Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers or any related media or characters. The story idea is partly own but the rest isn't. Everything is copyrighted to its respective owners.
WARNING!: This fic will contain implied slash, some spoilers, and straying from canon.
They all knew how hard it was for him. How much it hurt to know his little sister was the one they were fighting, their enemy. Dillon's blind younger sister was now nothing more than a hollow shell meant to serve Venjix's every whim and demand. Where once Tenaya had been a living being with proper thoughts and emotions confused as to what she truly was, she was now nothing more than a puppet. It tore the man apart to have lost his sister again so soon after finding her. That might have been bad enough on its own, but to add insult to injury, Dillon himself was slowly being taken over by the same virus that had stolen his sister, and it wouldn't be too long before he was just another puppet as well.
Dr. K had been working tirelessly on a vaccine, a way to undo the damage she'd wrought on the world, or at least some of it. Despite that, the future still seemed bleak, and it weighed heavily on Dillon. The man had begun to close off from the team even more than before, snapping at them if they even tried to get close to him or interrupt his brooding. He'd ended up moving into a corner of the Garage and mostly staying there, looking sullen and glaring at his pocketwatch, only opening it on occasion. The only times he seemed able to be torn away from it were battles – Dillon's passionate hatred for grinders had increased tenfold of late as had his vicious fighting skill. The team all knew it was because of the virus's increasing hold over him, but none wanted to bring it up.
The only one who dared approach Dillon anymore seemed to be Ziggy. Even Summer had become too anxious from too many mishaps with the man to go near him. Their budding romance wasn't strong enough to stand up to his outbursts or paranoia at present. The man was always apologetic afterward, but it was enough to keep him from wanting them nearby or them wanting to be near him. Only the usually cowardly Green Ranger could bring himself to even try to invade Dillon's personal brooding zone to bring him food or try to talk to him.
Ziggy tried to keep his smile bright and cheery as he brought the tray with his friend's dinner over, "Hey, chow time." he greeted, holding out the tray. Immediately, Dillon's arm flew out to knock the tray and the younger man away. Thankfully, the latter was getting used to this sort of 'greeting' and had thrown his free arm out to deflect his friend's hit, managing to save the food long enough to put the tray down. Just the same, the young ranger flinched at the pressure on his rather bony wrist.
Looking up at Ziggy, Dillon carefully loosened his grip, leaning back in his seat to stare at his friend sullenly. The man's face was haunted and he had five o'clock shadow forming where he hadn't shaved in a couple of days. Ruggedly handsome was how most would describe Dillon on a good day, but lately the man just looked like a miserable wreck. "Sorry." he grunted, voice sore from disuse.
"It's cool, I'm getting used to wearing a brace on that wrist – now my arms'll weigh the same, eh? Cause the uh, the morpher's on the other si-yanno what. Nevermind. Just have a good dinner." Ziggy had tried to crack a joke to try and break the tension but abandoned it in the middle, knowing it was stupid. He turned away and the smile dropped from his features.
Just as he was about to leave, Dillon spoke again, "Ziggy?"
The younger man wheeled around, bright grin on his features once more, "Yes?" After so many days of doing this, the young man didn't have to play dumb. He knew the older male was going to ask if there'd been any word from K, but feigned ignorance just the same. It was all that kept him able to hope that eventually the other man would acknowledge or thank him for bothering to do what none of the others could or would right now. But this was him and this was Dillon – that wasn't going to happen and Ziggy knew it. He knew better than to expect it but sometimes it gave him hope for other things that were even more impossible.
"Has K found anything yet?" There was that question, the hopeless look on the older man's features that wrenched at Ziggy's heart and made it hard to breathe. It was all he could do to shake his head and shrug most days, trying to seem at least semi-optimistic despite the dire situation. That was all he could do for Dillon right now and he knew it.
Today they were lucky, however, as K's voice crackled through the intercom before Ziggy could answer. "Ranger Black! Report to my lab immediately!" Anyone who had known the Doctor for very long could pick out the giddy note in her usual monotone. Immediately, Dillon was up and past his teammate, abandoning his dinner untouched and leaving the younger man to stare after him sadly. It hurt to be brushed off but it was for a good cause.
In the lab, Dillon was more than glad to hear K had found an antidote of sorts. She had to strap the man down to try it on him, but if it worked, it would kill whatever was left of the virus in his body, as well as preventing the growth of the cybernetics in him. He smiled a bit at that, for once lying down and trying not to struggle against the bonds – something that was almost automatic in him now, due to the virus.
"So, should I be feeling any different?" he asked, the first real smile on the man's features in weeks.
