Template:The Earth Land Chronicles/March 2013

 ''Welcome to another issue of The Earth Land Chronicles. This article will a relatively sarcastic overview of things in the Fairy Tail series, which will probably be presented in chronological order. This could include main villains, Dragon Slayers, Celestial Spirits, all in the order they were revealed. Our first series will be the story arcs of Fairy Tail, with an arc being done each month. So let's continue with the Daphne arc.'' 

Welcome back, readers! I'm Ultraprime2 and this month, we go off into a short, filler arc known as the Daphne arc. This arc features the Fairy Tail Mages fighting a crazy lady named Daphne who has kidnapped Natsu and wants to use him to power her mechanical dragon. Afterwards, the Mages deal with a few relatively minor things before the arc ends. Before anyone asks, no, the fact that I'm writing about a short arc has nothing to do with the fact that my university dissertation was due a few days ago and I wanted to spend more time working on that.

FT Wiki: We don't believe you >_>

Ultra: Fine. Wish me luck, still.

So anyways, we start off this arc with a quick view of Team Natsu returning to Fairy Tail after their battle against Oración Seis. Lucy has obtained the Celestial Spirits Aries, Scorpio and Gemini which previously belonged to Seis' Angel, who was arrested. They make no mention of the spirit Caelum, which Angel also used to own. So the newest members of Fairy Tail are Wendy and Carla, for whom a party is thrown before it turns into a brawl. Ah, Fairy Tail.....your inability to enjoy a party without punch is staggering. No pun intended ;)

Moving on, it's a while later when Wendy and Carla want to take a job and both Lucy and Levy want them to do it with their teams. Seems best friends don't always agree. At the same time, Gray tells Natsu that a woman named Daphne spotted a dragon and apparently nobody else did. Convinced it could be Igneel, Natsu heads off with Wendy ignoring the girls, thinking she might find her dragon. Gajeel decides to be a cool loner though and stay behind since he thinks the information is fake. Meanwhile, Erza asks a cake shop to help her cheat on her diet (Well how else is she so skinny?) by baking 50 cakes under the pretense of a party, since she intends to eat 49 herself. While leaving, she enters a dark alley smart move and crosses swords with something big before it leaves.

So Natsu, Wendy, Happy and Carla wander to the supposed area where the person lives. Walking around an inn which is absolutely desolate, the gang investigates various rooms of the shabby place, which has handles that come off the door when you pull them. Happy continues his crush on Carla and soon after, there's nowhere to look but one room. One room to which the door is surrounded by weird, large stuffed animals. Guess we know what's coming next.

Once the door opens, a woman sucking on a rather large sausage appears. No, not that kind of sausage, get your mind out of the gutter. She's Daphne and she's eating her Metamo-chan. Thankfully, that's not her daughter's name or anything. Getting excited, Daphne brings them into her room where there are fireworks for some strange reason. She repeatedly attempts to sell her diet products even though none of the gang expressed interest but soon relents when Natsu mentions the dragons. Though she initially thinks that dragons wanna go on a diet. Back at the guild, everyone is discussing the guy Erza fought and Juvia is crying her eyes out cause Gray has disappeared. Poor girl.

So in the inn, Daphne reveals she lied about seeing a dragon, naturally pissing off Natsu. However, the Mages try to leave but they find that they can't. They've been cut off from the outside world! Daphne is intent on keeping them there but she's not alone! She has a partner in crime and his name is Gray-sama. Or at least, Juvia would say it is. Gray spouts some stuff about how he wants to settle his score with Natsu. Since he's working for Daphne, she tells him to crush Natsu and he prepares to do so. Gray attacks, surprising everyone else and forcing Natsu to fight. Carla suspects he's a fake but this is disproved pretty quickly once he takes his clothes off. Oh how his stripping serves as his alternate I.D.

