Wow, it sure has been a long time since I last updated this story! I've been working on this chapter for quite some time, and I wanted to make sure that it was to my liking. Hopefully, its length will make up for the long delay! Enjoy, and don't forget to review! Just to let everyone know, there is some suggestive dialogue early in this chapter that was too good to leave out, so the rating at the beginning here is slightly higher than K+ and probably close to T.
Erica looked up at the Mark V on its pedestal in awe. She had never seen anything like it except maybe what she had seen at the local supermarket that you deposit quarters into. She carefully climbed up the stairs leading to the cockpit and climbed inside when she got there. The first thing that caught her eye was the key in the ignition attached to an atom keychain. She had watched her mother start the family car all the time from the backseat, so she had no trouble in turning the key out of curiosity. The engine sprang to life with a loud vvvrrrooommm and Erica was initially startled by it, but the dozens of buttons and levers all over the dashboard diverted her attention, and out of curiosity she pressed the closest one to her. Immediately, the rocket slowly rose into the air off of its pedestal. Erica buckled herself in and pushed the throttle forward a little. All of a sudden, the Mark V went into a nosedive and thinking quickly for a three-year-old, Erica brought it up just inches from the floor and circled the large room before crashing through the cement wall leading out into Nicktoons Studios. As soon as she exited through the wall, the rocket was on a collision course with the "Nicktoons Studios" sign right outside the lab, but Erica managed to pilot the rocket above and to the right of it, executed a U-turn, and brought it down towards the main soundstages.
Meanwhile, Rocko, Heffer, and Filbert were taking a stroll outside of their sound stage and enjoying the beautiful morning.
"It sure is a nice day, huh guys?" asked Rocko.
"Mmm-hmm…" muttered Heffer as he reached into his bag of Pasture Puffies for another handful. "Y' know what would make this day better, though? A nice bucket of Chokey Chicken."
"Hef, you know that we changed the name of the restaurant to Chewy Chicken late into our show, right?" asked Filbert.
"Oh, yeah… I wonder why we changed the name of it anyway?"
Rocko and Filbert exchanged nervous glances.
"Let's just change the subject, okay?" said Rocko.
"Hey, what's that?" asked Filbert while pointing at something unusual coming straight at the three of them.
Erica was flying straight towards the trio three feet off of the ground in the Mark V at a very high speed and was targeting Rocko.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Rocko as his brain popped out of his head before performing a quick 180 and tried to outrun the rocket to no avail. The Mark V hit him from behind and flipped him end over end before he managed to grab hold of one of the tailfins as Erica nosed the rocket up higher into the air. Heffer and Filbert watched open-mouthed as Erica piloting the rocket and Rocko hanging onto one of the tailfins for dear life nearly crashed into the slime tower and curved left towards Arnold's neighborhood just as some other Nicktoons gathered around to witness the event.
"Oh, boy…" muttered Filbert.
Inside Jimmy's lab, the elevator doors opened and the group walked out. The first thing that everyone noticed was the gaping hole in the wall where the Mark V had busted out. Jimmy was the first to run towards the large hole, but tripped over something.
"Oof… Ow, what was that?"
Jimmy quickly turned around and noticed the cheese ray on the floor behind him.
"My cheese ray? How did that get…? Oh no…Erica… Hey wait, do you guys smell something?"
Everyone did detect a certain odor in the room and upon further inspection traced it back to the elevator doors. Cindy put her hand on one of the doors and immediately pulled it back in disgust.
"Eeeewww… It's all soft and mushy…"
"Hey Jimmy, Erica must have been messing around with your cheese ray and turned the elevator doors into cheese," mused Carl.
"Well, that would explain why the doors have a certain yellowish tinge to them," mused Jimmy. "Sheen, what are you doing?!"
Sheen was currently eating some cheese and crackers using chunks from the doors. "What? I'm hungry."
Jimmy rolled his eyes and then started to pace the floor of his lab.
"Oh, this is not good. Erica has a high-tech piece of equipment at her disposal and there's no telling what she'll do or where she'll go with that kind of technology. We've got to find her before she turns Nicktoons Studios upside-down."
"Well, standing around here watching you pace the floor is not going to get us anywhere," remarked Cindy.
"Alright. Cindy, you and Timmy come with me and we'll search downtown while Libby, Carl, and Sheen search uptown."
Cindy brightened as Sheen strolled right over to Libby and took her hand in his lovingly.
Libby rolled her eyes. "Fine, but I get full use of your hovercar."
"What? You don't know how to pilot that thing," replied Jimmy.
"Oh, I'll learn as I go along," replied Libby as Carl and Sheen followed her over to the hovercar before climbing in. She then turned the key and the vehicle slowly rose into the air. "And you three better get going before you lose her."
"Alright, c'mon guys," said Jimmy as he left his lab through a side door with Cindy and Timmy right behind him.
