A/N: Hi minna! First of all, thank you so much for all your reviews and patience! I am very sorry if I cannot thank each of you individually, but words cannot describe how grateful I am to have you guys as my readers! I really love reading your reviews because it makes me feel like none of my effort and time goes to waste. So I really thank you! By the way, I have a new GrayLu story entitled "Hello Baby". Please support it too. Ja, enough of this and on to the next chapter! Enjoy~ ヽ(^o^)ノ

Disclaimer: Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail. I own a Lucy keychain.

Chapter 10

1st day of the festival. Since the beginning of dawn, the fairies started establishing their booths. That early, they started giving fliers and advertising their stalls. Of course, everyone wants to win.

When the sun shone upon the citizens of Magnolia, that's the time when the competition became tighter. They worked double time, trying their best to capture the attention of the people. As different groups started having progress, surprisingly, they were the ones with no costumers at all. Yes. They, meaning Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Juvia, and Happy.

The cat sighed, "I shouldn't have left my original group… Now I won't get to see what the reward is."

"Hey, don't say that!" the fire mage roared, "By the way, what happened? Days ago, many thought that the one who'll really compete will be our group and Erza's in terms of popularity …"

"Yeah flame brain. I honestly thought too that it will all come down to Erza's group and us."

"Don't call me flame brain, ice freak!" he malingered, "Luce, what's going on with the people? Why aren't they coming here? At this rate, we'll lose!"

"I don't know… We handed out fliers like the others did and the people of Magnolia knows us… so I have no idea why…"

"Maybe it's because they know of Natsu's destructive abilities…"

"Now it's my fault, eh Happy? In the first place, if I were them, I won't come here because I won't waste my time just to watch a play, I'd rather spend my time playing games in others' booths and eat food."

With that, the blonde lowered her head. "Oops, I didn't mean to offend you, Luce. I wasn't planning to—"

"No, no. You have a point. If I were a citizen too, I'd rather play and eat just like you said. I would only watch a play if… if…."

"If what?"

She clapped her hands, "If I knew its calibre!" she smiled, "That's it guys! We just have to show them that our play is worth their time!"

"Should I scare them with my monster suit?"

She shook her head, "Instead, how 'bout giving them a glimpse of the story." She winked, "Okay guys, just like what we practiced."

.

.

She coughed in order to catch the people's attention, "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, in order to recognize the quality of our play, let us give you a foretaste of its story…

The little stand then turned into a huge stage with curtain blinds and lights on it. And of course, they were glad to see and hear the people fascinated and say "Ooohhh..." out of astonishment. Lucy then began opening the blinds,

"I, King Happy, have summoned you three Princes of different kingdoms, in order to save my dearest daughter, Princess Lucy, from the evil hands of the mighty dragon. And I shall reward to thee the right to marry my one and only daughter."

"Yes your highness, we are honoured to be chosen by yours truly." They kneeled their left knees and bowed their heads.

"I…" the he-cat began to cover its mouth, "I egspres my ngratitude ath early ath now. Go, I shey, and may you vi vlesd wid your jehney."

All started to whisper, "What did the cat say?" "Did it choke or something?" "That cat is a dad?"

"Thank you your highness." The three stood up and continued.

As the he-cat entered the backstage,

"What's wrong Happy?"

"So-sorry Lucy, I can't help it," he began to burst out laughing.

"What? What's the matter?"

"It-it's Natsu!" he laughed even more, "They all kneeled one of their leg in front of me, right?"

"Yeah… So?"

"Natsu's pants has a hole in it! I saw it!" the blue cat laughed even harder.

"W-what?" she too kinda chuckled, "Okay, enough. I hope Natsu doesn't notice it, or he'll be conscious"

As for now in the stage,

"My name is Prince Natsu, for your information, Luce is my childhood friend, and I will be the one rescuing her. I won't let her fall into either of you two's hands." He pointed at them, "If I know, you guys only agreed to this mission to marry her. And I won't let anyone abuse my friend. I swore to this flame sword of mine!" he made a sword out of his flame.

"Oohhhhh…." The people responded.

"Yeah right, don't think you're the only one with that kind of ability!" Gray then released a sword made out of ice, "I am Prince Gray and I will be the one who'll rescue the princess!"

"Yea? How 'bout let's see now who's stronger?!"

"Sorry but I don't plan to tire myself dealing with a moron like you." The ice mage rolled his eyes, "Now, what's your name?"

"M-me?" Juvia lowered his head, "Prince Juvia, err I mean Juvion." What is happening with Juvia? She's messing up her lines! Is it because Master Gray is looking right at her? This might be Juvia's chance to show Lucy what Juvia's capable of! "Ju-juvion is capable of this." She then took out a sword made out of water.