The battle between Gray and Natsu is pretty evenly-matched for the most part and since Mashima had no involvement and this Natsu had no nakama power the battle moves out of Daphne's bedroom and into the hallway. Daphne says Gray volunteered to work of his own free will, having not learned that you do not talk with your mouth full. Happy immediately suspects that the two of them are in a relationship, something she doesn't deny. During the battle, Gray mutters something about a soundless city, which isn't really important yet. The fight moves into a pool that Daphne has a tendency to swim naked in =P and Gray tries and fails to imprison Natsu. However, Natsu gets out and quickly shifts the area again. While running to stop the fight, Wendy and the cats see Lucy and Erza approaching.

However, the two of them can't see the inn due to Daphne's Magic concealing it. Outside, they're confronted by the one who attacked Erza. Lucy summons Virgo to help out but is attacked by another creature who distracts her attention. Virgo, intending to show the creature what digging holes is all about. However, she can't do so and has Loke take over the fight. The enemy is copying their abilities and making things harder. Daphne reveals that she made the enemy herself with the ability to copy Magic powers and gather information on Mages as a result. Meanwhile the battle continues with both Gray and Natsu having trouble. Just as it seems Natsu has won the fight, Gray freezes his feet and lets him fall into a hole of Daphne's I must sound so pervy right about now much to her pleasure. Natsu, unable to get out, remembers the time he found a dragon egg as a child. No, not that egg but an anime-only egg that doesn't fit into the main plot. Suddenly, he's electrocuted from all ends for some reason.

Outside, Loke can't continue a pointless fight so Lucy summons the most pointless spirit of all: Plue! Little Plue is best at looking cute and being a pet. Using a variety of moves in quick progression that makes the audio sound like the chicken dance, Plue manages to tire out the enemy who disintegrates as Plue gets a compliment from Lucy and goes home. Suddenly, a dragon busts out from the ground, much to the surprise of the girls. Wendy arrives as well but Natsu is still inside getting electrocuted. His power is getting sucked out of his body and there's nothing he can do. Wendy reveals what's gone on and that Gray has become a traitor.

He's standing on the snout of the Dragonoid without his shirt on, trying to look cool.

Daphne, being the maniac she is, asks why she's not being praised for her craziness. Natsu remains unable to break out and his attempts serve only to further Daphne's plan. Gray tells them they won't be able to beat the Dragonoid just as Carla, coincidentally remembers hearing about a dangerous, dragon-crazed Mage who was trying to create an artificial dragon. Seriously!? Fillers are known for crappy writing but jeez >_>

So she reveals her history of how she used her old home city as an experiment ground. But everyone coincidentally knew Magic (though only 10% of all Fiore is supposed to be capable) and used a spell called Hidden to hide themselves. Daphne then cast a spell over them, making them unable to dispel their Magic, hiding them forever. Soon after, Natsu supposedly came looking for Igneel but never found him. After this, Daphne knew she needed a Dragon Slayer for her dragon to work. Back in the present, the Dragonoid gets ready to move.

Suddenly, Elfman, Wakaba and Macao arrive, with the former knocking out Gray with a quick punch to the gut on the master's orders to bring him back. As the Dragonoid takes off to Magnolia by flight (even though it could barely walk a moment ago >_>) Erza resolves to take it down herself while the others head back to Magnolia. On their way, Erza has to fight multiple Lizardmen as do the men, all of which take on their characteristics, including Wakaba's ridiculous hairstyle. The battle is arduous and the men have a deal of trouble. Meanwhile, Natsu remembers the promise he made to the people affected by Daphne, making his Magic power grow to great proportions and affect the functioning of the Dragonoid, though it doesn't matter for too long as Daphne puts an end to it.

Back at Fairy Tail the men arrive, injured, and Elfman thinks back to an anime scene of him crying over his sister's death and Natsu telling him to stop. Meanwhile, Juvia defends her Gray-sama, stating he would never betray Fairy Tail. As he goes to see the master, everyone resolves to save Natsu in true Nakama power fashion. However, the mediocre epicness is soon cut off by Makarov who tells them to prioritize saving Magnolia first. Natsu agree with him as well, telling them to take down the Dragonoid with him inside.