The three of them turned left and ran in the direction of the main sound stages before coming across Heffer and Filbert.
"Hey, did you two see a three-year-old girl piloting a rocket come through here not too long ago?" asked Cindy.
"Yeah, we did," replied Filbert. "She flew right at us and Rocko was flipped over the rocket, but managed to grab hold of a tailfin as it nearly crashed into the slime tower before heading towards Arnold's neighborhood."
"She seems to be following the same path that Carl and I took in the Mark IV," mused Jimmy. "We don't know if her family took her to Universal Studios though, so she might have never been on the ride. It could be purely coincidental."
"Universal Studios? You mean that girl in the rocket was from the Real World?" asked Heffer.
"Yep, and there's no telling what kind of trouble she could end up in if we don't find her soon," replied Cindy.
"Oh boy…" muttered Filbert.
Cindy then turned towards Jimmy and Timmy. "C'mon guys, we got a toddler to find."
"If she comes back this way, try to get her to stay in one spot, okay?" yelled Timmy over his shoulder to the steer and turtle as he followed Jimmy and Cindy towards Arnold's neighborhood.
"Affirmative!" yelled back Heffer as he saluted. He then turned toward his turtle friend. "All of this talk is making me hungry. Let's go get some tacos!"
"Hef, you just ate fifteen bags of Pasture Puffies in the past ten minutes," replied Filbert. "Aren't you full yet?"
"Uh…no."
Meanwhile, Erica was doing loop-de-loops in mid-air high above Arnold's neighborhood while Rocko had to tighten his grip on the tailfin that he was holding onto.
"Um,…could…you…please…stop…doing…that…?" asked Rocko.
"Doing what?" asked Erica.
"Doing loop-de-loops."
"Nope. It's fun."
"But, I'm starting to get sick!"
"I'm not."
"I can see that. Who are you anyway?"
"Oh, my name's Erica. What's yours?"
"Rocko."
"Oh, like the flying squirrel."
Rocko stared at her puzzled. "…What?"
Erica then suddenly brought the rocket down into a nosedive again with the wallaby screaming all the way. Below them, Arnold, Gerald, Helga, Harold, and the rest of the kids were playing baseball in the street with Arnold at bat when he stopped suddenly and looked around.
"Hey, do you guys hear something?"
Everyone did hear a noise that sounded like a cross between a jet engine and a howler monkey coming right at them. It took a few seconds for everyone to figure out that the noise was coming from right above them. As they all looked up, the Mark V bore down on them blocking out the sun in the process.
"Holy…" muttered Arnold.
"Everyone scatter!" shouted Gerald.
The kids ran to the sides of the street as Erica straightened out the rocket a few feet off the ground. Rocko thought about letting go, but they were moving too fast and he didn't want to get hurt. Helga didn't have time to react and ended up flattening herself on the pavement as the Mark V flew right over her before heading towards the Rugrats soundstage. Sensing an object approaching, the large soundstage doors immediately opened and the Mark V entered through the gap.
"Criminy…" muttered Helga as she got up and dusted herself off.
"Helga, are you alright?" asked Arnold as he ran over to her.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Who was flying that thing anyway?"
Inside the Rugrats soundstage, Erica flew towards Tommy Pickles' house and ended up climbing so steeply over the garage roof that Rocko lost his grip and shot towards the house like a missile. Angelica was just about to enter through the front door when she heard screaming behind her. She turned around only to be smacked by Rocko as both of them slammed into the door causing it to break off of its hinges and fall into the foyer.
Angelica was furious as she got out from under a dazed Rocko and dusted herself off.
"What's the big idea crashing into me like that, ya kangaroo?! I could have broken my spatula!"
"Sorry Angelica," muttered Rocko as he stood up and dusted himself off as well. "You wouldn't believe what I just went through in the past ten minutes. And I think you meant to say your scapula."
"Spatula, scapula… They all sound the same."
Suddenly, something dawned on Rocko. "Hey, I'm not a kangaroo!"
Angelica eyed him suspiciously. "Well, you look like a kangaroo. You've got the ears and tail and aren't you from Austria?"
"It's Australia, and I'm a wallaby. Kangaroos and wallabies both have ears and tails that look the same."
"A wallaby? You made that up."
"What?! No, I didn't!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
Angelica smiled mischievously. "Hmmm…I don't know…"
"C'mon Angelica, you know I'm a wallaby! We see each other all the time!"
"Aw, you know I was just messing with you, right?"
"Y-you were?"
"Of course! Any idiot can plainly see that you're a walla…wall…"
"A wallaby."
"Right. A wallaby."
"What are you doing here anyway?" asked Rocko.
"What? I can't visit sets in the soundstages anymore?"
"No, I mean you're usually at the mall or something at this time. It is noon right now, isn't it?"
"Yep. The reason I came here is that I left my Cynthia doll somewhere in the house and I forget where."
