A/N: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.
Chapter 6 - Wendy and Romeo
"Yo, Gray. Hand me that spray,"
With his left hand on his shirt buttons and his right hand outstretched, Gray dipped into his bag, pulled out a can of insect repellant before chucking it over to Laxus, who caught it with ease. The blonde haired man shook the can twice before proceeding to spray it around himself. After he was done, he passed the can over to Natsu, who also began to spray himself. Indiscreetly, Natsu put the can into his pants and began to spray there too. Laxus took a couple of steps back from the fiery haired man, whereas Gray squared up to him, and pulled his hand out.
"Damn it, hothead! Watch where you put my stuff!" he growled.
"I don't want to get bit by mosquitoes!" Natsu retorted, as he and Gray literally butted heads. Laxus separated the two of them, his right hand on Gray's shoulder and his left hand on Natsu's. He directed his gaze towards Gray first, who was clearly fuming that Natsu would put his insect repellant down his pants, while Natsu placed the can on a counter.
"Gray, you're suppose to be a senior counselor. Don't go around beating up the junior counselors," Laxus scolded, although there was a certain amount of apathy in his voice. Clearly, he was thinking that from Gray's point of view, he had every right to be angry, not to mention the fact that Gray and Natsu could never ever have any sort of superior and subordinate relationship. They were much too close for something that shallow.
"And you, Natsu," Laxus continued, this time he was looking towards Natsu, who looked surprised that Laxus was also calling him out. "Don't go around putting people's things down your pants. It's unsightly," he muttered, a sense of awkwardness in his speech. Laxus had, not even for a moment, imagined that such a strange sentence would come from his mouth.
Natsu shrugged him off. "Jeez, Laxus. You're starting to sound like Luce," he murmured, as he picked up a name tag bearing the sentence "I'm Natsu Dragneel, Junior Counselor" on it, pinning it onto his shirt. "But man, junior counselor, huh? I can't below I'm below ice for brains on the totem pole," he pointed his thumb towards Gray in an irritated looking fashion.
"I used to attend this summer camp when I was younger. Now I'm a senior counselor here. That's really all there is to it. Ur always encouraged us to pursue physical activities," Gray responded, as he finished up buttoning his shirt. "Senior counselors don't have to wear the official camp shirt either. Most of the kids already know us by name already," he added, smugly glancing at Natsu. "That really isn't your color either,"
Rather than replying with words, Natsu simply growled and slunk back. He knew when he was beaten.
"Speaking of Lucy," Gray changed the subject. "What is the deal between you two? You guys going out?" he asked, curiously, leaning teasingly close to Natsu, who backed off a bit. Laxus also leaned in closer, interested as well.
"What... what are you talking about?! Luce and I aren't like that!" he spluttered. "Don't be putting weird ideas into my head! I've known her for years, and she definitely doesn't have feelings like that for me!" he insisted.
"Tch," Gray muttered under his breath, turning towards Laxus as he did so. "Looks like Natsu is still in the oblivious stage. Why did Lucy have to fall for such a dense guy? Honestly, I feel sorry for her," he whispered, so only Laxus could hear. The two of them shared a sigh, before deciding to go back towards their regular business. Before they could, though, Natsu had already butted in.
"Oi, oi, what are you two talking about? Let me in on the big secret!" Natsu demanded, as he forced his head between Laxus' and Gray's. However, Laxus only responded by pushing Natsu away, causing the boy to lose his balance and fall. Gray extended a hand to him, a gesture that Natsu took, although begrudgingly.
"It's nothing. Enough talk though, we gotta go meet the kiddies," was Gray's response.
A young boy, roughly 13 years of age stands up, and begins to look around the campfire. "My name's Romeo. Doesn't really matter what age I am. I don't particularly like anything," he greeted, before sitting back down again, as quickly as he got up. Laxus rubbed the back of his head. It was clear that something was bothering this kid. Was he being picked on? Or was he the same as Laxus, having been forced to attend the summer camp? At the very least, Laxus thought, this Romeo kid was here to have fun, not to babysit.
"Alright, whatever," he started, ticking off Romeo's name on his roll call sheet with a pen. "Next?" he said, using the pen to point towards the girl sitting next to Romeo. The girl, who allowed her long blue hair to flow down to her shoulders, stood up and cheerfully introduced herself, much to everyone's surprise. However, the glum faced Romeo simply slunk away, resting his chin on his hand and turning towards the opposite direction.
"My name's Wendy! I'm 12 years old and my hobbies are reading, cycling, and err..." she suddenly came to a halt, unsure of what to say next. "That's it, I guess..." she ended, when she realized that she had caught Romeo's glare.
Laxus ticked her name off, and pointed towards the person sitting next to Wendy. Nobody was there. He consulted his sheet again and concluded that everyone had already introduced himself. All of the counselors were divided into teams of three, each team consisting of one senior and two junior counselors. Each team would oversee a single group of children, generally consisting of ten to fifteen people. Laxus ended up on the same team as Lucy, the senior counselor and Natsu, the other junior counselor.
