Cheshire Smile by 2nd Star to the Right

Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari do!)

CHAPTER FOUR… of tree houses and the people who hide in them

A small fortress came into the circle of light thrown by the wrangler's headlights.

It was actually hard to tell what it was at first glance.

It was centered around a very large and twisted tree. There were pulley systems and platforms, ladders and cables duct taped into vines, all dangling from a main platform.

Ari stared at Karu's tree home, yellow and odd-looking in the headlights. She had seen Karu's home before, she had helped build it, but it had changed a bit.

It was a good fifteen feet off the ground, which was how it was when Ari last left it, but now she couldn't see any sure way of getting to the fort. All of the ropes and ladders were draped between the main building and smaller branch platforms, but nothing connected Karu's world to the ground. Ari couldn't imagine how the kidnappers had gotten in.

She turned slightly to Karu who was slumped in the driver's seat, "you've gotten more paranoid…"

"How can you blame me? We were just abducted and imprisoned!"

"This is gonna make you more paranoid, isn't it…"

Karu snorted rather ungracefully and climbed out of the Wrangler. She stood stretching while Ari shook her head sadly and got their things out of back seats. She threw a couple bags at Karu, who caught most of it, then picked up what she dropped, and walked to the tree, whining about having to reconnect her technology (which was probably broken from being thrown around anyway.)

Karu stopped complaining to call back to Ari, "You'll need to follow me carefully, I've set some traps that you don't know about and may not see."

"You mean like that?" Ari was pointing at the lowest hanging rope. It ended just next to a branch of the tree. Ari couldn't see well enough, but she knew that branch had to be unstable. There was no way Karu would just leave her home open that way.

"Are you deaf? I said things you couldn't see! Like that." She gestured at the grassy spot slightly to their left. "It will break your legs."

"Well you don't need to be rude about it! I was only asking"

"I'm sorry, we're both tired and hungry, lets go up, get some snacks, and chillax, ok?"

Ari giggled, "you just said 'chillax'!" And then she answered, "I'd love some food and beauty rest, but how do we get up there?"

Karu walked forward exactly four steps, and turned slightly right. She continued walking in a tight circle until she'd gone partially around the trunk. She pressed her palm into the bark and held it there for a moment.

She turned to the slightly doubtful Ari and informed her, "It's measuring my pulse."

Ari started to ask what was measuring her pulse when something hummed mechanically and a section of bark slid away. Karu looked back at her friend and grinned hugely. In the darkness of the tree trunk her smile reminded Ari of the Cheshire cat.

Suddenly the smile vanished with a small muffled scream and scuffling noises.

Ari darted towards the darkness where her best friend had disappeared but the bark had already slid back into place.

She couldn't hear anything from inside the tree, Karu must have been knocked unconscious- that's the only way the freaks inside would get her to shut u so quickly.

Ari couldn't see much since the jeep's headlights were on the other side of the tree, but she knew she had to get to Karu now. She began beating her palms against the bark, trying to find the spot that Karu had used.

She was screaming to draw the kidnappers' attention away from her friend when she made out Karu's voice, sounding a little like it was coming from inside a tin can.

For awhile Karu just laughed, then when Ari was truly ready to kill her, she commented, "You have to hole your hand still for a couple seconds, even I'm not good enough for instantaneous readings! Move your hand a little to the right and down, hold it… good! Now come on up."

The bark slid back, elevator door style, and this time soft light illuminated a huge, spiraling staircase that ran along the inside of the trunk.

Karu was yelling from the top of the stairs, although Ari couldn't see her. "Stand on the welcome mat for five seconds and then you can come up."

Ari moved to the mat, "Come where? I can't even see you! How am I supposed to know where to go? I am too tired and hungry to deal with your paranoia right now!" "Alright get up here already, sporks, what's your issue!"

As Ari got closer to the top of the staircase she realized that she would end up eye-level to the floor of Ari's tree-studio. She also noted that a screen suspended to the ceiling showed projections of a continuing spiral staircase, explaining why she couldn't tell where she was going before.

She was intently studying the screen when she caught movement along side of her. In a flash she remembered that Karu had been grabbed! This was a set-up!

Cursing herself for having the memory span of a retarded goldfish, she jumped up and onto the landing.

She auomatically snap-kicked the movement on her right, which turned out be a compact sort of a man with a knife in each hand, before she realized that Karu was laughing at her again.

Shesheathed her own knives, knowing Karu wouldn't be laughing if there was true danger, and was enjoying threatening Karu with several long and painful deaths, when she realized that there were a half dozen strangers in Karu's living room.

"You could have let me know you spaz, You could have said, by the way, there'll be strangers chilling when you get up here. Who are they anyway?"

Karu was flatly ignoring her, instead she was plugging in and testing all of her machinery.

Ari sighed and turned to apologize to the man she had kicked, " I'm sorry, sir, I assumed… DAD?"

Heero Yuy stood on the landing, rubbing the arm she had kicked and grinning hugely at his daughter.

thanks again for reading and any input you have for me.. star