When Freed reached the mayor's house, him and his wife were surprised to see just Freed there (looking ill and tired and sad). Of course Freed convinced them that he would try his best; Fairy Tail had the reputation of being surprising in every way possible so the mayor let him do as he pleased. If there were any chance to resolve the situation, the mayor would do it.

Freed walked out to the edge of town before following the dirt path that led into the thick forest, as per instructed by the mayor. But to tell the truth, he wasn't thinking about the deranged rabid beasts that were probably lurking in the shadows near him. No. He was thinking about Laxus. How Laxus used to smile at him, trust him with everything. Freed was going to miss those days the most. The days where they could just walk together as friends and enjoy the others company in a comfortable silence. Laxus would even take off his headphones around him!

No, stopping thinking like that brain… Freed though depressed. If he lived through this mission he wasn't going to return to Fairy Tail anyway.

I'm going to miss you Laxus. And I'm definitely going to miss my family. How loud they are. How excitable they get at the smallest of things. How they always start fights and protect each other to the end. I'm going to miss it all.

Freed let a single tear slip from his eye, hidden by his bangs, before letting it roll down his cheek instead of wiping it away.

*Growl*

Freed immediately stopped before unsheathing his blade. He made a full 360 degrees before placing runes around himself as protection. If the beasts couldn't be attacked with magic, then he would protect himself with magic. If that worked, he'd observed how they attack and work as a team.

Freed was about a mile or so into the dense forest before seeing seven giant beasts slowly leave the forest to start circling around Freed. They were observing him. Seeing if he was going to attack them with magic.

Interesting…

The beasts were black with strange tribal markings all over their body. Four of the smaller beasts had the white tribal tattoos, two had blue tribal tattoos, and the largest and most gruesome looking one had red tribal tattoos. They looked like giant deranged, hairless dogs with huge paws and ears, and long tails that had dangerous looking spikes on them. There were also spikes that ran down the middle of their backs and some of the spikes were scattered here and there on their bodies.

I've never seen or heard of creatures like these, where did they come from? The mountains? Caves?

As Freed thought of different things, one of the smaller white ones seemed to get impatient before lunging to attack. Freed readied his blade incase his runes didn't hold.

Yes!

The runes shuttered under the quake of the hit the white beast struck. Freed knew his runes wouldn't last long under such brute force so he had to think quickly.

Freed threw a light rune at the white one that just attacked him, but it didn't seem to phase it in the least.

Not sensitive to light so it didn't come from a cave of some sort, nor would it hunt in the dark. But I guess this would confirm it considering they are attacking me in broad daylight.

Before he could throw another elemental rune at one, his barrier was broken by a blue beast making Freed quickly release his rune wings to get out of their fast. However, when he was a few feet off the ground, he was smacked down to the ground hard and rolled a few yards. It seemed that the red beast had wings, while the others didn't and it had stopped him from flying away. Its wings blended in with its back so Freed didn't even notice it before.

So the red one is the leader. If the blue one could break the barrier than they are probably the captains. The white ones are followers if I had to guess.

Freed's eyes widened as a white beast shot light at him from its mouth. Freed quickly drew a rune to stop the light from hitting him.

So they can use magic, but magic doesn't affect them? How strange. I wonder…

Freed created some fire before throwing it at a blue beast which shot a water ball at it. He then threw a water blast at the red beast before it shot the water with a fire blast; which was rather powerful it knocked Freed down to the ground again.

I bet Natsu would like to fight the red beast. The blue beasts deal with mostly water and the white beasts deal with light! No wonder my light rune didn't have an effect on it!

Out of nowhere though, the giant red beast had the tribal tattoo colors change from red to yellow. It had electricity buzz around its body before one second it was in front of him to being behind him in the next second. It shot lightning at Freed from its mouth making Freed fly hard into a tree.

The now yellow beast changed its color back to red while the blue beasts changed to a light blue/white color and the white beasts changed to a gray color.

They can change what magic they want to use on their prey? How is that possible?

Freed's vision was getting fuzzy from the lack of sleep and food he hadn't been getting.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea…

Freed knew he already had several bruises starting to form on his body but he meant what he said. He was going to fight to the end for Fairy Tail. He was out numbered and he had to be especially careful around the red beast. Before he knew it all seven were attacking him. Ice came out of the light blue beasts making Freed run to the side before shadows tried to tug him into the line of fire from the gray beasts. Freed jumped into the sky to fly away from them with his rune wings before the red beast flew at him, claws extended, striking Freed hard out of the air. Freed's head hit the ground hard making him see red and black in his vision. His entire side was numb and he felt something wet running down his head and nose.

But that's when he heard the most wonderful thing in the world.

"FREED!"

My family is here! But why? Why would they want to save me? They hate me, don't they? Please don't pity me.

Out of the blurriness of his eyes, he saw Laxus, as roaring thunder clouds were getting near him. Freed saw from his peripheral that the red beast was about to slash down on him once more, which would have ended his life, he was sure. But a burst of lightning so powerful shot over Freed and hit the beast, making it fly into a tree.

"Get the hell away from my mate!" Laxus roared as he stood protectively over Freed. Freed saw Natsu, Gray, Lucy, Erza, Wendy, Bickslow, and Evergreen running towards them as the other beasts regrouped for an attack.

"What the hell are these things!?" Ever yelled out

"I've never seen or heard of them before in any books or from any person!" Lucy yelled out, readying her keys.

"Well I'm getting fired up!" Natsu roared making Gray smirk.

Freed couldn't see them very well anymore. They were all so very blurry.

"Freed?" Laxus looked down with worry before his eyes widened in shock. Laxus bent down, keeping his eye on the beast before quickly looking over Freed.

"He has some bad injuries. Wendy!" Laxus called over making the girl hurry over with Charle.

"Laxus… why?" Freed whispered out in pain, tears leaving him.

"You weren't supposed to do anything stupid till I got here" Laxus said with fake scolding. He slowly wiped Freed's tears away but only more replaced them.

"Hey…" Laxus whispered.

"This isn't the time for that, they are going to attack any minute!" Erza yelled out. As much as everyone wanted to explain the situation to Freed, getting him and themselves safely out of there was first priority.

"Red one. Is the leader. Has wings. Changes between. Fire and Lightning. Blues are water and ice. White is light and shadows." Freed tried to get the words out but something was stabbing him in the chest.

"Please don't speak anymore Freed-san! You have a puncture to your lung!" Wendy said with worry.

"Oh yeah! My kind of fight!" Natsu yelled out.

"Thanks Freed" Laxus shuffled his green hair, skewing the little lightning fly aways he had, noting how soft his hair was in his hands for a moment.

"Lets show them how the Raijinshuu kick ass babies!" Bickslow yelled as Freed's family dove into the fight.

Freed was losing consciousness slowly, but it seemed that the beasts were tough opponents. Either way though, Freed knew his family could defeat anything in their way so he didn't mind losing the last of his consciousness while his eyes followed the yellow blur that was his Laxus.

"Freed-san stay awake!" Wendy cried making Ever, Bicks, and especially Laxus, lose concentration for just a moment in the fight.

You'll kick their asses guys, I know it.

"Freed-san!"

And then there was darkness.

Before you say Freed could take a lot more damage than that with his Dark Écriture: Darkness mode, thingy, remember that he is completely off his game! He hasn't eaten or slept well in four days and so he wasn't really mentally or physically ready for that battle. Other than that... I tried to get Freed's character of being really smart and observant while fighting so... I hope I pulled that off! Next is protective Laxus (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).