G'day! Hope you enjoy.

"BRATS!"

Everyone in the Fairy Tail guild froze as Makarov towered above them in his giant form.

"I am NOT happy, you're really going to get it this time!"

Everyone gulped and looked around shiftily. Who had crossed the line? Loke wondered if news about his sleazing on the nightclub strip had angered the Master. Cana sipped her drink nervously, was he referring to her public drunkenness? Erza grimaced, thinking about that incident from a week ago where she'd threatened to burn down the bakery for running out of her favourite delicacy. Gajeel slowly put the guitar that he'd been tuning back into its case, had there been another noise complaint?

Natsu and Gray narrowed their eyes at each other, silently communicating their accusations.

What did you do this time, Lizard?

Me!? What about you, Popsicle?

Lucy shook her head at Natsu, silently chiming in. It was definitely you, Natsu.

Juvia coughed nervously in the corner, Have they found the remains of those girls that talked to Gray? No…surely not…Juvia hid them too well…

Makarov cut across everyone's silent contemplations, pulling out the letter he'd just received. "The council just sent this official complaint, and a certificate we have to hang on the wall by law. It says, 'Congratulations Fairy Tail on 1000 official complaints'."

A cheer went up from the main room of the guild.

"DON'T CHEER! One cannot progress in the way of magic while being mindful of the watchful eye from above…But that isn't a license to be a bunch of destructive fools!"

"What was the official complaint, Master?" Erza stepped forward. "We'll all do our best to address whatever the problem is…won't we?" Erza turned to glare at her unenthused guild mates.

"…Aye…"

Makarov sighed and shrunk back into his regular form, offering the papers to Erza to read for herself while he filled everyone in on the basics.

"Our 1000th complaint is a public relations issue, the council doesn't like the image we portray when we're out on missions. They say that nobody can tell who the teammates are due to all the fighting and bickering, and it makes the employers nervous about hiring us and other guilds in future."

"We get the job done!" Natsu interrupted angrily.

"That may be so, but magic is a business, and part of doing business is professionality. Their complaint, to summarise that extremely wordy document I just had to go through, is that we're unprofessional while we work."

A low muttering rang around the guild hall, no one wanted to be 'professional'.

"Lame."

"Yeahhh...nah."

"Like that's going to happen."

"Do I have to buy a neck tie?"

"SILENCE!" Makarov roared. "The order handed down to us is to do a team-building exercise. From many eyewitness reports, apparently the main problem is our own mages constantly fighting each other over trivial disputes, especially 'the fire boy and the ice guy'."

"Ridiculous!" Erza scoffed. "Natsu and Gray are the best of friends…unless you two have been fighting behind my back…" She turned on the pair menacingly, fists clenched.

"WE ARE THE BEST OF FRIENDS!" Natsu and Gray yelled together, putting their arms around each other's shoulders.

"Good." Erza nodded approvingly.

"Too gullible!" Lucy exclaimed.

"Friends or not, our teamwork is lacking…so I'm going to enforce the council's recommendation, we're doing their teambuilding exercise." Makarov announced.

"NOOOO! GRAMPS!"

"CAN IT! I'M SICK OF PAYING FOR DAMAGES! You can all learn to co-exist without demolishing everything around you!"

Erza nodded solemnly. "You have all given Fairy Tail a bad name, this activity will hopefully reform you into productive"-

"You're doing it too, Erza."

"B-but I- why!?"

"While it's true you're an efficient and neat wizard, your people skills could use some work…also I heard a little snippet of information about you and a bakery chef…"

"…I knew it…"

"Erza! Natsu! Gray! Lucy! Loke! Cana! Gajeel! Juvia! Happy! Elfman! Report back here at 1800 tomorrow, or prepare for a fate worse than death…" Makarov warned ominously, a dark aura outlining his small frame.

"…Aye…"

"Wait! Why do I have to go?!" Lucy and Happy yelled simultaneously.

The guild looked at them blankly.

"Stupid cat! Don't associate with me! You need to go more than anyone!" Lucy raged.

"So mean Lucyyyy!"

"Leave Luigi alone, Happy." Natsu laughed casually, strolling over to them.

"My name is LUCY!" Lucy yelled, punctuating her point with a kick to the face.

"I think you just answered your own question…" Makarov smirked.

"Wait! No! It was just these two being annoying!" Lucy begged desperately.

"Ahh but it takes two to tango, you've got to learn to control that temper." Makarov reminded her sagely.

"Great…" Lucy muttered darkly, glaring at her two friends.

"Well, if that's all, guild dismissed!" Makarov clapped his hands cheerily.

OoOoO

"Lucy! Wait!" Natsu ran to catch up with the swishing blonde hair of his teammate, stalking along the riverside.

"Go away! It's your fault I have to go do this stupid activity!" Lucy hissed at him through gritted teeth.