K rolled her eyes at his sudden enthusiasm but didn't tell him not to be so cheery looking. He had a lot to hope for and this serum might just do it. Carefully, the little woman injected it into the man before speaking, "You should be feeling a tad more calm and clear headed than you have been recently – Summer told me the virus was making you feel more irrationally angry lately and giving you headaches."
Dillon snorted, "Yeah, something like that." he remarked, trying to brush off the symptoms now that he had a possible cure in his body. Slowly, the man was beginning to feel more clear, and his eyes immediately darted to where Summer stood hopefully, one of K's scanners in hand.
It was what they'd all been hoping for – the Venjix technology in him had stopped functioning under the virus's control and was becoming harmless as the serum seeped through his veins. A collective sigh of relief passed through the team as the latest scan showed a lack of the virus in him.
Scott immediately walked over to clap Dillon on the arm as the man was released from his bonds and sat up. "Glad to have you back."
"Glad to be back." the Black Ranger stated before turning to K, a question in his eyes that he needn't ask aloud. K sighed, going back behind her desk. "Yes, Dillon, it should work on your sister too, but we can't just go charging in there to give it to her. Tenaya is not our biggest priority right now – we need to deal with preparing for the next Venjix attack."
It was less than a second later that Scott and Flynn were holding back a struggling Dillon, "Fuck that! She's my sister, I'm going to help her!" he shouted, looking about ready to break Scott and Flynn's grip on his arms. Thankfully for them, Summer was behind him and quickly administered a sedative to the man's neck. As he was falling back on the table unconscious, Dillon had time to give them all a betrayed look before passing out.
"That won't hold him for long." K said sadly, shaking her head as she put away the present container of serum. Locking the cabinet it was in, the young doctor looked at the team, "I'm going to have to keep him in here and restrained for the night. Hopefully by morning he'll be thinking more rationally."
Summer sighed, "I hate to have to do that to him, but it's the only way he won't go running off. We need to make a plan to rescue Tenaya after we've managed to get the city secure enough to last a few days without us."
As the team slowly proceeded out of the labs, Ziggy walked over to where Dillon was sleeping. His hand slowly trailed down the man's arm, a soft and sad longing in his eyes. The young ranger loved his friend a good deal more than he should, and it hurt to see him so desperate to save his sister and unable to do so. Every other time Dillon had run off chase his past, Ziggy had been with him or helped one way or another. This time, the others had managed to finally keep the man from escaping. He almost felt angry at Summer for her using how comfortable Dillon generally was with her close by to be able to sneak up and sedate him – he'd have noticed any of the others coming in like that and been able to throw them off, but he wouldn't do it to Summer. Still, Ziggy knew it was his jealousy talking that time – the rest of the team were only doing what they thought was right.
Fingers trailing tenderly down the muscle of the older male's arm, Ziggy eventually found himself taking Dillon's hand lightly. What he felt was the cold metal of the watch, still clasped tightly in the older man's grip. It was the only thing he had left of his old life and the younger male knew what it meant to him. Looking over his friend's sleeping form once more and feeling that watch, he suddenly knew what he had to do. Carefully, he removed the watch from Dillon's grip and took the chains from the man's neck that held its keys. He'd be needing those.
As morning broke, Scott headed downstairs to check that Ranger Black was still tied up. Flynn followed him down and they both stared in horror at the room – the Fury was gone and the gas from everyone else's fuel tanks had been emptied all over the Garage floor. The pair exchanged a dark look, immediately running for K's lab. Inside they found Dillon's restraints broken and the cabinet K had left the antidote in wide open.
"Oh no..." Flynn mumbled as Summer and the twins came downstairs to see the wreckage.
Staring about, Gem and Gemma gaped, "What happened-" "-here last night?" their voices dumbfounded at the wreckage the lab looked to be in. None of Dillon's previous attempts to escape had ever been this messy.
Summer gaped sadly at the room, "Dillon must've stolen the serum and gone to save Tenaya."
"There's only one problem with that theory," came another voice, causing the team to wheel around, "I'm still here." A very irritable and sleepy looking Ranger Black was standing behind the group, having just come out of Dr. K's room where he'd woken up the woman to alert her that there had apparently been a break in.
A dumbstruck Scott finally managed to recover his voice, pointing between the broken bonds and Dillon, "Didn't you break out to try and escape?" Why else wouldn't the man have waited to be released like a normal person? Those bonds were pretty damn hard to break out of and usually hurt a ton, as well as pissing off Dr. K to repair, so the man only did it when he desperately had to.
