Official Fairy Tail Guild: March 2012

Stockings
Arc: X791 arc
(c)http://fairytail.wikia.com/wiki/Chapter_277

Stockings is the 277th chapter of Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail.

The battle portion of the second day begins with the first battle being between Raven Tail's Kurohebi and Lamia Scale's Toby Horhorta, with Kurohebi winning. The next battle is then announced to be between Fairy Tail A's Elfman Strauss and Quatro Cerberus' Bacchus with Elfman promising to defeat Bacchus for insulting his sisters.

Summary
Lucy visits Natsu and Wendy, who are recovering under Porlyusica's care. Lucy inquires about Natsu health and Porlyusica informs her that he should recover quickly, as he merely has transportation sickness. Lucy leaves afterwards, leaving Carla and Porlyusica alone. Porlyusica is curious to know why Carla did not inform Lucy about her premonition. Carla replies, saying that she doubts her own vision and that it had to just be a dream.
Lucy later arrives back at Domus Flau just as Kurohebi and Toby prepare to fight. Before the match begins, Lucy looks over at Team Raven Tail and notices that Flare is is covered in bruises, even though she has not partaken in any event yet. The masked man of Team Raven Tail warns Flare not to disgrace their guild again, and threatens to beat her some more.

The match begins with Toby using his Paralysis Powder: Mega Jellyfish, but Kurohebi disappears before Toby's eyes. He then uses Sand Rebellion, a Sand Magic spell. Jura realizes the opponent uses Mimicry, which allows him to copy other people's Magic. Mavis takes note as this as well, praising it as a rather rare Magic. As the two fight they make a deal that if Toby wins he gets to find out Kurohebi's real name, and if he loses Toby will tell Kurohebi his "super secret". After agreeing, Toby gazes into his opponents eye, and almost immediately after he is defeated. The Team Fairy Tail A members are all impressed, noting how Kurohebi used no cowardly tactics, and wasn't even trying his hardest.
Defeated, Toby reveals his secret of not being able to find one of his socks, having been searching for it for months. Kurohebi points to Toby's neck, where the sock has been hanging the whole time. Toby, relieved, thanks him and Kurohebi then holds out his hand. Everyone -thinking he is showing good sportsmanship- is then surprised when he rips the sock off Toby's neck and tears it to shreds before his eyes. Kurohebi then walks off laughing, while Team Raven Tail laughs at Toby.

Preparations for the next match soon begin. Bacchus is called to the arena, as well as somebody from Team Fairy Tail A. Just as the announcement is being made, the King of Fiore appears, telling Arcadios that he is looking forward to Erza fighting Bacchus. This catches Arcadios off guard, as he has arranged for Elfman to fight Bacchus, having accidentally misinterpreted the King's earlier battle request. As Elfman walks onto the field, Bacchus asks to wager with him; if he wins he gets to spend a night alone with both of Elfman's sisters. Elfman, greatly angered by this comment, declares he will tear Bacchus apart.
Meanwhile, Natsu wakes up in the room all alone, and notices the smell of somebody he doesn't know nearby.

Celestial Spirits (星霊 Seirei) are Magical beings from their own separate universe, the Celestial Spirit World. Some wizards, called Celestial Spirit Mages due to their specialization in Celestial Spirit Magic, are able to summon spirits by opening their gates through the use of Keys. These Keys are separated into two classes: the more common Silver Keys and the extremely rare Gold Keys. Keys for Celestial Spirits are counted in Units (collectively without regard of Gold or Silver), and a Celestial Spirit Mage is noted by how many Units they have obtained. All Celestial Spirits are each named after a different astronomical constellation. Out of the 12 Gold keys, 10 of them are owned by Lucy Heartfilia.

Contracts and Rules
When a Celestial Spirit Mage receives a Key and opens its Celestial Gate for the first time, they have to set up a contract with the respective spirit. This contract consists of asking the spirit which days it can be summoned by the Mage. This simple agreement, much to the shock of Natsu and Happy, forms a dedicated, serious bond between the Spirit and summoner. However, under certain circumstances, i.e. during battle, a contract can be asked to be completed later.

Contracts can be broken if the Mage gets arrested, releases the spirit by him/her self, or dies. When a Celestial Spirit Mage summons a spirit, it appears directly next to them, as that's where the gates to the Spirit world had been opened. It's impossible to summon spirits elsewhere. The spirits must also abide by certain rules enforced by the Celestial Spirit King. The only rule that has been introduced in Fairy Tail so far is that a spirit may not directly or indirectly kill its summoner under any circumstances. When the gates are closed, it is required from both the summoner and the spirit to agree upon the gate's closure. However, spirits can also be "forced closed" in battle, which means they can be forced back into the Celestial World by the summoner's will, though not every Celestial Spirit Mage is capable of doing that.

