Disclaimer: All the authors and readers that appear in this side story own themselves.  Original characters that appear belong to their respective creators.  And all anime characters that appear belong to their respective series, companies, and creators as well.  Any nods and references mentioned over the course of this document belong to their original sources.

Author's Notes: As you've noticed, the Side Stories actually have titles; it's part of a little quiz contest I'm running.  If any of you can pick up the the song, or what part of which song, that it's from, then you win... nothing.  It's just an exercise in useless musical lyrics trivia.  As a hint to make this easier on everyone, the titles are all taken from lyrics from Weezer's third self-titled album (AKA The Green Album); including the B-sides.  I'm considering running a similar trivia contest for the AS3 Side Stories, so keep an eye out for them!

The Mole 2: AE - Side Story 3

It was another bumpy wake up call for passengers being carried along with the Mole 2 execution pick up team.  The night before wasn't as comfortable either.  With very little space to accommodate everyone, those who were old enough had to stay up part of the night driving to try and catch up with the AA production crew.

To make some room, Ranma and Takato had to share a cramped "bunk" while the authors and Players Panel scrambled to lie down on whatever available surface there was.

The result was a motor home full of sore and sleep deprived people.

Jim sat in his own corner, trying his very best to get back to sleep, but only managing to drift in and out of consciousness.

A few minutes later, Arp took up a seat beside him.  "Ah, Jim, I'm sure you've seen how things are in here..."

"Mr. Pulver, I assure you, I will be equipped with a generic crew.  I've just got to know where we'll stop next and let Quad R HQ know where to send them.  I'll go with them and give you people the space you need."

Adam sighed out of relief.  "Thank you.  If it helps, we're on our way to St. Moritz.  You can get your crew to meet us there and then you can stay in your own vehicle."

"Well, anything to get away from her..."

Adam shook his head at the Com's averse reaction to his colleague.  "You're worse than Yamato... and you're not even married to her!"

Jim glared at him.  "Please, sir, just let me do my job without any incidents."

Adam started backing away as much as he could from the frightened Quad-R field man as they continued their road trip.

===

Manny Edwards wiped his brow.  "How... how did you even get here?"

The man sitting next to him ran a head through his red hair and smiled.  "Hey, I'm sorry to bug you, but my daughter is a huge fan of the show and after she saw Taichi on last season she kept insisting that I try to get a spot in this one."

"Look... Koushiro... we don't just give away cameos.  It's not an interview thing, you don't apply for them.  You don't call us.  We call you.  If we want to use you for an upcoming episode, we let you know."

Koushiro Izumi frowned.  "My daughter..."

"I don't care about your daughter.  We'll probably find a spot for you, we just aren't going to make any deals with you."  Manny, having successfully shut down another applicant trying for a cameo, bid Koushiro a fond farewell, before looking over the other would-be cameos.  He slapped his forehead.

"Oh Genki, Genki, when will you ever learn?"

===

Koushiro hadn't had any plans for what would have happened if he had failed.  As soon as he walked out the door of the production trailer, it sped off, leaving Koushiro alone in the middle of Switzerland.

"Okay... I guess I'll just head to the Digital World and sneak back home."  As a researcher, he had access to a few extra "perks" that most people didn't have.

Meanwhile, in the trailer, Nabiki caught sight of him.  She turned to the group.  "Another cameo at one o'clock!"

Arp went up to have a look.  "That's strange, I thought the book said it was only the two Juns this time."

"Hitchhiker!  Pick him up!" Mei jumped right in.

"Yeah!  Pick him pick him pick him pick him up, pick him up!" Sana repeated, and set her Nori-Nori machine to repeat it again, and again, until Nabiki relented and stopped next to Koushiro.

"Hey, need a lift?"

"To where?"  Koushiro was confused.  He wasn't planning on making a trip out of this.

"Wherever, we're just following the AA guys around," Star said.

"Hmm... maybe I can get that cameo yet... I'm in!"  Koushiro jumped in the vehicle... making it even more crowded than it was before.

===

"Look, I'm telling you the same thing I tell everybody, you can't apply for cameos!"  Manny was getting extremely impatient.

"Obviously the rules restricting cameos for commoners are well-justified, but the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High Tatewaki Kuno will not be bound by unwarranted regulations!"

Kuno was yet another person on the list.  It was about to be yet another person on the list to be crossed off.

"Sorry Kuno-chan, no dice."

"Very well, you've forced me to take drastic measures.  Sasuke!"

Within seconds, Kuno's personal ninja burst into the room with a briefcase full of money.

"As a token of our esteem for your selection of Master Kuno to make a cameo appearance."

