Lucy wakes up on her own, feeling completely refreshed with her magic levels back to normal. Since it's later than her normal time to wake up she stands up and gets ready before walking to the mayor to report the completed mission.
The mayor being so happy that his town didn't get damaged in the fight, which he knows is a normal occurrence with Fairy Tail, wants to give her a little extra. He made the reward smaller in precaution to possible damages. Lucy says that she can't accept so he gives her a coupons for free meals today, insisting that she takes them.
The Silver Key he hands over in a small velvet box, telling her that the previous owner told him about Lucy's offer to meet her Spirit again. They speak a little more before Lucy makes her way to the magic shop from yesterday, still not having looked which Key she got.
As she arrives at the magic shop it's already noon. The elderly woman tells Lucy that she wanted to meet up with her friend at a small little cafe to eat lunch ans asks Lucy to tag along. She closes the shop and they made their way to the cafe. Deciding to sit out side they take a seat and wait for the last woman.
"Did you wait long Anni? Oh and you are Lucy from Fairy Tail, are you not?", the awaited woman begins while sitting down. "Ah don't worry Elli, we just arrived too. And yes this lovely young woman is Lucy. The girl you couldn't stop talking about after watching the Grand Magic Games.", she teases her. Lucy smiles at the interaction between to two, you just can see that these two are long time friends.
"Hello, yes I am Lucy. It's nice to meet you. Anni told me about your relationship with my new Silver Key and I am so happy to meet some else who treats the Spirits as friends and not as tools!", she smiles at her.
"Sorry to interrupted but did you already choose what you want to eat?", a waitress asks. They quickly look over the menu and order each something.
After ordering they resume their talk, "As I saw you fight and how you interacted with your Spirits I just knew that I have finally found a new Mage for my old friend. Already at the time I was a working mage the few other Celestial Mages I met, were treating their Spirits poorly, sadly their was nothing I could do about it. Maybe you will be able to change the opinion of these mages and help the Spirits to be treated better. Elli told me that you will let me watch while you make the contract, I am so thankful for that. It's been a really long time since I was able to call him. Did you already look which Key you got?"
"I really hope that I will be able to change the way Spirits are treated. So far I only met three other Celestial Mages and now you. One of them was very abusive and with the other I'm not so sure but believe that he wasn't a good Celestial Mage too. The only other Celestial Mage I met so far is Yukino and now you. And no, I haven't looked which Key I got, I thought I will let it be a surprise for later."
While lunch they all have some more small talk. After finishing Lucy takes out her coupons and pays for them all before the other two have a chance to pay. They protest a bit but let Lucy pay in the end. Now they are searching for a place to summon the Spirit, Elli told her that she will need a rather big and open place. Currently they are searching in the woods around them and finally found a big enough clearing.
Both older women are practically jumping in excitement as Lucy takes out the velvet box with the Key. She carefully opens the box and gabs as soon as she recognized which Keys lays before her.
"Hydra! You had the Key from the Hydra the sea serpent! I heard stories from my mother about this Spirit but I never heard from someone who actually had the Key! I heard that he is really strong! Now I understand why you said that we need a big place to summon him.", Lucy says with sparkling eyes.
"Yeah, I found his Key coincidentally and decided back than that I want to learn Celestial Magic. He really is a strong Spirit and he was a great friend! I hope you will have just as much fun with him as I had. Now please, go on and call him!", Elli requests. "Of course!" Lucy takes the Key, steps for and the Key in front of her.
"I am linked to the path to the World of Celestial Spirits, now! O Spirit, answer my call and pass through the Gate. Open Gate of the Sea Serpent, Hydra!" Before them appeared dark blue nearly black smoke, which looks like the water deep down in the ocean. You can hear rumbling in the smoke as if there is coming something truly big and terrifying. The first thing you can make out in the smoke are 4 pairs of glowing eyes, deep blue, red, white and brown. Next comes the heads belonging to theses eyes with their mouths wide open with long pointed fangs, back in the throat you can see same colors as their eyes. These heads looks more as if they belong to a Dragon than a Serpent. In the back there is still the rumbling. Following the heads, first one than a seconds feet steps through the smoke with sharp claws. Than comes his body and the last two feet with again, sharp claws. The last thing that comes through the smoke is the tail, which has sharp spikes at the end. As soon as Hydra stands completely in front of them in all his terrifying glory the smoke vanished. Hydras body is colored black with his tummy in a dark shade of blue.
