woo her. Not wanting to deal with them all, she summoned Aries and had her entertain them in Karen's place. A task Aries was very uncomfortable with but Karen gave her very little choice in the matter. The guild master, Bob, seeing this warned Karen on abusing her spirits and that if she continued she would be the next to suffer.

However Karen thought Aries had told on her and when they were alone at her home. She summoned Aries to punish her by making her stay out in the human world for seven days. An act that would kill a Spirit since they presumably can't stay out that long. Before Karen could do so however, Loke suddenly traded places with Aries much to Karen's surprise. He demanded Karen terminate the contracts she had with both spirits explaining that no Celestial Spirit was willing to work with her anymore. Karen tried to force his gate closed but to no avail and since he was out, she couldn't summon any of her other spirits neither. Loke then went to wait in some nearby ruins, telling Karen to come find him once she met his demands.

Ten days passed and indeed Karen did so as Loke was struggling to maintain himself in the human realm. However Karen stubbornly refused to his conditions and he to her wish to go back to the Spirit World, thus Karen was forced to go back into town without him. Thirty days pass afterward and once again she visited, now begging Loke and promising not to mistreat Aries anymore. Loke however saw through her lies and refused her offer. This angers Karen who stomps on him and proclaim that once he died, she can summon Aries and treat her ten times as worse then before leaving him be. Three month and Loke find he can stay in the human world much more easily though can't stop his vitality from draining. He then decided to forgive Karen, feeling she learned her lesson and that he could just defend Aries again if she mistreats her.

However once he got back into town he found out Karen had went on a mission, despite no spirits, and had gotten herself killed as result. Hearing this has caused Loke to feel guilty and since then has blamed himself for her death.

After finishing his story he collapses, and starts disappearing since his life force is starting to disappear, but Lucy refuses to let him die and tries to think of a way to open his gate.

The King's Decision
Lucy tries everything she can to save Loke despite him giving up, and wanting to atone for his sin and not having his key. She tries to forcefully open his gate and nearly merges with his life force which would make her disappear as well. Loke tries to make her stop saying he doesn't need to be saved, but Lucy refuses and officially declares her wish to change the rules of the stellar spirit world.

Then the terrain starts to change and the Celestial Spirit King shows up, greatly shocking them. The king tells Lucy that despite Leo not breaking the rules directly he still broke the rules and is not allowed to return to the spirit world. Lucy argues with him saying that hes suffered enough and that its not fair how the king can just let his friend die, which trouble the king since he wants to save him but he can't change the rule. Lucy still argues saying that he shouldn't focus on the past and that he should focus on now. Despite Loke telling Lucy to stop, she still refuses and her will and determination, allows her to summon all her ecliptic spirits and Plue who stand by her side and support her decision. This surprises Loke and the King since stellar mages shouldn't be able to summon more than 1 spirit. The spirits disappear shortly after and Lucy collapses from over usage of magic which nearly took her life. Loke then rushes towards her but Lucy still hasn't given up and the King decides that since Lucy would go this far to save Loke and that the rule is what causing both of them to suffer. He decides to call this case an exception and allows Leo to return to the spirit world.

Loke at first didn't want to due to his sin, but the king ordered him to continue living for the sake of his friends and Lucy, if he still wants to atone for his sin, instead of dying. Shortly after Loke's gate opens and he sheds tears and thanks Lucy for all that she has done for him. He tells her that despite the fact his sin hasn't been erased, he at least can now look up and continue forward, and gives her his key saying he will be there for her whenever she needs him. Which she agrees too also. The next day, Lucy summons Loke and let's him explain to the others everthing. Happy starts drooling on Loke because he is, as he called him, a "big cat". Loke then flashes tickets for a vacation resort, and had already given one to Erza. Then Erza shows up with a Hawaiian getup and her large luggage as usual. They leave as soon as possible to the resort.

Anime Differences

 * During the play numerous filler characters appeared.
 * After completing the job and staying at the hotel, it showed Juvia followed Team Natsu and even supplied Gray with numerous pillows for the pillow fight.
 * There was a public bath scene added in Ep 31, which showed Lucy and Loke enjoying a drink together, and him secretly telling her about who he really is, by telling her what happens to a star that can't return.
 * When Lucy's spirits were summoned, she summoned all the spirits she had which was a total of 9 at the time. In the Manga she only summoned 6, all 5 of her gold keys and plue.
 * When Loke told Lucy that he can finally move on, he said this to her after returning to the spirit world. In the manga, he said this as he was returning to the spirit world.