Disclaimer: Fairy Tail characters are own by Hiro Mashima!

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Chapter 11: Challenged

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Erza was humming happily while cleaning the rest of her dorm with Lucy, both had finished all the tests for the first term and were now officially at break for 2 weeks.

For those two weeks, a campus break was organized by the school, mostly by the student council, for a break to students after the tests. Even though the student council did organize it, school decided to point out some of the teachers to come with them, just in case some of the students decided to act agains the rules.

Erza at first didn't want to go, she wanted to stay at her dorm and plan things out for the club tournaments coming up slightly after the break, but Lucy had pestered her about going with her so Erza just gave up and accepted to go.

As soon as they both finished cleaning they started packing for the next day, tomorrow they were going campus with all their friends and other students.

"That's so much luggage!" Lucy exclaimed. "We are going to the camp, what are you going to do there exactly?"

She couldn't believe her friend, she always did this. Everytime they had extra activities from school or they needed to travel somewhere, her red head friend always just packed so much, it was kind of funny.

"I prefer to be prepared for whatever may come." She simply said, repeating the same thing she always said when Lucy questioned her actions.

Lucy simply shrugged at this and went to help her friend, she was so used to her weird persona by now she actually didn't even care anymore.

…

The next day came by as fast as it could. Erza slowly opened her eyes and turned off the alarm she set up the day before. It was only 5am but she had to still take a shower and wake up her best friend, they had to be at school by 7 to take the bus.

She glanced up at Lucy's bed and saw it was empty already, so she assumed she was already awake.

After her shower she went to the kitchen and saw Lucy happily eating her breakfast while talking on the phone. "Gray, is he awake by now?" She heard Lucy ask, she was sure she was talking about Natsu, the pink haired boy was alaways the last to get up, so Gray frequently had to go to his dorm to wake him up.

After a pause, what she assumed was Gray responding, she heard Lucy's final words before the call was over. "Okay, see ya there, thanks."

Lucy ended the call noticing her best friend looking at her curious, she smiled and explained. "Natsu as always."

"Should I go wake him up?" Erza suggested, an evil smile forming on her lips.

Lucy sweat dropped at this and chuckled. "N…No, I don't think you need to, it's okay."

If Erza was the one to wake up Natsu, she was sure Natsu would be half dead by the time he got to school.

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Erza and Lucy arrived at school at 6.45am, they spotted an half sleeping Natsu and Gray already there as well as lots of others students. It was mostly sunny but not that hot, which was normal since it wasn't summer, or even near it, so they were lucky already as to actually be sunny and warm.

Erza was wearing dark blue shorts and a black sleeve, making her comfortable for the trip, while Lucy was wearing light blue skinny pants as she was kind of scared of the bugs, and also a pink top. They joined Natsu and Gray and started talking while waiting for the rest of students and teachers to show up.

At 7.05am, one of the teachers present asks for the students to low their voice and starts to talk.

"As you all know these two weeks you will be at the campus. I don't want any reclamations from the teachers regarding alcohol or comportment problems." He started, going directly to the point.

"You will ride the bus with your class, your representative teacher will be waiting inside the bus." He explained, while gesturing to some of the buses there. "I hope you have fun and please be careful."

Students started shouting happily while going to their own respectively buses. Erza's class was the one with a 2-A written above. As soon as Erza got inside the bus she greeted the teacher that was assigned to be responsible for their class while in campus, it was Gildarts, the gym teacher.

She seated with Lucy. Natsu and Gray were behind them, happily talking with each other. Erza didn't know what to expect of this campus, it was an idea she had only this year, so it was her first time coming to an actual 2 week school camp, with all the students none the less.

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Once they got to the camp, they took all their bags and before they could go anywhere, their teacher stopped them outside the bus. He had to explain yet some rules and whatnot before they all leave to their respectively rooms, not that the students were leaving anyway, since it was their first time here they didn't know where or what to do.

"Okay, let me explain some of your confused glances." Gildarts pointed out. "First of all, you will share your stay with another class." Everyone in the class just glanced at each other with an unsure look on their faces, but didn't say anything. "We assigned one house to two classes, girls will be sleeping in one side and boys at another." He continued. "Each house has two big rooms, one big kitchen and one big salon. Each room has one toilet and a number of bunk beds... showers can be found outside the house… we have, not far from each house public showers you can use when you want."