Manny was sold.  "Well, we'll figure out a way to work you into next episode.  Okay?"

"A wise choice.  I shall see you then, but for now I must egress.  Come Sasuke!"  Kuno, obviously pleased with the turnout of the meeting, headed out.

"Coming master!"  The ninja followed.

Manny smiled as he put the briefcase away.  He too was happy with the meeting.  Hopefully everybody else had this kind of dough to spend.

"Next!"

Next on the list was Ayame, one of Kasumi's sisters.  She was holding a box.  Manny reacted in the obvious way.  "Violet?  What are you doing here?"

"My name's Ayame."

"Who cares?  Get to the point.  Why do you want a cameo?"

"Oh, um, I don't want a cameo.  I, like, need to make a delivery."

"I see... to Kasumi?  She's playing the game, so no outside visitors."

"Oh... well can I give this to her boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?"

"Yeah, what was his name?  Sakeshi, Shigesato, Shigeru...?"

Manny smiled.  He might as well play with her head.  "Taichi?"

"Yeah, that's it!  Could you give this to him?  There's a note inside."

"I guess..."

"Like thanks, you're a lifesaver.  Bye!"  Ayame set the package on Manny's desk and walked out.

Manny looked at the package more closely.  "What is this, a bomb?  If it is... I'd better get this to Satoshi before it goes off!"

===

Another convenient rest area, a black car pulled up.  It was the one that was used to escort Takato to the motor home when he was first executed.  And knowing that it transported Takato, it meant that it was most probably Manny who was the driver.

Everyone scrambled back into the RV and hid so that the producer wouldn't catch them.

"Nabiki!" called Manny as he got out of the car.  "I have a package for Satoshi!"  He handed her the box.

She looked at it suspiciously, but played cool.  "What is it, a bomb?"

"That's what I'm thinking- hurry up and dump it off to the twerp if you run into him."  With that, he got back into the car and pulled away to get back with the production crew.  Fortunately, he was so involved with getting rid of the package, he didn't even care to inspect if there were any stowaways.

"Right... Satoshi!!"  Satoshi came over.  Nabiki handed the mysterious box off to him.  "Enjoy!"

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but let me get out of here before you open it."  Nabiki hustled out of there.

However, the box had caught Sakura's attention, and she went to check it out.

Satoshi started by reading the enclosed letter.  "Dear Kasumi's Boyfriend, we're like sick and tired of this thing.  Could you, like, take this thing back because we, like, can't stand it anymore.  Love, Your Future Sisters-In-Law..." Satoshi finished.

"Well, that's pretty direct," Sakura said.

Satoshi turned to Sakura.  "I just can't believe they actually wrote 'like.'"

"They're probably very quiet cutie-pies in the dub."  Sakura added, "So what is it?"

Satoshi opened the box...

"To-ge-priiii!!"  It was worse than a bomb.  It was Togepi.

"Ka-wa-iii!!"  Sakura immediately grabbed the egg-thingy and held it.  The egg's squeal had caught the attention of everybody.

"What is that?" Tenchi asked.

"It looks like a..."  Taichi turned away.  "Koushiro!  Get over here!"

Koushiro walked in and saw Togepi.  He immediately went to work.  "Okay, don't panic, this happens all the time."

"What happens all the time?"  Satoshi was clueless as Koushiro looked over Togepi, and pulled out his laptop.

"Uh huh, uh huh... okay... strange, this is a virus type."

"Virus type?  What do you mean?"

Koushiro turned to Satoshi.  "Looks can be deceiving.  Believe it or not, this a virus-type Digimon."

"How can you tell?" Taichi asked.

"If I could tell you now, I wouldn't have to teach a course at Tokyo University devoted to the topic."

Naru walked up to Koushiro.  "Tokyo University, eh?  How easy is it, I need to raise my GPA."

"We'll talk later, I have more info to collect."  Koushiro continued to enter details, then turned to the group.  "This Digimon needs a name- since there is a large group here, I will follow digitalogist procedure- auction the name off to the highest bidder!  Who bids five hundred yen?"

"Five hundred!" Mei started it off.

"One thousand!" Sana continued.

"Two thousand!" Takato added. 

"Four thousand!"  Tomoyo was loaded, so she went unchallenged.

"Sold!"  Koushiro pointed to Tomoyo, then turned to Sakura.  "Congratulations Sakura, you are the proud new partner of the first-ever discovered Tomoyomon... please use your D-Terminal to contact me when it evolves to its in-training level."  Koushiro pulled a pamphlet out of his briefcase and handed to her.  "Here's a pamphlet on how to take care of your new Digimon friend.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Okay?"