Behind Lucy stands Elli and Anni, both smiling brightly at the sea monster, both already knowing how he looks. Lucy on the other hand gulps and can't stop the shiver that runs down her spine in fright. Never before had she seen such a terrifying creature, she is suddenly very happy that none of the dark Celestial Mages she had to fight had this Key in their possession.
Not wanting to seem afraid in front of her hopefully new Spirit, Lucy speaks up, "Hello Hydra. My name is Lucy Heartfilia and I would like to make a contract with you, if you want to. I believe you remember the two women behind me."
The blue-eyed answers her, "Lucy Heartfilia, you are the Mage who is favored by our King. The one most of the other Spirits call Princess. Of course we want to make contract with you. We are more than happy to have such a nice new Key holder. We already heard stories about your kindness and that you treat us as family and not as servants. Would it be alright with you when we call you Princess too? And Elli, Anni it's good to see you again. Thank you very much for finding us such a great new owner, Elli!" "Hello my old friends, it's so good to see you, it's been so long. And I really had no choice who will get your Key. I couldn't just give your Key to any Celestial Mage, I needed to know that you will be treated properly!", Elli responds while patting each head shortly.
"If you want to, you can call me Princess. But Lucy or anything else would be finde too, as long as it isn't Master. We are all equals, so no need to treat me as if I am above you. Please tell me when can I call you? What exactly are your abilities? Is there something else I need to know? Oh and does each head have a name? It would be very confusing to call all of you Hydra.", she smiles at them.
"Tell me little human girl, what do you now already about us? An..." "Hayden, stop this and treat our new Princess with respect!", the blue-eyed one interrupts the red-eyed one. "Och, your no fun Calder!", Hayden begins only to be interrupted by the one with white eyes, "Stop your bickering you two, is that the first impression you want to give our new Key holder?"
Having enough of the other three heads the last one speaks up, seemingly the calmest one. "There they go again... Then I will answer all your question, Princess. As you have now already heard, yes we all have different names. And each from us can control a different element. The color of our eyes represents our element. The red-eyed one is Hayden and controls fire, blue-eyes is Calder with water, white eyes is Niyol with air and I am Trevet and can control earth. Well we can not directly control this element, more like we can attack with the element through a roar. Our skin is pretty hard and it mostly takes some time until an attack hurts us. Like in the myth we will grow two more heads when one is decapitated, apart from my head. I will grow just as one head again. Each time a head is decapitated we will gain a new element along with the old element. The most heads we can grow is seven after that it will always be just the one head which grows again. Hayden will grow along with Rai who attacks with lightning. Calder will grow with Korah who attacks with ice and Niyol will grow with Najm who attacks with celestial magic. When we are send back, the next time when we are called we will again start with these four heads. Our weakness is that there is a maximum to how often a head can grow again. After the fifth time a head is decapitated he can't grow again but the remaining heads can still continue to fight. The five times rule sets in as soon as two heads did grow again, that means that apart from me the other three here can grow six times. Another weakness would be that, apart from our heads, our body moves rather slowly on land. I think that is all you need to know. Oh and you can call us anytime you want except from each first and last day of a month. But when there is an emergency you can call us on these days too."
"Oh wow, so much information. Thanks, Trevet. With all these different heads who can use different attacks I believe that you will need quite some magic in a fight when all of you attack at the same time. But I don't want you to worry about that, I think I can handle it!", Lucy tells him.
While Trevet explains everything to Lucy the other three heads speak with Elli and Anni to catch up. Finishing their talk Lucy and Trevet joins them.