"Aww don't be like that. Sure, it will be lame, but it'll still be fun to hang out together!" Natsu laughed freely.

"Idiot! We're not going to be paid! I need money to make rent this month, we had to take a mission!"

"Rent-schment." Natsu yawned, waving his hand airily.

"Too carefree! Some of us have responsibilities in life!" Lucy snapped irritably.

"If you need money just ask me for some, I've got piles of the junk lying around my house."

"Don't rub it in!"

"Maybe you should just stop buying so many new clothes…"

"What would you know?! You've been wearing the same outfit every day since we met!"

"Hm?" Natsu tore his gaze away from a fisherman trying to reel in his catch.

"And don't zone out so easily!" Lucy berated, getting even more aggravated by Natsu's vacant expression.

"Calm down, Lucy. Life is too short."

"You're the most frustrating person I've ever met…and that wasn't a compliment!" Lucy added angrily, as Natsu smiled even wider.

"Natsuuuuuu!" Happy flew into view as Lucy shook her head. I spoke too soon.

"Hey! What's up, Happy?" Natsu asked, catching his cat friend and letting him sit on his head as they walked.

"Pssst, Natsu, let's go see what Lucy has in her kitchen for dinner." Happy whispered loudly.

"Good idea, it's definitely better than whatever we have…" Natsu whispered back.

"I CAN HEAR BOTH OF YOU!"

"Do you think she heard us?" Happy continued whispering.

"Nah, she's just bluffing." Natsu nodded confidently.

"STOP FOLLOWING ME!"

"Oh…I see..." Natsu mumbled sadly, hanging his head. "Come on Happy, let's go back to our cold, dark, hut. I'm sure we have a tin of tuna we can share or something…"

"Aye…"

Lucy rolled her eyes at this obvious ploy to get an invitation to dinner…and yet…

"…Fine! Come on then, but stay out of my bedroom!"

"You're the best, Lucy!" Natsu and Happy yelled enthusiastically, zooming past her to get to her house.

"H-hey! No eating until I make dinner! DON'T BREAK IN- never mind…" Lucy sighed as she watched Natsu clamour through her window off in the distance.

"Relationship troubles?"

Lucy was startled to see a fisherman watching from the riverbank, enjoying a quiet chuckle at the scene that had just unfolded.

"Something like that…" Lucy muttered bitterly, before running to catch up with the goof she'd fallen in love with, and his adorable, annoying, cat.

OoOoO

"I'm so glad you all decided to show up." Makarov smiled warmly at everyone.

"Like we had a choice…" Loke muttered. Even though he'd kept his voice low, his words echoed around the vacant guild hall, completely empty except for the ten participants, Mira, and the Master.

"You always have a choice, Loke." The Master lectured lightly. "It's just that some choices are far superior to others. If you all kept that in mind when you were out on missions, then we wouldn't be here today, would we?"

This was met with a disgruntled mumbling from the group, although Natsu was a little louder as usual.

"Why isn't Wendy here?" Natsu whined, "How did she get out of this?"

"Do you have rocks in your head, Natsu!? What has Wendy ever done?! You should all look up to Wendy in the future on how to behave in public!"

"I'm just like Wendy!" Lucy yelled out, although she was completely ignored.

"And that's why Levy isn't here either. Sorry, Gajeel." Makarov added cheekily, stroking his moustache.

"Like I care about that shrimp!"

"I'm just like Levy too! Why am I getting lumped in with this lot!?"

"Enough! Mira, bring in the activity." Makarov barked.

Mira wheeled in a table covered in various arts and crafts paraphernalia.

"What the hell is this!?" Gajeel narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I thought we'd be doing trust falls or something."

"AS IF I'D LET YOU LOT DO THAT!" Makarov went bug eyed at the prospect. "No, this is much much safer. You are all going to write each other some 'warm fuzzies'."

"Uh…some warm what?" Gray snorted.

"Warm fuzzies. You are each going to make and decorate a little post-box and then hang it somewhere in this room. After that, you're going to write a small letter to each one of your comrades here, it has to be something nice about them, maybe something you appreciate, maybe something you like about their personality or something they've done. You're then going to put it in that person's post-box, but sign it anonymously. After everyone's finished, you can empty your post-box and read the letters you've received."

For the first time, the mood in the room seemed to lighten.

"That's not so bad…" Loke murmured cautiously to the others, and was met with enthusiastic nodding from Elfman and Cana.

"I can't wait!" Natsu cackled evilly, looking straight at Gray, who was smirking back at him. Both already thinking about all the insults they were going to use.

"Wonderful!" Makarov applauded merrily. "Just a word of warning though, I will be staying here for the activity, and if I see ANYONE writing a 'cold prickly'…well, I'm sure many of you have experienced my wrath first hand…"

"A cold prickly?" Erza asked hesitantly.