He gave a signal to Lucy, who responded with an uncharacteristic thumbs up. She turned towards the children. "Since everyone has introduced themselves, let's all get started on the first activity!" she said, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. "I have our plan for the day here already. Fortunately, we have 16 people in our group, 8 boys and 8 girls. The boys will go fishing while the girls will go gathering. After that, we'll have dinner and once the sun begins to go down, we'll have a test of courage!" she informed them, excitedly.
A hand shot up. "What happens if we don't catch anything?" said one of the boys.
"Guess we'll have to starve," Romeo murmured, bored. Suddenly, he lit up, and turned towards one of his friends, nudging him with his elbow lightly. "Or we could eat Lucy. There is enough meat on her to last us a while," he smirked. The two boys shared a quick laugh, before Romeo felt a tap on his back. He turned around, only to meet the face of Natsu.
He raised his hand up in the air. "Good one!" Natsu roared, throwing his head back in laughter. "Come on, hit me five, Romeo!" he added, waving his hand frantically above him. Reluctantly, Romeo slapped him a half five. Lucy, who had overheard the comment, simply walked over to them, clipped Natsu by the ear and dragged him away.
"You're a counselor, not a camper," she scolded, clearly irritated, although Laxus could tell that the joke upset her far more than Natsu's antics. He sighed, deciding to take things into his own hands. He walked over to Romeo, and crouched down until he was face to face with the young boy. He put his right hand on the kid's shoulder, feeling the shivers as he did so.
"Hey kid, I heard what you said," he opened his mouth. He could tell that Romeo was expecting another high five. "Wanna die?" he threatened.
Before Romeo could even respond, a hand appeared above Laxus' head, coming down on him before he even knew what was happening. The blonde haired man grunted as he was pulled up to his feet. He turned around, only to be greeted by two women. One he knew, the ivory haired maiden that could only be Mirajane. Although she didn't need to, Mira proudly donned the camp uniform. The other woman, on the other hand, was a junior counselor like him. He had seen her before, although he was unsure of her name. Her scarlet hair and voluptuous figure were unforgettable though.
"You shouldn't threaten the children," the scarlet haired woman told him. "It's disgusting.. Aren't you supposeto be a counselor?" she asked. Before Laxus could say anything, Mira had already opened her mouth.
"This is Erza," Mira introduced them. "And she has a good point," she added, putting on a frown, although Laxus thought it was somewhat cute. This couldn't possibly have been the "demon" Mira that Gray had told him about, could it? Impossible.
"It's none of your business, princesses. This is my group," he told them, gesturing towards the kids. "And these are my young charges. They came to this camp as kids, and they will leave as mature adults," he claimed. He patted Romeo on the head lightly. "It is just tough love. You wouldn't understand," he eyed Erza and Mirajane.
Erza raised an eyebrow, as she looked down towards Romeo. "Tough love? You call that tough love? More like just being tough," she murmured, as she noticed that Romeo had begun sniffling. "Hey, you okay?" but before Erza could even finished the sentence, Romeo had begun to softly sob. She crouched down and gently embraced him. Mira followed, grabbing a tissue and beginning to wipe away his tears.
"He... he said he would..." he continued to whimper. "Kill...kill.. he... I," he managed to say between sobs.
Erza shot Laxus a killing glare, before turning back to comfort Romeo, her eyes becoming soft as she did so. Mirajane simply looked disappointed, although she wasn't directly staring in Laxus' direction. "Let's get you something to drink," Mirajane suggested, taking Romeo's right hand into her own, she led him away. Erza took his left hand. With the two counselors on either side of him, their heads pointed forward, Romeo took the opportunity to look back at the stunned Laxus, sticking his tongue out at him.
"Oh wow, he really got you good," Natsu commented, approaching Laxus from the side.
Laxus cracked his fingers, and smirked. "Yeah. But I'll get him back. When the test of courage comes around, we'll see how brave he really is," he muttered as he turned around to attend to the rest of the children. Natsu stopped him by grabbing hold of his elbow.
"Oi, Laxus," Natsu said, slightly worried. "You really shouldn't go overboard. The kid is about 13,"
Laxus shrugged Natsu's hand off of him, turning back for a split second. "Overboard? I'm just doing what a counselor should. I'm going to teach him a lesson that he really needs. I'll humble him," Laxus said, beginning to walk away again. When he noticed that Natsu looked seriously unnerved, Laxus let out a chuckle and nudged Natsu playfully in the ribs.
"Relax!" Laxus boomed. "He'll thank me for this later!"
A/N: I think we can take this opportunity to take the camp chapters to build up, not only Mirajane and Laxus, but only some of the other minor characters as well. Stay tuned for more!
