A/N: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

Chapter 7 - Courage

"I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the flowers..." Lucy began to sing softly. After every verse, the young boys and girls began to repeat after her, they were completely off tune and were not in sync with each other at all, but she still found it sweet, the kind of sweetness that you could only find in the voices of innocent children. Lucy could notice, however, that out of her entire group, all but one was singing. It was Romeo, the young boy who had gotten into a confrontation with Laxus earlier.

"Boom dee ah dah! Boom dee ah dah!" Natsu screeched, even more off tune than the children, and not nearly as sweet, Lucy thought. She appreciated his energetic effort though, and it seemed like the kids were enjoying it too, insisting on singing along with the pink haired man, rather than simply repeating after him. After a while, Lucy halted her guitar playing while Natsu began to pass out roasted weenies among the children. They couldn't catch much fish, but fortunately, there was always an extra food supply just in case things went south.

The only people who didn't seem to be enjoying themselves were Romeo and Laxus. The junior counselor was observing Romeo intently, while the adolescent boy was looking away hesitantly, clearly unnerved by Laxus' uncharacteristic behavior. Suddenly, Laxus' sensitive ears perked up as he heard footsteps coming his way. He turned his head to the source of the noise and could see Wendy walking towards him, a stick in both hands. She raised one hand and beckoned for Laxus to take it. "Here,"

"Thanks," he said, warmly. Looking satisfied, Wendy poorly saluted as though to say "no problem!", took a quick look at Romeo who was gloomy as ever before scurrying back to join Lucy and Natsu who were still gathered around the campfire with the rest of the kids. Once she was too far to hear him, Romeo scoffed bitterly.

Laxus stood up, brought his weary body over to Romeo and sat beside him. He grabbed Romeo's hand, as gently as he could and placed the roasted weenie on a stick in his hand. "For you," he started, without much kindness or gentleness in his voice. "I'm sure you're hungry, right?" but Romeo did not reply. He simply took a reluctant bite out of the sausage before spitting it out.

"It's no good," he commented, handing the stick back to Laxus, getting up an d walking away, kicking a pebble as he did so.

"That kid's attitude really is no good," Laxus closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, roughly a couple of seconds later, he noticed that Natsu was now sitting beside him, eagerly chopping away on various pieces of roasted meat. After finishing all the food he had, Natsu began to hungrily eye the weenie on a stick that Laxus had been holding. Although Romeo had taken a bite off it already, it did not seem to deter Natsu.

"You going to eat that?" he asked. Laxus, not seeing the need for words, simply shoved the stick into Natsu's mouth. "Mh... uff..." the fiery haired junior counselor tried to say, although it was impossible to make out what he was saying when there was something in his mouth. Laxus got up and headed for the campfire. Lucy didn't look like she was having a hard time, but one person to control 15 kids? He would feel bad if he didn't help.

"Hey!" Natsu started, taking the stick out of his mouth. "Laxus, where you headed?!"

"Misaki and Takumi, Sawako and Kazehaya... Yoshioka and Kou... I think these would be the best groups," Lucy suggested. "Oh, and Romeo with Kokoro while Wendy pairs up with Kippei,"

"Sure, whatever you want, Luce," Natsu said, bored. Suddenly, he began to get all energetic again. "Man, I can't wait to scare the kids. You know they say this forest is really haunted? Sure, the counselors are the ones dressing up as monsters and stuff, but what if we run into a real ghost?"

"That's nonsense. There's no such thing as ghosts," Lucy scolded him, lightly slapping him on the wrist when he began to make some monster noises. She turned to Laxus. "These groups are okay with you, right?" she asked, in a hopeful tone.

A wide smirk appeared on Laxus' face. For some reason, Lucy and Natsu could feel a sinister aura coming from the young man. He took the notepad and pen from Lucy. "Yeah, these pairings are great. However, I have just one change. We should pair Wendy with Romeo and Kokro with Kippei," he said, scribbling down the names.

"Wendy hates Romeo though," Natsu piped up, with only a slight bit of interest. Lucy stayed quiet.