His teammate nodded, "Yeah, I did. But when I managed to wake up from that crap Summer stuck me with last night," here he gave the yellow ranger a pointed disgruntled look, "The room was already trashed and my car was gone. And so was my watch." That last part held an odd note of pain – Dillon was very fond of his car, and his watch was very special to him. None of the team dared touch it.
The the group stared around before Scott sighed, "Well, someone needs to go get Ziggy up, we need to clean and figure out who-" he stopped, realization dawning on everyone's faces. Dillon's eyebrows shot into his hairline at that point, eyes going wide in horror. Had his best friend seriously done what they thought he did?
Far outside of the city and struggling not to flip out, Ziggy Grover was driving the stolen car, a small bag in his lap containing Dillon's watch, the keys to it, the curing serum, and his own morpher. He'd picked the lock on the cabinet soon as K was out of the room and distracted with her work, and grabbed the antidote then. He'd then waited for the rest of the team to head to bed so he could drain their gas tanks and had quietly pushed the Fury out of the building so the others wouldn't hear it starting up and chase after him (being a power ranger had thankfully given the scrawny young man enough strength training to allow him to push a damn car on his own, though he'd had to hop in and drive pretty soon after). Ziggy had waited at Station 9 till dawn and gunned the engine the second he could to get out while they were venting the propane gas.
Really, he'd barely made it, the young man's driving still being pretty poor, despite how much attention he'd been paying to the others trying to teach him. The only way he had even managed to get out of the city without being blown up was the pure adrenaline and desperation to do what he knew Dillon couldn't right now. His morpher was off despite his better judgment and Ziggy prayed that was enough to keep him from being tracked just yet. Honestly, the boy was pretty sure he'd gone off the deep end – stealing from his friends, from his team, and driving out into the wastes on his own just to be able to sneak into Venjix's Palace and stick one of his generals with a syringe that would hopefully make her sane enough to not murder him on the spot. Yep, definitely crazy. Funny things love does to a person.
Hiding the car had been one of the harder parts of the excursion. He knew it might not have enough fuel for a full journey back and forth, so he abandoned it within teleporting distance of the base in a small expanse of trees. Ziggy himself was easier to hide within the base, particularly without his morpher active. Shadow Puppets were also an amazing way to keep grinders distracted if they thought they saw you. Sneaking into the Venjix Palace alone without much in the way of defense had to be one of the stupidest things he'd ever done, and trying to make it into the bedroom of the presently very mechanical Tenaya 15 was not high on the list of bright ideas for what to do if you did manage to sneak into said Palace.
Really, he was pretty sure grabbing a girl from behind and sticking a syringe full of medicine into her as she entered her bedroom was illegal, no matter who you were or why you did it. Getting thrown across the room by said girl while the serum was still kicking in felt a lot like decent payback for it at least. As Tenaya collapsed to her knees, Ziggy stood and rushed back over to help her up and towards the bed, very glad she hadn't been able to alert Venjix to his presence.
"Who's there?" she asked quietly, looking around in confusion now that her mind was clearing up. The less metallic speech at least was a plus and Ziggy leaned back on his knees to smile at her awkwardly. "Hi, I'm Ziggy. Do you at all remember me or who you are?"
Today had to be the weirdest day of Tenaya 7's life – she'd tried to help her brother find some sort of information on a bot of General Shifter's. After getting caught, Kilobyte had done something to her and now she was waking up in Ziggy's arms in her own room. Yep, weirdest day ever. Also, what the hell was he even doing here? From what she remembered, Dillon's little tag-along was the last person who'd let himself into the Palace. Rubbing her head a bit, the female grumbled, "Yes, I do. You're Ranger Green – now what are you doing in my bedroom?"
With a sigh of relief the young man reached into the pouch he'd brought to pull out Dillon's pocketwatch and the key's. "Do you recognize these?" Tenaya's eyes widened and she stared at the boy – okay he had to be insane. "My brother's going to kill you for taking those, you know that right? Unless he's..." she trailed off and for a moment her breathing hitched. He wasn't dead, was he? Just getting reunited with him as family and losing him already was not a pleasant though.
"No, no, he's fine and yes, he will probably kill me if I get out of here alive. I stole his car to get here too." Tenaya blinked at the young man. Seriously, he'd stolen all of that and come here alone? Either he was crazier than she'd ever expected or something was awry. At her confusion, Ziggy sighed and began to quickly explain things.
Back at the Garage, Dillon was pacing around like crazy. Was the world seriously trying to take everything he loved away in one fell swoop as payment for him being cured of Venjix's growing control? His sister was a puppet and if Venjix got that serum formula, would be one for the rest of her life. His car, his watch and his keys were gone, possibly to be lost in fights against the massive amounts of robots at the Palace. His best friend had run off on a crazy attempt to help him and Tenaya that would probably result in the younger man's death, as well as the destruction of Dillon's prized possessions. And to top it off, he had absolutely no one to turn to back in the city, considering he was still furious at Summer for the stunt she'd pulled the night before, and the others just weren't the types of people he could talk to at a moment like this.
