Many things get the hair on the back of his neck up, but nothing more so than a predator. This is what you get being a prey species, thought Charlie. There are so many things that can eat you, or hunt you, or just crush you. Oh, how much easier it would be to be a lion, or a wolf, or a shark, or even an eagle.

But a raccoon? There's not much you can do against a bear.

Damn Hayley, Charlie fumed. Damn her for sending me here. "Rampaging bear in Central Park" was admittedly well within a druid's wheelhouse, but Charlie wasn't the druid! He was just the companion. The druid is the one with the magic connection to nature – he was just the animal along for the ride. This wasn't his job! He was supposed to provide advice and support, not man-fight a several-hundred-pound bear.

The bear swiped a massive heavy claw at the little raccoon. Charlie dived hard and managed to avoid being slashed, the bear's sharp claws carving deep furrows out of the Park's pristine lawn.

"Hey hey, buddy, maybe I can get you some steaks? Or a nice deer?" Charlie said, grateful that all the nosy humans had run for it when the bear had escaped her enclosure. That was all he needed now, to blow the lid off the whole masquerade. An escaped bear was one thing, but a talking raccoon?

The bear was apparently unmoved by Charlie's offer. Another large paw rushed toward him, but Charlie managed to half-backflip onto a tree, his own claws catching fast in the rough bark, leaving him hanging upside down. An explosion of dirt and splinters erupted from where the bear tore a large root out of the ground with the force of the missed swing. Charlie had to twist his face away from the debris.

"How about a tasty human? Or some 'hunny'?" Charlie said as he turned around and scampered up the tree. He'd be safe here. The trees were his domain. That stupid bear couldn't-

The whole tree shook as the bear planted her heavy forepaws on the trunk, some seven feet off the ground.

Right, crap, they can climb, thought Charlie. He pulled himself out onto a branch and stared down at the hulking bear.

Seven feet tall and apparently built of naught but muscle and blubber, the brown bear tore huge gouges out of the tree as she began her ascent toward the much, much smaller raccoon.

Charlie tensed himself to leap away to the safety of another tree, but stopped when he saw a flash of green below him. He paused and watched, and almost fell off the tree when he saw it again.

Charlie watched in horror as the bear's black eyes suddenly flared a vibrant verdant green. It was only there for the briefest of seconds, but Charlie caught it. His heart filled with ice.

He knew that green. That meant only one thing.

Someone – someone with powerful magic – had stirred the bear into a rampage. Someone with druid magic.

Who would do something like this, Charlie thought. Druids were supposed to be all about protecting nature and stuff like that, they weren't supposed to use their powers to create rabid bear attacks. What was going on?

Charlie was torn from his reverie when the tree shook so violently he almost fell off. He looked back down to see the bear mere inches away, her heavy jaws snapping at Charlie's striped tail.

"Aah!" Charlie screamed, leaping sideways away from the bear's dagger-sharp teeth. He missed the branch on the way back down and crashed chest-first onto a large branch below, half way down the tree. The force of the blow knocked the wind from him and he scrabbled to hold onto the scratchy wood.

Charlie winced as he looked around, disoriented from the fall. Tall trees and perfectly manicured lawns spread out in all directions away from his perch. In the distance, the skyscrapers of New York City loomed over the park, staring down like people at ants. In the corner of his vision, Charlie could see the wide gates of the Central Park Zoo. People were running in every direction that wasn't toward Charlie's tree.

Charlie looked up and flinched rapidly away from the bear's swiping paw. The bear was now fully outstretched on the branch above, one limb reaching down at Charlie. Charlie dropped as the paw came at him again, his far-less-dangerous raccoon claws catching on the branch as he swung himself underneath it. He hung there, dangling ten feet above the ground, watching the bear trying to reach at him.

There was a crazed look in the bear's eyes, as far as Charlie could tell. He wasn't particularly experienced with bears. He was a city raccoon, after all. Bears didn't tend to wander into Manhattan very often.

The bear's slashing was becoming more frenzied now, her claws tearing through air and bark in equal measure. The branch was starting to bow violently under the weight of the beast and force of her attack.

Charlie swung back and forth under his branch and used the momentum to launch himself at the trunk of the tree. He misjudged the distance and hit the trunk hard, but managed to get enough of a claw-hold to stay up. With a quick sigh of relief, he spun and began climbing facefirst down the tree.

High above, the bear shifted her weight to try to swipe at the little raccoon as he moved. With a resounding crack, the tree branch splintered from the force of the movement, sending the bear spinning toward the grass below.

The bear crashed to the ground hard, shattering straight through branches on the way down. Charlie pulled himself into the trunk as the heavy brown mass sailed past. He braced himself as the bear collided hard with the ground, causing the trunk to shake.

I've got to get out of here, Charlie thought. He rushed down the trunk and past the bear as she began stirring woozily. As he scampered across the grass he heard the bear getting slowly to her feet. Round the pond and I'm free.

