Episode 249

Tartaros Arc: The Celestial King vs. The Underworld King is the 249th episode of the Fairy Tail anime, and the 74th episode of the 2014 series.
Being summoned through Lucy's sacrifice, the Celestial Spirit King soon clashes with the Underworld King, Mard Geer. Meanwhile, Jackal's explosions are proven ineffective as Lucy is protected by Aquarius' Magic, using it to defend herself against and then ultimately defeat the Demon with her Urano Metria. At the same time, the Celestial Spirit King launches his Galaxia Blade, dispelling Alegria, much to Mard's surprise. Now free, Fairy Tail members appear to assist Lucy, beginning the battle between four fairies and four Demons.
==Summary==
With Lucy still lamenting over what she's done, Mard Geer and the Celestial Spirit King are about to start their confrontation. As Jackal questions Lucy about what happened, the rocks supporting each of them collapse, causing them to fall down. Meanwhile, as the members of Tartaros wonder what has been done, Mard admits his miscalculations about the Celestial Spirit King being summoned. Expressing how much time has passed ever since their last encounter, the Celestial Spirit King notices Mard still holds the same book, but the latter reveals that the book contains E.N.D.'s soul. With him intending to resurrect E.N.D. and return to Zeref, the Celestial Spirit King states that the former hasn't changed, calling his plans foolish and chaotic. Mard then says that it's been a wish for the members of Tartaros to return to Zeref and serve him. As Lucy is still crying over her action, the Celestial Spirit King expresses his desire to fight for the sake of his friend. As the sun sets, Mard Geer decides to battle against him and, thus, starts the showdown between the two. 
As Mard tells his opponent to attack first, a vengeful Celestial Spirit King strikes with his blade, with the former dodging all the incoming attacks, subsequently telling him that he won't lose. As Mard then dodges one more attack, he finally decides to attack with Thorns, dealing severe damage to the Celestial Spirit. As he then remembers that his plans were called foolish, Mard brings up the time when the Celestial Spirits became eclipsed and wreaked havoc upon the world, finding it laughable that they're on the side of humans once again. The Celestial Spirit King, though, admits his mistakes, but expresses his gratitude towards his friends, shortly after breaking free from Mard's spell. He then uses Meteor Blade, splitting apart a significant part of the ground, but not dealing any damage to the Underworld King, who dodges it, being impressed. Mard then mentions to the Celestial Spirit King that, even though he's immortal, he has a big flaw, confusing the latter. 
Elsewhere, however, as Jackal frees himself from the debris, he angrily asks Lucy what she did. Seeing her cry, Jackal immensely desires to kill the Celestial Spirit Mage, using his Curse to cause a great explosion upon Lucy. However, the latter proves to be safe as she gets surrounded by a mysterious Water Barrier. Calling for Aquarius, Lucy receives her power from the Celestial Spirit King, much to Jackal's shock, prompting him to blast her with a series of explosions, only to fail as Lucy protects herself. Now determined to fight and save her friends, Lucy uses Urano Metria to finish Jackal off, dealing great damage. Completely exhausted, Lucy falls down to the ground, with the other Tartaros members sensing Jackal's loss. 
At the same time, the Underworld King and the Celestial Spirit King are still battling, with the former noticing the latter's drop in power. Mard Geer then points out that the Celestial Spirits are affected by their owner's condition, meaning that, in this case, the Celestial Spirit King doesn't have much more power to continue fighting. Before leaving, though, the Celestial Spirit King goes ahead and uses Galaxia Blade, soon freeing the Fairy Tail Mages from Alegria. As Minerva wonders about the glow coming from the spell, she soon gets happy to see Erza released, wanting to settle the score with her. Simultaneously, all the Mages are free, but unaware of what happened to them. As Mard is astounded of what happened, the Celestial Spirit King decides to leave the rest to his friends, pointing out his bond with them. Before he completely vanishes, though, he ultimately turns Mard Geer into stone, with the latter saying that he's holding a grudge against humans now.
Concurrently, though, as he wanders around, Torafuzar finds Jackal unconscious, after which he immediately goes to kill an exhausted Lucy, standing behind the words he said before. His attempt proves to be unsuccessful, as Gajeel quickly arrives to save his guildmate. Right after, Keyes attacks from behind, but is stopped by Juvia. As Silver then arrives and starts freezing Juvia's Water Nebula, Gray cancels it, but Tempester then arrives, attacks everyone with a breath of flame, something which Natsu eats as he arrives. As Natsu thanks Lucy, the Fairy Tail Mages and the members of Tartaros are now equal in numbers, ready for a great showdown.
==Characters in Order of Appearance==
==Battles & Events ==
*Lucy Heartfilia vs. Tartaros (concluded)
*Erza Scarlet vs. Neo Minerva
*Gray Fullbuster vs. Silver Fullbuster (started)
*Natsu Dragneel & Gajeel Redfox vs. Tempester & Torafuzar (started)
*Juvia Lockser vs. Keyes (started)
==Magic, Curses, Spells, and Abilities used==
===Magic used===
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===Curses used===
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*Bomb Curse
*Calamity Curse
===Spells used===
*Thorn Garden
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*Ice Devil's Shiver
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===Abilities used===
*Hand-to-Hand Combat
*Slash Arm (スラッシュアーム Surasshu Āmu)
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==Manga & Anime Differences==
*The following occur only in the anime:
**The dialogue during the battle between the Celestial Spirit King and Mard Geer, including additional flashbacks from scenes in the Eclipse Celestial Spirits arc.
**Jackal using Exploding Spiral after the barrage of explosions when attacking Lucy. 
**Jackal's dialogue after he encounters Lucy once again.
**Members of the Nine Demon Gates commenting on the destruction of Plutogrim.
**Scenes of Fairy Tail members conversing with each other after Alegria is dispelled. 
*In the manga, Gray doesn't have a shirt on when countering Silver's Ice Devil Slayer Magic. In the anime, he is fully clothed; this error is corrected at the start of the next episode.
==Navigation==
Category:Episodes