"Wrong," Laxus corrected him. "Wendy doesn't hate Romeo. It isn't the other way around either. I think Wendy would love to get along with Romeo. It's Romeo's bad attitude that is the problem here,"

"Even so," Lucy began. "It might not be such a great idea to put them together. The groups are suppose to be one boy and one girl, but maybe we should make an exception? Kokoro with Wendy and Kippei with Romeo...?"

"Forget it," Laxus replied, clearly overstepping his boundary as a junior counselor. Technically speaking, Lucy would get the last call since she was the most senior of all the current counselors. However, she seemed reluctant to challenge Laxus at that moment in time. He seemed adamant on having the groups set like this. Sighing, she muttered. "Fine,"

"Don't worry, sweetheart," Laxus grinned, playfully. "By the end of the night, I think Wendy and Romeo will be closer, and as a result, the kid's attitude will improve. Once the fear kicks in, they will be inseparable. I was a kid once, you know, and no young boy will pass off the opportunity to play a hero anyway," he told them. With a grin still plastered on his face, Laxus picked up and placed the mask on his head. "How do I look?" he asked them.

"Scary," Lucy murmured, although there was no real emotion or fear behind her words.

"You look more frightening without the mask!" Natsu roared, as he fell to the ground laughing and pointing. Laxus grumbled something under his breath as he walked away, slinking off into the forest to take his post, leaving Lucy and Natsu by themselves. The two of them then walked over to the aforementioned Misaki and Takumi, the first pair to head into the forest. Neither of the two kids looked remotely scared, but rather, Misaki looked irritated whereas Takumi was blankly staring in the opposite direction.

The game itself was simple. All of the children would get together, and be paired off into two - preferably one boy and one girl. The two of them would then head off into the forest occupied by 'monsters', who in reality, were simply the counselors who were dressed in elaborate costumes. Except Laxus, of course, as the big man decided that a simple, cheap looking devil mask would be suffice to scare some youngsters. Lucy and Natsu were required to monitor the children as they headed in, so they did not have to dress up. It was just as well too, as Natsu going into his average hysteria and ruining the whole thing was likely and the only one who could possibly control the fiery haired man was Lucy. Therefore, they were the two selected to sit out on the "fun".

That was the test of courage.

Lucy walked as the second last couple, Kippei and Kokoro headed into the forest, the young girl's hand tightly gripped Kippei's shoulder. While Kippei tried to maintain a brave face, it was clear to Lucy that he was just as frightened as she was, if not more. The young boy's hand turned red as he turned away, desperate not to catch Kokoro's gaze. Honestly, Lucy thought. Little kids could be so cute sometimes! She marked the two of them off as they both cautiously headed into the forest. The only pair left was Romeo and Wendy.

"Are you ready?" Lucy asked, as the two of them approached. Lucy noticed that neither of them were looking at each other.

"Are you ready, Romeo?" Wendy asked, parroting Lucy's question.

The purple haired boy shrugged apathetically. "Whatever,"

Somewhere deep within the forest, something was stirring. It was dark, the only source of light being the crescent moon that seemed to radiate it's light everyone except the small plot of land where the two figures were crouching. They were both male figures. One was slender, reasonably tall, perhaps around the 178cm mark whereas the other male figure was much more stocky and considerably taller than the other figure, somewhere around the 190cm mark.

The slender, shorter figure stood up. "Laxus, is that you?"

"Yeah," the taller figure's voice muffled, the sound barely being audible through the mask. "Jellal?"

"Yes," Jellal responded, outstretching his arm and slowly removing Laxus' mask. "Sorry, I just had to make sure. Honestly, I thought your costume would be... better," he murmured. "Can you really scare kids with a cheap devil mask?"

"I could scare them without the devil mask," Laxus retorted, causing Jellal to chuckle slightly. "Tap a kid on the back and shout 'boo' when he turns around? That is just a jump scare, it isn't real fear. Kids come to this summer camp to learn things, right? I'll teach them a lesson,"

"Kids come to this camp to have fun, Laxus," Jellal replied, but Laxus did not hear him. The tall, blonde man simply pointed towards two small figures who were coming their way. Laxus instinctively grabbed his mask from Jellal's hand and placed it back on, properly.

"Look," Laxus smirked. "My first victims."