"A message that is nasty or insulting. If it isn't warm or fuzzy, you'll be answering to me." Makarov warned, cracking his knuckles.

The mood in the room dropped all the way back down.

"Ugh!" Loke spat in disgust, "I'm not writing anything nice to these dopes" he pointed his thumb in Natsu and Elfman's general direction.

"Compliments aren't manly!" Elfman protested.

"Master, I would like to comply with your activity…but I don't like lying either." Erza chipped in robotically.

"SILENCE!" The dark aura returned around Makarov's body.

"Aww…" Natsu muttered, "So this won't be any fun at all…"

"Afraid not, kiddo. Now come on! Start making your post-boxes!"

Makarov shepherded the group of unruly wizards over to the arts and craft table like a bustling elementary school teacher. Straight away, the neat table turned into a sloppy mess of glitter, glue, and paint.

"I saw the streamers first!"

"No way! I'm pretty sure you were looking at those pink stickers!"

"Are you boys fighting?"

"NOT AT ALL!"

"If you tell me my post-box doesn't look manly one more time…"

"Real men don't use glitter!"

"Stupid cat! Stop stepping on my art!"

"Waaaah, sorry Lucy! I thought it was the rubbish pile…"

"ENOUGH!"

Makarov grumbled inaudibly as he shook stray glitter out of his clothes, a victim caught in the cross fire of Fairy Tail-style arts and crafts.

"It's been five minutes, whatever you've made in this time will suffice, go put them somewhere in the room and get started on writing the warm fuzzies."

After a little bit more fighting about where they each got to hang their post-box ("Gray's is too close to mine!"), all ten were displayed proudly around the room, the creators now spread out to keep what they were writing private.

Elfman had folded a piece of paper into a plain white rectangular box, declaring that 'arts aren't manly'. Makarov had informed him that he had to do something to make it recognisably his, so Elfman had conceded and written his name along the front in big block capital letters, 'the only manly way to write'. He was now sitting cross legged, frowning in concentration, gripping his pencil in his fist like a knife.

Cana had crafted a beer mug out of cardboard, and drawn a picture on the front of her winking, with a speech bubble saying 'Fill me up'. Makarov had coughed and turned away, not offering any comment. Cana was now lying on her stomach, kicking her legs in the air as she wrote.

Gajeel had just stapled together a big cardboard box, covered it in tin foil, and written a large 'G' on the front. When Makarov noted there was no way to actually put the letters inside, Gajeel had snarled and punched a hole in it. Gajeel was now muttering darkly in a corner, stabbing at his sheet in a similar writing style to Elfman.

Juvia had made two boxes and stuck them together side by side, both decorated in swirling blue patterns. One read 'Gray's love letters here', with an arrow pointing at the opening. While the other read 'Everyone else', and didn't even have a bottom to it. Juvia was now writing what appeared to be a very long essay while stealing glances at Gray from the Makarov-enforced distance of five metres.

Erza had designed a pouch. This was made possible with an upside down paper cone stuck to a large piece of cardboard covered in drawings of swords. Large text ran along the top reading 'Send me a cold prickly, and I'll coldly prick you!' Erza was now sitting calmly, situated exactly in between Gray and Natsu, frequently looking up from her work to make sure they were still writing.

Loke had designed something similar to Juvia, dividing his two boxes into 'Girls' and 'Don't care'. The first box was adorned with a smiling self-portrait of Loke, complete with sunglasses and a sparkling, glittery, background. The second box was left blank. Just like Juvia, Loke appeared to be writing some very long warm fuzzies, although there were four very short scraps of paper next to him that were already set for delivery.

If Elfman and Gajeel were writing slowly, then Natsu was moving at a snail's pace. Sweat was coming off of his brow as he silently mouthed the words he was trying to spell. His post-box was on the floor in the corner, unable to be hung up. An assortment of papers and streamers, coloured orange and red, had been sloppily glued together in a rough bowl shape, somewhat resembling a bird's nest on fire. Makarov had let Natsu off from writing his name on it as 'he was the only one who could have possibly slapped together this monstrosity'.

Gray chewed on his pencil thoughtfully, ignoring Makarov's attempts to get him to put his shirt back on. Gray had designed a basket that looked like it was made of ice, but at the last second Natsu has set it on fire by accident, trying to grab it to take a closer look. So as a backup plan, Gray had spread his shirt out along the ground with a scrap of paper on top reading 'Gray's warm fuzzies here. Beat it, Natsu!'