As it slowly turns dark around them Lucy tells the others that she needs to get back home to pay her rent. So Hydra goes back to the Spirit Realm with a promise from Lucy to sometimes visit their old Master to see each other again.
The three women make their way back to town and the train station. Arriving they only have a few minutes to spare until the train leaves. They say each other a warm goodbye and Lucy enters the train. Waving each other until they can't see each other anymore.
Arriving back in Magnolia Lucy goes shortly groceries shopping before going to her landlady to finally pay her rent.
Having finished paying she goes to her own apartment to cook herself dinner, not wanting to go to the Guild today.
While cooking she realizes that she needs to take a new mission soon, if she wants to be able to buy herself something to eat, now only having 10.000J left. Furthermore she realizes that she still didn't replaced her old Key-ring with the new one she just bought yesterday. So after dinner she just does that.
Taking out her new Key-ring she releases some of her magic into the ring to start the magic inside. Furthermore her magic helps the ring to identify her so that the magic inside knows that she is the owner which the ring won't attack and to whom the ring needs to return after being removed. Having finished activating the magic Lucy attached her Keys to the new ring.
When it's completely dark outside Lucy takes her Keys and goes outside in the forest to the clearing where she normally trains. There she calls Loke first, to do her normal routine.
As warming up they run a few laps around the clearing, after that they do some exercises to strengthen her muscles, such as push-ups and sit-ups. After a short break to regain her breathing they do some hand-to-hand combat until Lucy needs another break. In their break they just sits their and talk about random things while watching the stars.
Next is Capricorn, who leads her through the same meditation method than the other night. Again amazed about the fact how much magic she can release now and, more so, how much magic from the stars she can pull inside of her. He observes as her magic creates a little storm around her and as the magic from the stars goes to her, it looks as if she is pulling the stars themselves to her. That, of course, is something only he or other Celestial Beings can see.
Once Lucy has finished her meditation she sends Capricorn back and just lays under the stars for a little while longer.
She thinks about how she will react, when she sees her Team again tomorrow at the Guild. When she thinks about it now, she is still angry with them but the meditation really helped her to calm down. And that she still has her apartment helps too. And even though her anger is less compared to the day of their mission she still is quite upset with them. Lucy really hopes that Natsu won't show up in her apartment tonight while she sleeps, she at least needs another peaceful night before seeing them again without lashing out.
As it's near midnight Lucy makes her way back to her apartment to sleep. To tired to do much more she stumbles to her desk to write a letter to her mother, telling her about her new Silver Key and what happened on her last missions. Sealing the letter she places him in the box with the other ones.
Finished with this task, she changes out of her clothes and falls in her bed, happy that she didn't turned the lights on, other than the one at her desk, and immediately falls in a deep slumber.
A little earlier:
Natsu and Happy are on their way back home from the Guild, both of them still thinking about the announcement from Master two days ago.
That is until Natsu remembers something and he startles Happy out of his own thoughts, "Hey Happy, maybe Luce is finally back from her solo mission. Lets check her apartment! Maybe she even has some food for us and lets us sleep in her bed." Natsu grins goofy, the thought of food and Lucy's comfy bed changing his prior mood completely. "Aye, Sir!"
And so they turn around and practically run to Lucy's apartment.
Arriving there, they enter though her window like always. As Natsu realizes that Lucy is not there he turns around and wants to climb back out but stops as Happy calls him, "Natsu, Lucy has yummy food. I am hungry lets eat something before we go back!" Natsu being Natsu was at his side as soon as he heard the word 'food' and is already scarfing down said food. Happy quickly safes something for himself and starts to munch on his fish.
Both completely ignoring the fact that Lucy probably won't be very happy when she finds out that they, yet again, eating all of her food.
When they are finished they shortly ponder if they should sleep in her bed or go home. In the end they decide to leave since it's just not the same without Lucy there.
So they climb out through the window and leave an unpleasant surprise back behind for Lucy to find the next morning.