Meanwhile, Gray is inside being interrogated by Makarov. Revealing that he set up Natsu to be captured to he could destroy the Dragonoid from inside-out, Makarov points out that it wouldn't have been needed if he hadn't handed him over in the first place. However, there was another reason: Natsu has to keep his promise to the people. Insert some of Gray's self-deprecation here and some Natsu praise and then we move on to Gray going out to help with a plan of Makarov's.

In her Dragonoid, Daphne remembers how, as a kid, she saw a dragon fly above her. It's this scene that would later cause the Fairy Tail answers wiki to be flooded with questions about who that dragon was. As it turns out, nobody believed Daphne and pissed off the little girl, who would later develop the weapon she now has. Gray gives the outline of what happened as well as the circumstances surrounding it. Naturally, everyone is dumbfounded that even Natsu could be so forgetful. Juvia's happy though since Gray isn't a real traitor.

As the attack continues, the cake shop owner is revealed to have risked his life for one cake. Cue Wendy healing him and randomly talking about hating pickled plums (later important in a future arc) and collapsing from overusing her Magic.

Erza figures out the plan the master made without even Gray having to say a word and decides to take down the Dragonoid. Gray asks Juvia to come with her as the other guild Mages take on the Lizardmen and Happy is determined to save Natsu. On top of a roof, Gray talks about how Natsu is necessary for Fairy Tail and asks Juvia to perform a Unison Raid with him. Cause in anime, anyone can do anything no matter how hard it is. That goes double if that anime is Fairy Tail. Inside, Natsu has the typical issue of having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on another. Naturally it's making him go nuts.

At the same time, Juvia and Gray, without any trouble, perform the Unison Raid and cause water eruptions all over Magnolia and create ice rain, taking down all the Lizardmen, hitting the Dragonoid a bit and in a lovely, yummy coincidence, not harming any of their guild members. Sadly, the beautiful moment is cut short by Gray leaving Juvia on the roof, much to her sadness. The little devil and angel Natsu compliment Gray though on being a player. Natsu clearly doesn't like 'em and everyone can hear it from the outside.

Outside, Gray begins dissing Natsu over forgetting his promise and various other things like his squinty eyes. Happy joins in the party and tells Natsu the same stuff. Lucy's a bit nicer and says Natsu shouldn't give up cause that's not him. Erza steps in and criticizes him for giving up and telling them to take down the Dragonoid with him inside. Everyone else has a "WTF" face on as Natsu gets angrier and angrier. Now determined to kick everyone's ass, Natsu goes nuts and Daphne is having trouble with it. As the devil and angel disappear, the episode reaches its predictable climax with Natsu's Flame of Emotion going nuts.

Back on the ground, Gajeel has arrived after having disappeared for no apparent reason and helps attack, freeing Natsu from the Dragonoid. Sadly for him and many of us, he missed Natsu by a few feet. With Lucy's help, everyone sends Natsu fire and powers him up, as usual. With the power, Natsu powers up and takes out Daphne's Dragonoid, saving the people of the town without sound. With a little Natsu-Gray banter and Lucy's cute-voiced narration, our little adventure with the fake dragons comes to and end.

So now we move on into some senseless filler. In my personal opinion, these episodes were actually better than the Daphne business. But hey, that's just me.

It's time for the Hanami festival in Magnolia Town and everyone is getting excited to view the Rainbow Sakura. Makarov is lecturing everyone, as usual and although they're supposed to be resting, Team Natsu went with Wendy and Carla on a job to the mountains, much to Juvia's dismay cause she didn't get to go with Gray-sama.

As they walk up the icy mountain, Wendy and Lucy remain inside Horologium because they forgot to put on environment-appropriate attire. Not like it's a surprise though given how scantily girls often dress in this series. But hey, I'm not complaining! The mission of the day is to find a special herb. After some searching, Natsu comes across the herb which just happens to be guarded by a massive monster known as the Blizzardvern which has to eat them. So while Natsu, Gray, and Erza decide to draw its attention to them, Lucy, Wendy, Happy and Carla have to to gather the herbs.Lucy gets her hands on some herbs when an avalanche suddenly starts. The avalanche sweeps everyone away but Lucy gets the herbs and the Blizzardvern is beaten.