Lucy had pulled up a desk, sorted all her papers, and was sitting up straight in perfect writing position. But despite all this, she was barely moving faster than Natsu, spending more time spinning her pencil between her fingers than actually writing. Regardless of what Happy thought, Lucy was quite proud of her post-box. She'd used some of Gajeel's tin foil and fashioned a giant key, now stuck to the wall. A thin rope was hung around the end of the key, tied to small paper basket decorated with pink flowers. In her own opinion, it was a lovely piece of art…if it wasn't for the dirty paw print right in the middle…

Happy giggled to himself as he wrote his warm fuzzies, earning a suspicious glare from the watchful Makarov. Happy had drawn a picture of a fish on a piece of paper and signed it with a paw print. Natsu had then reminded him they were supposed to be making post-boxes and Happy had complained that he wanted to eat fish until they ran out of time. Fortunately, Erza donated a spare post-box that she had prepared in the event of an emergency. Happy pinned the picture of his fish on top of Erza's sword themed post-box and started fanning himself as if he'd just finished a hard day's work.

Makarov breathed a sigh of relief as his 'children' all sat quietly for the first time, engrossed in their work. Mira stifled a small laugh from behind him.

"Even when you put them in detention, they still make things as difficult as possible."

Makarov allowed himself a half-smile. "They are an uncontrollable force of nature, I think the days where I could actually reign them in are long gone, I'm surprised they still listen to me at all."

Mira frowned. "Don't say that, Master. Even if they were strong enough, they'd never call your bluff, they have too much respect for you."

Makarov's smile widened a little more, but he didn't comment any further. The dark energy he could produce when angry was just a stage show, he could never use that kind of magic on his precious children.

OoOoO

"Alright, I think that's the last one!" Makarov announced. A muscle above Natsu's eye twitched, but he still dropped his piece of paper onto Gray's shirt, despite the message left there telling him not to bother.

"It's about time." Erza muttered darkly, even her patience had been tested waiting for Natsu to finish writing. While Gray, Gajeel, Elfman, and surprisingly Lucy, had lagged behind the other half of the group, Natsu really was in a league of his own. Makarov hadn't let anyone collect their warm fuzzies until he finished, but had eventually relented slightly and allowed Mira to assist Natsu to complete the last two. He wasn't as young as he once was after all, time was precious.

"Took you long enough, Smokey."

"I'll smoke you, Ice Guy"

"Boys…"

"Can we go already?" Gajeel growled, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"Yes!" Makarov jumped in, before things boiled over further. "Please, everyone, go home and read your warm fuzzies. I hope you all learned a valuable lesson…or something…whatever, I'll go send a message to the council that we completed their task."

Everyone scooped up their warm fuzzies, although Erza had to force Juvia and Loke to pick up both of their boxes, and made a beeline for the exit.

"Wanna read our warm fuzzies together?" Natsu asked Lucy eagerly.

"NO WAY! They are supposed to be private!" Lucy responded, her cheeks going slightly pink. She nodded at Cana, Juvia, and Erza, before dashing off.

"Fiiiine!" Natsu groaned. "Come on Happy, let's ditch these losers."

"Aye!"

"I'm going to beat the tar out of you if I find a cold prickly in here, Natsu…" Erza warned.

"I'm going to beat the tar out of you if I find anything from you in here, Salamander." Gajeel threatened.

"Hey! They are anonymous, you can't just blame it on me!" Natsu defended.

"True, but I'm fairly sure I could recognise your handwriting anywhere." Erza countered.

"Nuh-uh, that's why I was writing so slowly!"

"We'll see…" Erza finished dangerously, piercing everyone with an accusatory glare as she made her way home.

"Did you write Juvia a warm fuzzy, Gray?" Juvia asked innocently, unable to make eye contact.

"Of course." Gray muttered.

"O-of c-course!?" Juvia went bright red, fantasising about the possible meanings of those words.

"He liiiiiiiiikes her!" Happy teased, flying away.

"Shut it, cat! It's not like that at all!" Gray yelled indignantly.

Slowly the group split in different directions, leaving Makarov and Mira alone.

"What do you think the results will be, Master?"

Makarov stroked his moustache thoughtfully as he turned to head home too.

"Not for nothing has Fairy Tail won Sorcerer Monthly's 'Most Unpredictable Guild' award five years in a row. I'm not sure if I'll ever reach a magical peak high enough to predict what these idiots will do next."

Mira smiled, once again Makarov had underestimated his own ability as Guild Master, but she didn't push the matter any further.

"Good night, Master."

"Good night, Mira. Get some rest, tomorrow will be an interesting day."

NEXT TIME: Gray opens his warm fuzzies!

Thanks for reading! As you can probably tell from the preview above, each character is going to get an individual chapter to read their warm fuzzies.

If you enjoyed it, I love hearing why so I know what to include more of in future. If you didn't, please let me know what I need to improve on, it's the only way I can get better.

One last thing: I registered as a beta, so if you're interested in using my services then please go read my profile and see if I'm the right guy for you.