Taking his seat in the corner once more, the man stared at the tray with his cold dinner from the night before. Ziggy'd been making and bringing him dinner for the past few weeks, after he'd lashed out at Summer too many times for her to feel safe trying to make sure he stayed alive. It brought a sick feeling to the man's chest to think that Ziggy was being more loyal to him at the moment than his own sort-of-almost-girlfriend. While this was stupid and crazy for the young man to be doing, it did at least show he cared a whole lot more about Dillon than about following orders or keeping himself alive. With a pang, he realized the younger man really had been showing that already – how often had he nearly choked or broken his friend for getting too close lately? Despite how dangerous it was, Ziggy just kept trying to comfort him and keep him healthy. And the older man hadn't even bothered to thank his friend for it, and now Ziggy was off on a possible suicide mission for him.
He'd never ask any of the others to do something like this for him, would never expect something so crazy of the team. Sure, Dillon was upset that they'd tried to hold him back from saving his sister, and Summer'd used his closeness and comfort with her against him, but he'd never want something so ridiculous as this. Hell, the younger man just unstrapping him and helping him to the car would have been better than this – at least once he was conscious again, Dillon would be all right. Ziggy didn't have the competence to handle himself alone on a mission of this caliber and he'd gone and done it anyway, both because he was stupidly loyal and also because he knew what Dillon didn't want to admit to himself. The man would never have been able to recover from the sedatives, disable all of their cars, and steal the serum in time to make it to the station in time to get out of the city without detection. Hell, he hadn't even woken up from the drugs till way after dawn – that alone meant Ziggy was long gone.
As he listened for word from Dr. K, the man had a vague sense of deja vu. Over the past few weeks, he'd been sitting here, waiting for word from her that there was some way to help him, some way to cure the virus. Now he was sitting and waiting for word on whether or not she'd been able to locate his best friend alive. Right now, his stomach was churning with emotions and his mind with things he could have and should have said. If he ever saw Ziggy again – and Dillon tried to swear to himself that he would – he was going to make sure the younger man knew he really was appreciated. Though how he'd do that, Dillon wasn't quite sure yet.
Suddenly, Dr. K's voice rang out through the Garage like it had the night before, "Rangers! I've gotten a temporary lock on Ranger Green's position! His morpher just went active again and I am detecting massive amounts of grinder activity in the area. Are you all ready to go?" Dillon didn't have to be asked twice before jumping off the couch again and heading towards Scott's car – the pair already deciding they were going together since his own was presently in the hands of their less than driving-safe friend.
"Let's hope we find your car – and Ziggy – in one piece when we get there." the darker skinned male commented, pulling his car into gear and driving towards the gate. Colonel Truman had already been informed of the situation, so they were able to get out of the shield and back in pretty fast. With so much grinder activity already present, they would hopefully find Ziggy without too much trouble.
It seemed luck wasn't completely on their side as K's voice came through Dillon's morpher again, "Rangers, the signal has gone out again, but it does appear Ranger Green teleported before the signal went down. The grinders have stopped approaching your area but you are nearing the spot he went to. Keep your eyes open just in case there's a fight."
Dillon and Scott scanned the area, Summer and Flynn coming up behind to see if there was anything in the area. A small wooded patch could be seen nearby, but before the team could head towards it, the roar of a motor was heard and Dillon's car came speeding out of the trees. He jumped out of Scott's car immediately, running across the sand as the car approached and stopped by them. However, the driver wasn't Ziggy, but a very distressed looking Tenaya – and in her hand was a bag, poking out of which was the Series Green Morpher.
Rushing to his sister, Dillon pulled her close before demanding answers. "What happened?" Where the hell was Ziggy? And why did she have his car and Ziggy's morpher?
"Ziggy got into the base to give me that serum stuff, but we were spotted on the way out. He morphed to teleport us to where he hid the car but there were too many for us to escape from so he gave me his morpher and ran back to distract the grinders till I could get back to the city." Before he could think about what he was doing, Dillon had released his sister, grabbing the morpher from the bag, and gone to hop in the driver's seat of his still running car.
"Scott! Get Tenaya back to the city. I'm going to see if I can take on some of those grinders before he gets himself killed." Scott looked ready to shout about who gave the orders on this team but thought better of it, nodding to Summer and Flynn to go along and help. Things were probably going to get very messy very fast. But when weren't they, for the Power Rangers?