"Wait." Natsu interrupted. "Why are we sharing the stay, wouldn't it have a lot of people inside a single room?" He questioned confused, blurting out everyone else's thoughts.

"You can see not everyone came to the campus, so the numbers are perfect to share a house, considering they don't have houses for every class." Gildarts simply explained.

Erza glanced around, she could see Gildarts was right about the student decreased number, their class had 18 students, fully, but right here she could see only around ten. For the girls it was only her, Lucy, Mira, Levy and Cana… Not that she was surprised, lots of students didn't like camp and others were simply busy with family plans to come, like Meredy who had to stay at home with her parents.

Lucy was also glancing around to see with whom she was going to share the room with… So we have 5 at least for our class, she noted. Lucy was fine with sharing the house or even room with another class knowing Erza and Mira would be there.

"Anyway…" Gildarts continued, getting the attention of the two girls. "You have the map with you right? You shouldn't get much trouble finding what you need. If you want to see me just go to the office room marked in the map, got it? Now you can go… your assigned house is the red one on the plan." He finished, leaving.

Erza and the others walked towards the red house not that far from where they were, she supposed every bus stopped near their assigned houses. Once they got there, they could see some of the other students from the other class already there.

"Oh, so you are the other class that will stay with us?" A familiar black haired girl shouted, coming from the right where you could see two couches and one table placed near the right wall of the big living room.

Erza saw how Ultear came joining them happily. "I'm happy it's you." She said, hugging Erza and the other girls.

"Oh, Ultear." Erza said surprised, but happy she would stay with them, at least it was someone they actually knew.

She noticed how Gajeel from her class and another guy from Ultear's class were bickering at each other and frowned, before going to hit them and shout to them to stop.

Gajeel was a tall muscular boy with spiky black hair, usually kept slicked back. He was wearing a bandana on his forehead, white pants and a black shirt… His eyes were red which caused some people to actually be scared of him, but Erza knew he was actually kind, especially to Levy, one of their classmates.

"It was Cobra who started it." Gajeel pointed to him, annoyed.

The boy Gajeel was 'fighting' with, was Erik, or most know as Cobra… A slim man with average height, dark tan skin and marron spiky hair upwards, with some of the hair covering his forehead.

Cobra was confused at the red head since they didn't know each other but decided to not say anything after another glare she threw to both of them, making them to just leave as fast as they could.

"I'm so glad we have Erza here, like that we won't have any problems regarding these idiots." Ultear was grinning evily.

Erza sighed, she really wanted a two week of rest though, not to be pointed out as the controller of bad behavior.

She decided to go to her shared room to unpack her stuff and then take a rest for the whole day, not inside the house of course, she knew she wouldn't have any peace inside, she had a brilliant idea after studying the map.

After the red head was done, she went outside, leaving all the girls to continue unpacking their stuff while talking and screaming about boys.

Before she left she glanced up to analise the situation, Ultear was teasing Lucy and Juvia, a blue haired girl from Ultear's class, about their 'Love rival' situation, whatever that was... while Levy, Mira, Kinana and Yukino were talking about Gajeel and Laxus, until they started talking about Cobra and a flustered Kinana was hidding her face from embarassement. On the other hand, Cana was drinking - what she wanted to assume was juice but was definitely alchool - by herself while unpacking.

Kinana and Yukino were both from 2-B class. Kinana was a petite girl with violet-colored short hair and green eyes, while Yukino had also short but light blue hair and brown eyes. Yukino was at Sabertooth High last year but this year she joined them and even though Erza didn't really know the reason why, she could just try and figure it was because of a certain group of students.

...

Erza walked slowly into the woods, knowing there was a spot just a few meters away, as indicated on their map, that she thought it would be peaceful since it was placed far from the entertainment camp activities area, or even their house.

When she arrived, she stretched out her body and took a deep breath, smiling at the Mother Nature. There was a small lake and a waterfall… a small cave was seen at the right and birds were singing around and Erza couldn't feel more at peace.

…

Lucy and the others had finished unpacking all their stuff and even decorated the room. They were all gathered on the living room with the boys, preparing to leave and explore the main activities grounds.

"Lucy, where's Erza?" Ultear asked the blonde head, after glancing around not seeing the president.

Lucy sighed and just shrugged at the black haired girl, not really knowing the answer herself. "She just said she was going out. She's probably just chilling somewhere."

"Oh, that's too bad. And Gajeel and Cobra are at it again." She pointed out just now noticing the two fighting again, annoyed.

