u/GladApartment3128

We’re seeing a lot of familiar patterns play out.
Mira teaming up with Elfman again, just like in Tartaros against Seilah. Gray and Juvia getting another Invel-esque matchup. Erza facing the leader of the enemy group as usual. And Wendy seems destined to get delayed from her objective, much like what happened with Ezel.

That makes me even more curious about Lucy’s narration mentioning a “catastrophe.” If everyone else is getting callbacks to past arcs, does that mean Lucy’s is too? Could she be forced to sacrifice Aquarius’ key once again to summon the Celestial Spirit King? Or will Mashima take it even further and have her combine that with Selene and Mercphobia’s power somehow? Whatever it is, it feels like Lucy’s parallel could end up being the most impactful one like how she ace the Tartaros.

There’s zero reason to believe Lucy isn’t second only to Natsu at this point. She currently possesses the magic power of two Dragon Gods. It took Natsu borrowing the MP of Team Natsu + Sabertooth just to bring down Viernes. Now imagine how much power it would take to defeat two Dragon Gods combined, on top of Lucy’s own MP, at the same time. They’re already absurdly powerful individually, combined three of them, Lucy is an absolute nightmare to fight currently. Until Erza and Laxus showed better power up than this, there's zero reason to believe they are stronger than this form.

Youko is also a summoner and she also get a power from her Yokai, that's why she has a Yokai Form.

So it was never a surprise that she would get a Mercphobia Form. What was a surprise here is Selene adding to the mix. But so as long as Lucy have an access to Merc key, she should not have a problem getting Mercphobia power from his key just like how her Star Dress works. So in a case Lucy wouldn't be able to access Selene's power in the future, she should not have a problem accessing Merc power in her Dress Form, this is also what happen in Alvarez when even Aquarius was not part of her arsenal she could still access her power via Dress Form and even in 100YQ she could even mix it with other Dresses prior to the current arc where she was reunited with Aquarius.

I do think the reason why Lucy get this kind of power up is because she maybe playing a role against Ignia. And she would need a big power jump to do that which is what happening now. Or maybe she was even set up against Faris who knows? She's the second most important character after all after Natsu. And Natsu shouldn't be able to beat Faris and Ignia back to back. Maybe Lucy, Erza, and Wendy vs Faris in the future???

Anyway it would be good if Mashima at least show us first the Mercphobia Form before jumping with Mercphobia x Selene.