Before she could react to all that, Koushiro walked away.  Sakura was obviously confounded, Satoshi was obviously confounded... but Togepi appeared to be enjoying it!

Sana walked up to Sakura.  "Aw... Tomoyomon's so cute!!!"

Sakura smiled.  "Wow, my very own Digimon!"

Satoshi sweatdropped.

===

Pounding on the door to the bathroom were a few anxious passengers, like Narusegawa, Shinju, Sana, and Tenchi.

"Please Ranma!  Let us in!" cried all of them.

"Ranma, this is just as worse as being at home with the girls... I'm trapped in an even larger space than this, but nonetheless... Please let me in," pleaded Tenchi.

Saotome's muffled retorted through the door was, "Do any of them have superpowers and are you engaged to any one of them?"

"Um... yes and yes?"

The door swung open immediately and Ranma stepped out.  He patted Tenchi on the back as he passed by to go into the bathroom.

"I feel your pain."  He tried to get past the irked females crammed into the narrow hall, but seemed to get a bit stuck among them.

Naru glowered at him for showing such favouritism.  He probably did make good friends with Keitaro during the game.  And friends with a pervert like that deserved something...

"AAAIIIEEE!!!" cried Ranma as he was suddenly sent flying out of the hall and into the comfortable gathering area.  When he recovered from the impact, he got up and sent a fierce look her way.  "I'm so glad you're not one of my fiancées..." he muttered.

But before Ranma could be punished in the Love Hina fashion, Nabiki's AA supplied cell phone rang off in the middle of the commotion.  All activity stopped as eyes turned to her.

"Hello?" she answered.

The voice on the other end was a familiar one.  "Miss Tendo, it's Manny.  There's been a slight change in travel plans concerning the location of the game.  I'm afraid we might have to supply you with something much more... mobile."

She held the phone for the others to hear.  "Mobile?"

Everyone was puzzled now.

"Well, there have been some unexpected changes.  We're probably going to be taking Mole Two out on the road, globally.  You know, something to spice up the ratings.  Just thought I'd warn you just in case something does happen.  Now, where are you and how are the players?"

Everyone was sweatdropping out of nervousness.

"We were parked near the train station, now we're just finding a parking space away from the hotel to make it even easier to pick up the executed players," Nabs said coolly.

"Great.  Meet me at the hotel and I'll give you some more details on what the new travel plans might be."

The conversation ended and the cell phone was put away.

With this new development, Star was beginning to panic.  "As if our current plan wasn't already difficult or complicated enough!" she cursed.

"There was no plan in the first place!" reminded Adam.

Mei took out her set of cards and shuffled them, just placing them face down and then putting them putting them back into the deck.  This continued until she found one card.  She lay it face down on the small dinner table.

Curious, the passengers gathered around her.

"Patience everyone.  I'm sure things will be looking up," Mei said cryptically.

"Uh... sorry Mei, but I don't think those words are really encouraging, considering our situation," said Shinju.

"I'd rather have some evidence to back that statement up.  That'll convince me," said Akito skeptically.

Mei turned over the card, revealing an adorned and golden woman.  On the bottom of the card face was a stylized label saying "Luck".

"It's the luck card from my special set.  See, it's a sign!"

Some breathed a sigh of relief while others hoped that it truly did mean their luck would change.

===

The rest of the ride was filled with a quiet and anxious stop in all rowdy activity.  Many decided to sleep away the kilometers and miles passing by them until the RV slowed down to a stop.  The subtle jolt of the parking brake being put on woke some passengers.

"Okay everyone, we're here in St. Moritz.  Finally," announced Nabiki.  "I don't know about you guys, but I've got see Mr. Edwards about some travel plans.  You should get out of here and stretch your legs."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  It was tough to survive a few days trapped in there together...

"Let's get out of here and help Jim find his crew," declared Ruri.

Sana began to dance around.  "More adventure, more fun!"

Star sleepily looked up from her place on the couch.  "If you guys manage to pass by a MacDonald's, pick me up some fries and an ice cream... please?"

"Can't see why you can't get it yourself..." muttered Jim.

"Have fun!" Naru said cheerily as she waved everyone out the door.

===

Everyone, sans two members of the troup, all wanted to have fun; but Star was too tired to go out and Naru buried herself into her studies.

The others were having a time out on the town, splitting up and leaving him to stand near the hotel, making sure not to be seen.  Unfortunately, the crew wasn't to be seen either.

After a while of endless wandering, wondering if he would find them, Jim wasn't too happy about the lack of a crew waiting for him in St. Moritz.  What could be keeping them?

It was time to give Mr. Marco a call about what was going on...