"Seems like a neat magic. But I won't let you have her that easily." He smirked.

Hearing that from Master Gray himself makes Juvia irritated, at this rate…

"Oh no Lucy look, Juvia's water sword liquidated!" Happy yelled.

"Ouch!" Natsu held his foot which was soaked by the boiling water from Juvia's hands and sat down.

"Oi flame brain, you okay?"

"Sorry Natsu, Juvia didn't mean to—" The ice and water mage bumped their heads as they both came to the pink-haired's aid.

"Oh, sorry Juvia."

"It's okay, Master—" she looked at him only to see that their faces were only three inches away from each other, "Kyaaaa—" And with that, the bluenette was knocked out with blood dripping from her nose.

"Hey Juvia, you okay?"

"Hey Gray don't touch my foot it—hey, what's that?! There's a hole in my pants!"

"Did that guy called him Juvia?" "Yeah, I thought his name was Juvion?" "Is this part of the play?" As she heard those murmurs from the audience, she began to think of what she should do first: And of course, that's to help Natsu.

"Natsu! Here's a bucket of water!" the cat flew immediately.

"No! Happy that's boiling water!" yelled Lucy who wanted to stop the he-cat, "That's supposed to be one of our props…" she face-palmed.

"What?" and before the cat knew it, he already splashed all of it to him.

"Ouch!" the fire mage roared even more. "That didn't help at all Happy!"

"Sorry Natsu!"

"Here Natsu!" the celestial mage carried a bucket of cold water, "This'll make you feel, waaaaaa—" she slipped from the water from Happy's bucket.

She was supposed to fall butt-first, but thanks to Gray who managed to prevent her from falling by hugging her, she avoided injury.

The fire mage ran towards the blonde, "Give me that Luce! Oooo-ooohhh!" he slipped causing him to push Gray.

She closed her eyes as she knew they were about to fall, and when she opened it, she saw the ice mage on top of her, both of his hands beneath her head so it won't suffer from any impact. She blushed as she realized the position they were on.

"Sorry Lucy, you okay?" he threw daggers at Salamander, "Hey watch it Natsu!"

"Well sorry for having myself blistered by hot water! And what do you think you're doing to Luce?!"

"Wh-what?" he immediately stood up, "I, I didn't mean that! I was trying to protect her!"

"Yeah? Seemed to me like you were grabbing the opportunity" he crossed his arms.

"What's it to you?"

"Well it means a lot to me!"

She was shocked to hear what the pink-haired had said, means a lot to him… And right after that, she decided to go in between of the two, "Hey you two, stop this!" she pushed them both aside.

But of course, she couldn't stop them from bumping their head against each other like they usually do.

"This guy's getting on my nerves, so don't stop me Luce."

"Yeah, want a piece of me? Bring it on flame brain!"

"I said stop it!"

"Hey Natsu, Gray, stop this, Lucy's being squeezed in between you two!"

"Well it's your friend's fault, Happy!" the raven-haired finally broke the "head-butt challenge", "He talks as if he likes Lucy, well, tell him he's too late, she's all mine." He smirked.

The fire mage then opened his mouth to say something, but just decided to shut up.

"I said…" the nerves on her head started popping up, "All of you stop itttttt!"

And with that, she sent the three flying away with her Lucy Kick, and what she only heard was a shriek from the cat yelling, "What did I doooo?"

As she was panting, she closed her eyes and thought of what happened and realized that there was an audience in front of them, Now we're screwed. Goodbye, good ol' rewar—

*Claps*

She opened her brown orbs and saw the crowd applauding and cheering, "Nice one Princess Lucy!" "Yeah, you show them!" "Maybe I'll watch the real play." "Yeah, it seems promising!" "You're so cool Princess!" "Prince Gray is so handsome!" "I think Juvion is hot!" "Prince Natsu is the one for you Princess!"

And upon not knowing what to do, all she did was force a laugh, bow elegantly, and ran to the backstage in order to close the curtain as she sighed, "… Natsu"

To be continued…

A/N: So how was it? I hope it's okay! I'm sorry too if you see mistakes! Looks like they are slowly opening up their feelings towards each other. Please let me clarify that the exchange of words by Natsu and Gray aren't a serious fight, it's just like how they usually do (you know, their petty brawls). The atmosphere only started to become serious when Gray said that he owns Lucy. And seeing the fire mage's reaction, she decided to kick them all out of the stage. Now, what could possibly happen next? Tehee~ feel free to review, etc.! \(◦'')/