So the next day, we find out that the avalanche gave Lucy a cold which is preventing her from going to the festival, much to her disappointment as she had been looking forward to it for a long time. Saddened, Natsu and Happy leave her apartment after having come to pick her up. Due to this, the two aren't able to enjoy the festival with everyone else. Everyone is playing some Bingo in order to win some prizes. The prizes range from decent stuff like a trip to Akane Resort, which Elfman plans to take his sister to for his own incestuous reasons, to crap like the now-withered herbs collected by the gang the previous day. Erza's not too happy with that as her prize. Unable to think about anything other than Lucy, Natsu doesn't wanna place. Honestly dude, just tell her you like her already and get it over with.

As all this is going on, Lucy is sick in bed thinking about all that she's gone through since she joined Fairy Tail. Concluding that it was the right decision she made, she goes to sleep. However, she awakens in the middle of the night after hearing commotion outside. As it turns out, one of the Rainbow Sakura trees Lucy wanted to see so badly is floating down the river in front of her house. Seeing it, Lucy can't be anything but happy. As we find out the next morning though, the Mayor is anything but happy. Sadly for them, Natsu and Happy aren't doing too good either, though Lucy doesn't really mind XD

Some time later, Wendy and Carla start looking for a job to take on.As everyone begins suggesting things no 12 year old should be doing, it's Mirajane who suggests a job in Onibus Town to Wendy. The jobs is from Rabian, dude who wrote the play "Frederick and Yanderica" and enslaved Team Natsu. Apparently, he wants someone to heal his "body and soul". So Wendy, ever eager, accepts takes on the job. However Makarov forces Happy to leave Natsu to accompany her. Deciding they need someone else, Freed is asked to go along, setting up the team.

So as Wendy, Happy and Freed prepare to go, Carla decides to be her usually bitchy self and refuses to go, not even saying goodbye. Once they get to the station, they find out that the train that would take them to Onibus broke down. So, being the determined person she is, Wendy decides that she can walk to Onibus. Happy is, unsurprisingly, not in favor but Freed agrees. Meanwhile, having heard the news, Erza, Lucy and Carla decide to go find Wendy after Erza finishes her eardrum-killing vocal exercises. Natsu decides to follow 'em and decides to ignore his motion sickness to do so.

Not sure if that's sweet or stupid or some combination of the two >_>

So the weather has turned bad, forcing Wendy's group to camp out. Happy notes that food will be a problem, but Freed knows what to do and starts drawing runes, Winged Fish begin to fall from the sky. Though Happy states that those fish taste awful, Freed tells he knows the right way to prepare it. With a little use of his sword, Freed slices and dices the fish for eating. He has no problem eating but Wendy and Happy aren't gonna and decide to find other food. Cue a funny little scene elsewhere of Erza, Lucy and Carla being forced to eat the fish as well since they have nothing on them.

While Natsu is still stuck on the now-fixed train and goes back and forth between Magnolia and Onibus several times, Happy gets close to heatstroke so Freed puts up a barrier around him to stop it. Too bad the barrier isn't mobile ^_^ Somewhere else, Erza nearly gets eaten by quicksand and Virgo has to step in and save her in a rather funny scene. Cue what is called a "Cursed Sandstorm" which was ripped straight out of the Mario series heading towards the gang. Wendy uses her roar technique to take it out, saving the gang.

Everyone finally gets to Onibus but Rabian says he made up with his actors and that everything is okay. Natsu arrives and is motion sick and, just like everyone else, faints from exhaustion. Though Freed faints from the fish which are rubbing him the wrong way. Rabian orders Wendy to get rid of everyone and says he'll pay a large reward and while Wendy is disappointed about her first job, but Carla decides to stop being a bitch for a little while tells her that she should be proud for having helped everyone.