===

Keitaro walked down to the station himself.  It seemed that he was realizing the rumours about AA was forgetting to take care of its "guests" after the game were true.  Or at least partly true.  Manny was nice enough to give him a ride a few blocks away from the hotel as well as being told what to find.

He finally arrived late that night to find one thing that seemed out of place in the city: a motor home.  Shrugging, he stepped up to the side, opened the door, and stepped in.

Even in the dark, the motor home was empty and looked quite roomy.

Then he saw a small figure huddled up against the small couch's arm.

Curious, he wandered over there.  In the dim lighting, he saw it was a small girl with chin length blue hair and glasses, who reminded him a little of Shinobu.  Wondering if she was okay, he placed his hand on her shoulder.

The girl murmured and shifted, turning over and little on her side, and then she latched onto his arm.  Her eyes fluttered a little from behind her rectangular glasses, and she sleepily muttered, "Sing a song for me, Rigi-kun?  Please, please?  Domo..."

Finding himself trapped, he figured that he could pacify the girl, lull her back to sleep, and then pry himself from her.  So he placed his free hand on her side and started to hum some tune he knew...

Unfortunately for the girl, she didn't recognize the song and realized that it wasn't who she thought it was.  Her eyes opened a little, causing Keitaro to flinch and tense up.

The light caught off his glasses and glinted off them.

"You're not Rigi-kun!" the girl cried and tried to get away from him.  Unfortunately, his hand was still on her side.  Realizing this as well, she screamed.

The lights turned on all of a sudden, and Keitaro whipped his head around to see Naru standing at the light switch from the small and narrow hall.

"Urashima!  How dare you try to take advantage of a sleeping girl!  Miss Star, get away from that pervert!"

Keitaro pulled back his limbs to try and raise them up in defense.  Panicked, he waved his hands back and forth in front of him, trying to explain.

"Ah!  Ah!  Narusegawa, it isn't what you think!  Gomen, gomen, gomen..."

===

Calmed down and coming back from a few hours of sight-seeing, the rest of the group finally approached the motor home.  To their surprise, from the distance they saw the door was open and the lights were on.

Akito looked a little worried.  "Does this mean someone is trying to break in and steal the RV?"

The sounds of some kind of obscure ki-ya and crash alerted them.  A body flew overhead, with a male whimpering yell attached to it.

Adam nonchalantly adjusted his glasses.  "No, it just means Keitaro's here."

===

"And another guy falls victim to the Mole.  That just ain't right," Yamato observed.

Everyone gathered around an unscathed Keitaro, who was being welcomed into the group of nomads.

"Well, I got farther than Narusegawa did last time," Keitaro responded.

Naru obviously didn't like him addressing that.  "That's only because there were more people this time.  If there were 
fourteen last time, I would have gotten a lot farther!"

"Still, I wasn't the first one executed.  Gotta admit, that's pretty good for me."

"There is nothing wrong with being the first one executed."  Naru turned towards Takato.  "Right?"

"Um... right Scary Lady Number Ten," Takato said.

"But, c'mon, twelfth out of fourteen isn't nearly as bad as tenth out of ten.  And I even got an exemption once."  Keitaro was trying to turn his performance into a good thing.

Naru shook her head.  She could not let Keitaro win.

Keitaro approached her, "Narusegawa?  Are you envious or something?"  He tried to be as sincere as possible.

It just pissed her off, as she punched him in the face, sending him into the wall of the trailer.

"Man!"  Everybody looked at Shinju after her exclamation.  Not only was she holding the romantic tension indicator, but it was beeping like mad.  "When's the wedding?!"

Naru shrugged and said, dryly, "We have a few kinks to work out of the relationship."

Hayama watched as Keitaro peeled himself off the wall.  "Some kinks..."

"Yes... it's a very kinky relationship," Naru responded to Hayama, then blushed after she realized what she just said.  "Er, er uh..."

"N... Narusegawa?"  Keitaro walked up to her, confused.

Naru turned to Keitaro.

"DON'T MISINTERPRET!!!!"

Another punch to the head, and Keitaro was airborne.

Everyone else shook their heads.  Yup.  Very very long trip...

End of Side Story 3

Additional Author's Notes: Thanks to Adam for bringing Koushiro and Kuno into the picture!  And remember, just like in AS, I'm open to cameo scene submissions!  Don't worry about the lack of numerous author/reader cameos this time.  It's a very small list of people who've signed up, so that gives me an opportunity to let in more who want in.  Stories will switch from mostly character-centric to mostly cameo-centric to a mix of both equally!  And remember: exercise your useless Weezer knowledge trivia!