A vicious, angry roar rent the air around him. Charlie slid to a stop and spun to see the bear bellowing at a hapless human a hundred yards away.

Stupid human! But I can't let him get hurt,thought Charlie frantically. He took off at a full sprint back toward the bear just as she began to lumber toward the human, who was frozen with fear.

"Hey! Paddington!" called Charlie as he ran, all four paws flying over the grass. "Over here! Raccoon bites for sale!"

Charlie was very grateful that he was a lot closer to the bear than the bear was to the human. In a few seconds he'd closed the gap and slid to a stop a good distance in front of bear, who was picking up speed quickly.

"Yo! Yogi! Down here!" he yelled, waving his paws around. The bear, still lolloping forward, slowly turned her head to look down at the little raccoon. Charlie started as he watched her eyes – dull and uncomprehending, then a brief flash of green, and suddenly aware and angry. It only took the space of a second, but now the bear oriented on Charlie instead of the human.

Oh, this is a bad idea. The bear slid to a stop and roared at Charlie. The sound echoed around his skull and thrummed in his chest. He clutched at his head in pain as the bear started bounding toward him instead. In the corner of his eye, he could see the human had recovered from his fear-paralysis and was now sprinting for Fifth Avenue.

Charlie spun and dashed off deeper into the park, trying to lead the bear away from any more unfortunate humans. He knew he couldn't outrun an angry bear for long. His mind raced frantically as he sprinted, trying to come up with some sort of strategy.

He knew he couldn't hope to fight the bear directly and win, or even survive. Hayley's magic might have given him intelligence and speech, but he wasn't any faster or stronger than a normal raccoon. If Hayley was here, she could handle this easily. Tie it down with vines, magically calm it, or even shoot it with lightning. But no, it was all up to the little grey-and-black mammal. He led the bear toward a thicker thicket of trees and began forming a plan to deal with the angry beast.

He did have one more advantage over the average raccoon. As he ran he focused, the bandit mask of fur on his face screwing up in concentration. Charlie was suffused with druid magic himself - it was possible he might be able to do something about whatever was causing the bear to go insane. He could feel it as he focused, the other magic, lingering on the edges of his perception like a dull green glow. He closed his eyes and reached for it, trying to draw in the verdant light. A wave of strange energy washed over him, carrying with it a flurry of emotions – crippling worry, furious anger, and deep-down pit-of-your-stomach fear. Charlie could feel it playing on the bear's mind, tearing at it, showing her-

A tremendous starburst of pain tore Charlie away from the green energy and back into reality. He collapsed to the ground, groaning, and looked up to see that he'd run headfirst into the solid trunk of a tree. Sprinting with his eyes closed probably wasn't a good idea.

He turned to see the bear gaining rapidly, still roaring at the top of her lungs. Charlie felt for the magic affecting her again, but gave up on it a second later. He could tell that he didn't have the power necessary to remove it, but he had learned one thing. The bear wasn't insane and it wasn't attacking things randomly. She thought he'd stolen her cubs. As the wave of power washed over him, he saw the fear in her, the thought that her babies were in danger. She was just acting as any mother would – except the magic in her system had pumped her response up to an extreme level.

But that didn't help Charlie, to his vast disappointment. Even if he could find her cubs – if she even had any - and get them to her, the magic would still cause her to think that they were in danger. If Charlie guessed correctly from what he'd seen in her eyes, she would think any living thing she saw had stolen her children.

Charlie sighed heavily. It wasn't her fault, but he'd have to do something. He'd have to take her down. He couldn't let her rampage around Central Park, trying to get her imaginary cubs back from anything that moved.

The bear was almost on top of him now, but Charlie held fast. It didn't look like Hayley or Animal Control or anyone else was going to help him out, so he'd have to do it himself. Time for the second part of his plan. Charlie pushed himself to his feet and stretched himself up against the trunk of the tree. The bear charged at the little raccoon and brought one giant paw forward in a powerful sweeping arc.

At the last second, Charlie ducked to one side. The bear's hefty paw collided with the tree behind Charlie and took a large chuck clean out of it, sending an explosion of bark and splinters everywhere. Charlie snapped back up against the trunk as the bear wound up to swing again.

The paw came down and Charlie ducked out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough this time. One claw caught his shoulder as the rest of the blow shattered away another large section of tree. Charlie went sprawling to the ground and cried out in pain, a bright line of red blood appearing against his grey-brown fur.

The bear loomed overhead and roared. She wheeled back and thrust her giant claws directly at Charlie's neck. Charlie pushed off the ground with one forepaw and rolled to the side, just barely missing being run through.

I should just run, he thought, then shook his head. No. Gotta stop this now.

One forepaw clutching at his wounded shoulder, Charlie stepped around the bear's front paw to stand in front of the tree again.

"C'mon, Pooh!" he called. "Give me your best shot!"