Angelica started to look around the living room and took apart the sofa trying to see if maybe Cynthia was somewhere in between the cushions. Rocko followed her around the room nervously tapping his fingertips together.
"Uh, this isn't breaking and entering is it?"
Angelica then went into the kitchen and started to open up cabinet drawers and threw the contents all over the floor. "Of course not. If they didn't want anyone to be here, they would have locked the front door."
Rocko stared at her. "But…we just broke down the door."
"Oh, well. Good thing there's no one around to stop us then."
Rocko continue to stare at her for a few seconds before edging his way to the front door, or at least what was left of it. "Well, I should probably be getting back to Heffer and Filbert right now; They'll want to know what happened to me."
"Ah ha! Found her! Right where I left her in the kitchen sink!"
Rocko raised an eyebrow. "What was she doing in the sink?"
"Who cares? Now that I found her I can go to the mall to shop for her accessories," replied Angelica proudly. "And say hello to the cow and turtle for me."
"Heffer's a steer."
"Right. I knew that."
Rocko rolled his eyes as he and Angelica exited the house and went their separate ways: she towards the mall and he towards the soundstage doors. When he got close enough to them, they quickly opened up with a loud KA-SHUNK.
Rocko jumped, but then immediately calmed down. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that," he muttered.
Meanwhile, Jimmy, Cindy, and Timmy came across Arnold and the gang in the street anxiously talking about what had just happened to them.
"Excuse me guys, but did any of you happen to witness something strange come through here a few moments ago?" asked Jimmy.
"You mean like one of your rockets piloted by a little kid that nearly took my head off?" asked Helga. "Yeah, she came through here."
"Do you have any idea where she might have gone?" asked Cindy. "It's an emergency!"
"She flew through the gap in the doors to the Rugrats soundstage and that's the last time we saw her," replied Arnold. "So, is there something we need to know about her?"
"She's a three-year-old girl accidentally transported here from the Real World and we're trying to find her so we can send her home," said Timmy.
"The Real World? Criminy, no wonder she nearly took my head off. That girl is a homicidal maniac!" said Helga.
"Helga…" started Arnold.
"Hey, what do you know about the Real World, huh?"
"About as much as you do, and that's not much."
Helga opened her mouth to provide a snappy retort, but closed it instead. Just then, Rocko walked up to everyone looking a bit unnerved.
"Rocko! Are you alright?" exclaimed Cindy when she caught sight of him.
"Yeah, I was taken into the Rugrats soundstage where I lost my grip on the rocket and collided with Angelica. If you're looking for the girl, she flew over Tommy Pickles' garage and disappeared. Her name's Erica, right?"
"Great, just great…" muttered Timmy. "Every time we get news about where she's been, she keeps disappearing. What's it going to take to get her to stay in one spot?"
"Probably a nap or a snack or something," replied Jimmy. "And in answering your question Rocko, yes, her name is Erica."
"Do any of you happen to know of a flying squirrel also named Rocko?" asked the wallaby.
Everyone stared at him for a few seconds before shaking their heads.
"The reason I ask is that after I told her my name she said, 'Oh, like the flying squirrel.'"
"Weird…" muttered Helga.
"I thought so too, and I'm starting to think that she's not from around here."
"She isn't. She's from the Real World and we're trying to get her back to where she came from," replied Cindy.
Rocko looked alarmed. "What?! You're kidding!"
"Nope."
"Well, then that would explain a lot…"
"Well, we're going to keep searching for her," said Timmy. "If she comes back this way, try to keep her in one spot by offering her food or something like Jimmy suggested earlier. We don't want to keep chasing her all over Nicktoons Studios for the rest of the day."
"Sure, we'll keep an eye open for ya," replied Arnold. "Right, everyone?"
"Right!" replied Gerald, Harold, and the rest of the kids.
Arnold noticed that Helga hadn't said anything. "Helga…?"
Helga then crossed her arms with an annoyed expression on her face. "Oh, fine…"
"Great, then we'll hopefully see you all later," replied Cindy. "Are you sure you're alright, Rocko?" she asked the wallaby.
"I'm fine. I just think I should get back to Heffer and Filbert before they send out a huge search party for me again . I was only gone for ten minutes that one time to buy some cranberry sauce at the store and when I returned, there were swat teams, helicopters, and two dozen policemen surrounding my house."
"Oh yeah, I remember that," mused Timmy. "Best Thanksgiving ever."
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And that's the end of Chapter 4! I'm sorry for not getting this out sooner, but as I already stated I wanted to work out some kinks in it first. Don't forget to review! Oh, and Chapter 5 will be out as soon as possible. Stay tuned as the mysterious figure from the end of Chapter 3 will soon be revealed! Any idea as to who Erica was trying to allude to after Rocko told her his name? You get a cookie if you get it right! ;)