History (future history?) is about to repeat itself; Rogue’s prophesy that past/present Lucy will be the same as future Lucy and want to close the gate has come to pass.
Hisui tried to stop her but Lucy explained that there is no cannon magic and Eclipse is just a portal that dates back to 400 years ago (you know the whole story/what the Eclipse was actually meant for). Apparently Hisui was deceived into thinking that Eclipse was more than just a portal. Did Rogue inception her or something? So while everyone had anticipated the great cannon magic to build (which turns out to be lies)…they were actually waiting for the dragons to make their grand entrance. It was the lunar eclipse that threw off the coordinates of the portal and allowed for the dragons to find their way back into the present, according to the research done by Crux (one of the celestial spirits, in case anyone forgot who he is) as Lucy had said.
Yukino came back in time after it was figured that celestial magic – the two celestial mages and all their twelve keys – is the only way to close the gate and stop the dragons from coming through. But how could they forget this when celestial magic was needed to activate the portal and open it in the first place? Anyway, the gate was closed just in time to stop one very dangerous looking dragon from coming through, leaving them to deal with seven.
This ‘7’ thing…
Rogue’s plan was slightly foiled but the seven dragons are still enough for his ultimate evil plan to take over the world (and to think antagonists had matured from this trite goal). He learned the secret art of controlling dragons. I think it’s more a thing of appealing to the dragons emotions; he stirred their feelings of hatred towards the humans – the ones who weren’t for the Dragon Slare business – and they all agreed to help him out to wreak havoc on the human world. Of course they ignored his ramble of becoming the new dragon king because the dragons are getting to do what they want, whatever else doesn’t matter so they stopped listening after that part.
Then the rest of the episode was about everyone cowering – in both fear and awe of the dragons – gathering their wits about them to fight and a staredown between Natsu and Rogue – which ended the episode.
On a sidenote, I find it hard to believe that none of the soldiers were crushed when these dragons came strutting in.