"Well, just let them be." Jellal shrugged. "They will get tired, eventually."

"Yeah, let's just go and leave these idiots here." Shouted Natsu, excited.

"You are not the one to talk, number one idiot." Retorted Gray.

"What did you call me, pervert?" Natsu bickered, now facing the other boy.

They were now both fighting each other and Lucy couldn't help but face palm at them, half smiling at the two. She suddenly felt a wrath behind her, of what she assumed was Juvia with 'don't smile at my Gray.' stand, she sighed at the situation.

Ultear just chuckled and started to leave with everyone else, Lucy kind of pulling Gray and Natsu along with Levy's help… it was a sunny day, they had to enjoy.

The camp was big enough to make them get lost if they get too far away, luckily for them, they had a map to help them, but the map only covered what he must.

The camp was composed of houses separately, some of them were on the other side of the map, which Lucy couldn't possibly think about walking there any time in their two week rest, so she would just probably get stuck with her class and B class for the rest of the break.

The houses surrounded the center of the map that consisted of a place for everyone to play and relax. Lots of activities were shown and proposed to all the people there installed.

Lucy could spot a beach at the map, well it wasn't really a beach considering it wasn't really the ocean, but it was a big large lake that looked like an ocean… and people could also swim and play there, which was the reason Lucy was happily looking at their map, knowing that later on the day they decided to go there. But first, they would go to the center and check out all the activities they could do, of course that was an excuse for Natsu to buy every food he got to, not that she expected they had many here, but if that made him happy she wouldn't possibly crash his dreams appart.

The place was filled with students, not only from their school, hanging out and they could see some of them were already doing some of the activities they proposed. Lucy was shocked how it was bigger than she thought, but soon realized that she should've expected it since they spent like 30 minutes to get there.

Natsu was just screaming around, excited over everything he saw. Ultear and Jellal were just behind with Gray, whom was just snickering at Natsu.

They could see Ropes course not too far from them, as well as rock climbing, which had Gajeel and Cobra run there at the speed of light, shouting something between the lines "I will win this one." But what got Natsu shouting the most was the vending food tents they had, not many, but still got Natsu that fired up.

When Lucy was sighing at the sight, she dumped into someone and shocked at the impact she immediately started bowing in apology when she saw who it was.

"Well, how lucky of us." A slim girl with long black hair muttered.

Lucy knew this girl, it was Minerva, the student council president of Sabertooth High School. She had a kind of Eastern look, her long and straight hair reaching down to her back, was tied into a pair of bun shaped Dango loops at both sides of her head.

"If it isn't Minerva..." Ultear glowered, she just came stand beside Lucy with Jellal and Gray, Kinana was nervously hiding behind Cana.

Minerva raised her chin in disapproval of the Fairy High students. "Ultear." She spat.

"How come you are here?" Questioned Gray, disconcerted at her presence.

"Do you think your school is the only one coming here?" Minerva sneered. "In fact, our school knows this place it's been quite a few years now, but it's the first time I see you here." She insinuated.

"So we just had the bad luck of coming to this one camp." Gray said, bluntly.

"Things are becoming interesting... this morning I saw your buses arrive, which gave me happiness." Minerva grinned, ignoring Gray.

They stared at each other confused and cautious of her real meaning behind this, they knew they weren't in good terms after what happened with Sting and Rogue.

"Oi, where's your doggy partners at?" Natsu demanded just returning from a food stand, feeling the urge to punch the girl but not doing so. Instead he was curious on why they were not with their gang leader.

Minerva smirked at his question, ignoring the dog part. "They just wanted to walk around, explore the wilderness." She teased.

They frowned at this, but decided to ignore it as they didn't know what she meant by that, but didn't want for her to get ahead of them either.

"Now, now, let's stop this bickering." Gildarts commanded, as he appeared behind the group, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Minerva groaned with displeasure. The Fairy High students all started to leave quietly, they didn't really want to ignore the girl but also did not want to get more problems, with a teacher present nonetheless.

They didn't go that dar though before pausing at the girl's cold voice.

"What about a challenge?" She questioned, smirking.

Sure they couldn't fight, but a fair challenge between the groups wasn't illegal or didn't harm anyone. So they thought at least.

They all turned to face her once more, with Natsu clenching his fists and grinning.

"I'm all fired up now."

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AN: This is the end of ch11, things are def going down hahahaha that was the pourpose of the whole camp thing tbh. Have fun reading.