The bear lashed out again with a mighty strike, but Charlie was more prepared this time and threw himself to the ground. The blow missed him by a wide margin and gouged another large section of the tree trunk away. A good half of the trunk was missing now and the tree was beginning to sway ominously.

One more good swipe. Charlie pushed himself to his feet with a wince and leapt at the tree, pulling himself up into the newly hollow section. He turned and faced the bear defiantly. The bear reared back onto her hind legs and raised both paws, roaring with enough force to shake the nearby trees.

She lunged forward and Charlie launched himself to one side. He flew out of the hollow of the tree and landed hard on the ground, daggers of pain shooting up his injured arm. The bear's forepaws drilled into the tree, sending chunks of wood flying in every direction. The bear pulled herself out of the wreckage of the trunk with a groan and a shake as the tree made a horrible cracking noise.

"Oh, bother," said Charlie smugly as he watched the bear. Charlie looked up to see the tree begin to topple, the large leafy branches up the top tilting slowly toward the bear and gaining speed fast. He took a couple quick steps back and froze as he watched the bear slowly lope toward him.

Dammit, she's still focused on me. I need to make sure she in position,he thought. Cursing himself, he shot forward, toward the falling tree and the angry bear.

Charlie hoped with all his heart that he was faster than both anger and gravity. He pushed through the agony in his arm as he ran headlong for the gap between the bear's legs. The bear threw a swipe at him, but Charlie was faster and dodged around it. He shot between her legs, scraping his fur on her own as he did so, and rushed down the length of falling tree. His limbs screamed with exhaustion and pain as he tried to outrun the rapidly descending mass. Behind him, the bear was slowly beginning to lumber after him.

With a resounding crash, the tree tumbled down on top of the bear and the raccoon. The bear bore the brunt of the impact as the heavy trunk caught her across the shoulder and back and went down hard. The raccoon came off much better, managing to dodge the main mass of the tree. Only the leafy branches fell around him, leaving him with just a few dozen scratches.

Charlie pulled himself delicately from the wreckage of the treetop and made his way down the trunk to where the bear was pinned, unable to move.

"I'm so sorry," he said with genuine sincerity. "I had to make sure you wouldn't hurt anyone."

The bear looked up at him and he flinched as he saw the green glow flare in her eyes once more. But as he watched, the glow dulled and faded entirely, leaving only the bear's natural black eyes. With a heavy sigh of exhaustion and pain, her eyes fluttered closed and she lay still, her breathing slow and natural.

Charlie leaned his head against the trunk of tree and exhaled heavily, both from his own exhaustion and from fear. He'd done it. The bear wouldn't be hurting anyone else.

"Charlie!" a voice called somewhere behind him. He spun to see a human woman, no older than twenty, sprinting toward him.

"Hayley!" he said cheerily, then his voice soured. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry, I got caught up," she said as she pulled herself to a stop. "You know, with the whole random-animal-attacks thing. I think I might have a lead on who's been causing them."

"I think I might have some important info, too," Charlie replied, throwing a look at the prone form of the bear. He shuddered as he remembered her green eyes, and what that meant about other druids abusing their power.

Hayley threw a quick look around herself, then furrowed her brow and waved a hand in Charlie's direction. He gritted his teeth as a wave of pain shot through his various cuts and bruises, then looked down to see them all perfectly healed. Healing was a nice perk of Hayley's magic, but it was still painful at the best of times.

"Ta. Would you mind helping her out?" he said, gesturing to the bear.

Hayley took a step forward and stared for a second before she began focusing her magic on the downed mammal.

"What happened here?" she said incredulously.

"Haven't you ever seen a nature documentary? Circle of life," he said, as he took in the scene around him. He stared at the fallen tree, its trunk replete with large scratch marks; the furrows carved out of the pristine Central Park grass all around them; and further away the motley collection of branches littering the ground, torn away when the bear had fallen from the tree. He stared at the unconscious bear, taken down by a tiny raccoon.

"It's an animal thing. You wouldn't understand."

Author Note

So, this was a submission for the Labyrinth Writing Contest for August, where we had to start our story with Many things get the hair on the back of my neck up, but nothing more so than... and see where it went from there. Charlie, Hayley and their world come from a NaNoWriMo story I did back in 2011, about a secret society of druids operating out of Central Park. The concept of "druids" in this story and the NaNo story comes primarily from the Dungeons and Dragons class called Druids, who are magic users who draw their power from a love and care for nature, and who can use nature-based magic. In the NaNo story, Hayley discovers she is descended from an ancient line of druids, and is blessed with the ability to manipulate nature magic, but that draws her into a world of intrigue and danger as she is targeted by other magic users who also operate in secret in NYC. She was the main character of the NaNo story, but I decided to focus more on Charlie here, who is, quite frankly, a lot more fun to write.

I was a bit stumped on what to do with this prompt until a friend suggested I do a Charlie story, and I'm glad I did! I haven't used these characters for a while, and it was really fun to take a character I knew well and built a new story around him, so I hoped it turned out well. Thanks for reading!