In the final episode of this anime-only arc, it is time for Fairy Tail's annual 24-Hour Endurance race. Everyone in the guild is ready for it and Jet, who won last year, plans to win again to impress Levy, even though it clearly doesn't work. Makarov tells everyone the race's conditions: to run to the mountain to get a Wyvern Scale and return to Magnolia's South Gate Park within 24 hours. Hilariously, whoever comes in last place will receive "the punishment". Happy and Evergreen planned on flying in order to win, but Makarov, thanks to complaints comes up with a new rule: No flying. Though any other Magic at all is allowed. With that, the race begins.

Mr. COOOOOOOL from the other sorcerer magazine comes to watch and commentate the race. Jet has no trouble getting far ahead of his competitors, leaving them behind to eat his dust. However, Natsu uses his Magic to give himself a speed boost. As the rest of the guild takes off, Wendy and Carla apologize to Lucy and Levy for leaving them behind. When Makarov reminds them of "the punishment", the girls smartly get going as well. Watching the race, Mirajane realizes that Jet is so fast that they can't track him with the Lacrima.

As everyone is running, it begets the use of their Magic to give them an advantage. Whether it's forcing others to fall into a hole, attacking them, freezing the ground, you can be these guys are doing it all. Cana and Wakaba run for a bit and talk about the other having trouble, with Macao running past both as they do. Let's face it, Cana's the one it better shape. Or she's just hot. Whatever. Elsewhere, Freed screws over his teammate Evergreen as well as Bisca, trapping them inside his runes from which they can only escape by answering questions. Though he's nice about it and gives them textbooks. Naturally, he gets his comeuppance with Erza trapping him in a similar fashion soon after.

Meanwhile, Jet gets a scale and heads back to Magnolia. At the same time, Juvia has merged with the water as Gray and a few others run by wondering where she is. As night falls, Natsu runs low on power and asks some random campers, after getting knocked around by Gajeel, if he can eat their fire cause, y'know, that's normal enough. A ton of people get their scales and so does Natsu, who hands one to Happy when the little dude isn't able to get his own due to his short stature.

Here's where the story gets into the "Tortoise and Hare" metaphor. Jet, in the lead, decides to nap as everyone else keeps running. Though Happy finds him and he takes off later. As the runners get closer, Jet comes in at full speed and attempts to overtake them. Naturally, they are surprised since they thought he was ahead of them. With his arrival, the racers try to overtake one another, with little success. Just as they approach the finish line, Natsu predictably trips and makes the other four trip over right him in front of the finishing line. Happy crosses in front of them and wins the first place, followed by Wendy who wins second place and then Carla in third.

So while those who fell stare at them, all the rest of Fairy Tail quickly crosses the finishing line, including Erza who fell with 'em. Now Natsu, Jet, Gray and Gajeel are all competing for last place. As it turns out, they all win it! Yay for haters! So what's the punishment? The punishment is that they have to dress up like girls and have an interview and a photo spread printed in the Weekly Sorcerer Magazine. Naturally, none of them wanna do that and run off into the distance with Jason running after them, since he does wanna see them cross dress. Meanwhile, Happy asks what his prize is, to which Makarov replies that his prize is the admiration of his fellow guild mates, much to his disappointment.

And with that, this mostly disappointing arc ends. Thanks for reading. Next month, we will be taking a look at a new arc. Stay tuned!




 * Best Quote of the Arc:
 * "I wasn't able to surpass Ul...but him...Natsu's the kind of guy who can surpass anything! Even Igneel himself!"
 * - Gray Fullbuster to Makarov about Natsu Dragneel.

Concealment Magic. Not like there was much to choose from. The Rainbow Sakura floating down Strawberry Street. This is an anime-only arc. So none. Episode 73
 * Best Magic of the Arc:
 * Best Moment of the Arc:
 * Best Chapter of the Arc:
 * Best Episode of the Arc: