A/N Charlie is a total badass and I never liked the way the show didn't let her fully show it. So this is mostly Charlie being awesome.

Well, well, well, who needs help now? Charlie complained silently to herself as she scouted the large abandoned warehouse before her. Great. At least dictator-in-training got taken with them, he'd just make it harder to get them out. She watched as a chubby guy came out accompanied by a skinny guy with pre-blackout tattoos covering his arms.

She silently cursed herself for being so stupid. She should have known something was wrong when she saw those two guys in the woods, but they had looked like typical travellers, so she had ignored them. Plus, in her experience, guys wandering around in the woods just brought trouble, so she went her own way and continued on her quest for dinner.

She regretted that now. If she had not been so stubborn maybe she could have warned the guys that something was wrong. But she was stubborn. And now here she was, by herself, against a bung of thugs, trying to rescue the ungrateful bastards.

It wasn't all their fault though. She knew that. Deep down. Waaay deep down. She just wished that they would quit treating her like a child and more like an equal.

Earlier that day

"I had it under control, I didn't need your help." She glared at Miles as she sat down on a rotted log and peeled off her jacket so she could see the cuts on her arm. She gritted her teeth and hissed as the dried blood pulled at the injured flesh. Monroe made his way toward her as if to help but she cut him off. "Don't touch me, I can do it myself."

"Look kid, you were up against two guys with just your knife, I wasn't about to watch you go down just to save your pride." Miles looked at her like a father looks disappointed at his daughter, "what were you thinking? I told you to stay back behind the wall."

Charlie looked at him, outrage evident in her face. "Are you kidding me! There were twenty guys out there I wasn't about to watch you get your asses handed to you when I could have helped."

"Hey, it's over now so let's just drop it." Monroe quickly cut in and was trying to be the voice of reason. That's when you know something is wrong, Sebastian Monroe is trying to be the voice of reason.

But her anger had reached it's peak. "Why does Conner, the one that can't even hold a sword without dropping it, allowed to go in, but I have to stay out." She took a deep breath and plowed on. "Is it because you guys doubt me?" She looked between Miles and Monroe, who both tried to speak at once, but she held up her hand to silence them. "I've saved both of your asses plenty of times, there's no reason to keep me out of a fight."

She tried to keep going but Miles stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. "No, Charlie don't be stupid, we know you can fight. We just didn't want you to get hurt." But if he though that would make it better, he was dead wrong.

"I'm not a child Miles, I don't need you to protect me. I have more experience and better skills than Conner and you know it." She poked him in the chest as if to emphasize her point.

"Charlotte we aren't questioning your skills, we were just trying to look out for you." Monroe's eyes told her he was telling the truth, but she didn't care. She wanted to be treated like an equal not some little girl that needed Uncle Miles and his faithful sidekick to keep her safe.

"Whatever. I'm going hunting." She grabbed her crossbow and started for the trees before she stopped and turned around, "unless you guys think it's to dangerous."

She looked at the boys' faces. Miles was frowning like he was confused at where the conversation had gone wrong, Monroe was looking like he might volunteer to join her just in case, and Conner just looked like some smug school boy that was dominating the playground. She glared at them all one more time for good measure before disappearing into the trees.

Present

I hope you guys are happy, because this defiantly is not going to be 'safe.' She started making her way around the perimeter. There was one guy gaurding the front. And apparently his version of guarding was to sit in the old plastic lawn chairs by the fire taking a nap. He looked disgusting, like he hadn't bathed since before the power went out. Let's call him Stinky. So that makes three guys so far.

As she made her way around the right side of the building she noticed a grimy old window about twelve feet up with two more guys underneath it. Or, at least she thought that's what they were. Both were tiny and carrying guns that were as long as they were tall. She figured that this was what Aaron had meant whenever he talked about 'little people.' Ok, how about I call you Frodo and Sam. Five guys. She smiled to herself. Aaron would be proud, he had actually managed to teach her something after all.

Around the back side of the building there were some rusted out holes in the metal siding that would have been big enough to fit through, but there was no way to reach them. The guy leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette looked extrodinarily average. Joe, or maybe Bob. Nah, Joe's good. Six guys.

She moved on to the left and final side of the building and saw three men standing in front of an ancient looking scaffolding that led all the way up to the roof of the building. She didn't have much pre-blackout knowledge, but looking at the roof she could see that parts were missing right where the scaffolding led up to, so if she had to guess they were probably having it fixed when the power went out.

"Yeah, boss said he wants to wait till they all wake up. The big one and the blonde ain't talkin' so were waitin' on the little guy." Charlie had to hide a chuckle at that, they were obviously refering to Conner. It was Tattoos guy talking, with Chubbs by his side. The third guy was enormous, probably close to seven feet tall judging by the way he towered over his friends. The man wasn't just tall though, he was probably as wide as Miles, Monroe, and Conner put together. So now we've got Shrek, and somewhere hanging around inside is this 'boss.' So there's eight of them. Yay.

Then another man came walking toward them from the front of the building. This guy was older than all the others, probably a little older than Miles and Monroe, but he had a long beard that reached all the way down to the sword belt around his waist. Well, Dumbledore makes nine, this just keeps getting better. "Boss wants you two back inside, I'm headed out to check the perimeter." He didn't wait for his friends to reply just took off into the trees.

"Have fun!" Shrek laughed at his own little joke as his friends disappeared. Then he sat back against the rusted, old, metal bars and shut his eyes like he was preparing for a good nap.

Charlie rolled her eyes at whoever this 'boss' was. Get some better guys you moron. She looked down at the ground beneath her and found a decent sized rock. She looked towards the back of the building where Joe was no doubt still smoking his cigarette and threw the rock as far as she could from the warehouse.

Just as expected, Skrek jerked to life and headed toward the back of the building. "Hey man, you hear that?" She figured he was probably talking to Joe.

"Yeah, probably just a deer or something." Wanting her master plan to work, she picked up another rock and tossed it near where the other had landed. "Well, maybe we should check it out. Just to be safe, don't want the boss gettin' mad." Joe and Shrek made their way into the trees, and Charlie knew she had to act fast because they wouldn't be gone long.

She crouched low and made her way to the scaffolding. Pushing back any doubts about whether or not it would hold her, she started to climb. Slowly at first, to test the rusted metal, then faster knowing she didn't have much time. Her hands were getting sweaty and her heart was beating in her throat as she neared the top. Ten feet, five feet, just one more step. Her foot slipped as a rusted rung fell out from under her. She caught herself and swung her leg up to the roof before rolling onto what she hoped was a stable enough part to hold her.

She laid there for a moment, holding her breath, worried that she had made too much noise, but she could hear voices coming from inside the warehouse and none of them seemed alarmed. Finally letting herself breath, she waited until she caught her breath to look back down to the ground. As she peered over the edge she could see Shrek making his way back to his post, and undoubtedly, his nap. Smiling at his stupidity, she turned her attention to the holes in the roof.

A/N So there is another chapter to this that I will upload soon, I promise. The story just got really long and wordy and it felt like it need a break in it. And I need to do some editing. Let me know what you think! :-)