Celestial Spirits also have different categories of sorts, that fall under the basic summoning conditions from their owner. For example, Loke summons himself most of the time without Lucy doing so herself, Virgo also has summoned herself once, as have Gemini and Horologium and if trust between the Celestial Spirit and the Owner is not an issue, contracts can be temporarily dissolved. It also seems that if the Celestial Spirit is strong enough, they can use their own Magic to stay in the Human World, when/if the contract is not in action. The strength of the Celestial Spirits is affected by the Magical strength of their summoner as Lucy once said that her spirits could become even stronger than Natsu if she trained more.

Known Celestial Spirits
No Known Key

Neutral
Key	Name	Description	Picture
Unknown	Celestial Spirit King (星霊王 Seirei-ō)	He rules all of the spirit world and enforces the rules among all the spirits. He has the power to stop time in the human world.

Gold Keys

Gold Keys
Key	Name	Description	Picture
	Aquarius	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Layla Heartfilia (formerly) "The Water Bearer" Aquarius is a mermaid carrying a jug of water. Lucy considers Aquarius her strongest spirit, even after she got Loke's key.
	Taurus	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Golden Bull" Taurus is a minotaur with black and white splotched skin, a nose ring and a black speedo, and belt. He wields a giant two-bladed axe.
	Cancer	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Layla Heartfilia (formerly) "The Great Crab" Cancer has a crab-claw hairstyle with six crab legs coming out of his back. He wields a pair of scissors that he uses for attacking and haircuts.
	Virgo	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Duke Everlue (formerly) "The Maiden" Virgo has a normal black and white maid outfit, with chained shackles around her wrist. She has the ability to dig holes underground.
	Sagittarius	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Archer" Sagittarius is a man wearing a horse costume much to Lucy's surprise with a great skill in archery.
	Leo	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Karen Lilica (formerly) Leo "The Lion" appears as a man in a designer suit with his hair in the form of a lion's mane. He uses the Magic Regulus for combat.
	Aries	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Angel (formerly), Karen Lilica (formerly) "The Ram" Aries is a timid female. She has horns at the top of her head much like a ram. She has white and fluffy clothes, like a sheep. Her Magic deals with using wool attacks to reassure her opponents in combat.
	Scorpio	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Angel (former) "The Scorpion" Scorpio is a rough man with a large gun for a tail. Scorpio uses a sand based Magic, which he blasts a great amount of sand from his tail.
	Gemini	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Angel (former) "The Twins" Two little spirit twins named "Gemi" and "Mini" that can transform into anyone perfectly and replicate both their thoughts and Magic.
	Capricorn	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia, Layla Heartfilia (former), Zoldeo (former) "The Goat" is a humanoid goat who was taken over by his former master through the use of Lost Magic. When he is freed, he joins Lucy as one of her spirits.

Silver Keys

Silver Keys
Key	Name	Description	Picture
	Crux	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Southern Cross" Crux is a human like cross, with a mustache and cross shaped nose. Crux has a lot of information about all Celestial Spirits and their masters, either in the present or in the past.
	Horologium	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Pendulum Clock" Horologium is a large grandfather clock. Horologium has combat and non-combat uses.
	Lyra	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Lyre" Lyra wears a bonnet and dress. She also has wings on her back, she has the ability to sing beautiful songs, she mostly sings about emotions, but she does take requests.
	Nikora	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Canis Minor" Nikora (or Plue, which Lucy named) is a cute, yet small creature. Nikora takes up hardly any Magic power when summoned, stated by Lucy.
	Caelum	Summoner: Angel (former) "The Chisel", it appears as more of an item than a being which takes three different forms to attack.
Unknown	Pyxis	Summoner: Lucy Heartfilia "The Compass", Pyxis looks like a penguin with a big round face. It has a compass on top of its head.

Trivia

Nakajima from Rave Master made a brief cameo in episode 18, when Lucy talks about the Celestial Spirit Sagittarius and Natsu imagines a octopus with a Nakajima flower head.
Originally, summoning Celestial Spirits were supposed to be by cards. However this idea was eventually scrapped when the author thought that it was too similar to another manga work.
During her time in the Tower of Heaven, Lucy managed to summon both Cancer and Aquarius during the same day, which from their contract, Cancer can only be summoned on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, while Aquarius can only be summoned on Wednesday. This question was later answered in the Q&A of Volume 16 that the contract is actually constantly changing, and the stronger and trustworthy the bond between the Mage and the Celestial Spirit, the summoner can increase the amount of days that a particular spirit can be summoned.
The Golden keys appear to be more stylized in the anime, appearing with handles and teeth to the theme of the summoned spirit, while in the manga they appear as ordinary keys with the Constellation's symbol engraved on the top. Although in the manga, they are starting to be depicted in their stylized forms, as seen when Lucy summoned Taurus and Scorpio simultaneously.

(c)http://fairytail.wikia.com/wiki/Celestial_Spirits