AN: Well, I was supposed to be writing a Power Rangers Ninja Storm fanfic... But as I came up with no ideas for NS fanfics, this RPM one-shot popped up instead. Which I let run around for a while and now it's not a one-shot anymore. Hopefully it doesn't end up all depressing-like, because I'm prone to that.

Raw, unbeta-ed, unedited. Rated T for a few curses, and playing it safe. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned Power Rangers, then this would be what actually happened in Belly of the Beast. It didn't, so clearly I do not own them. Unless I magically became Disney overnight (I think it's Disney, because it's RPM). In which case I do own them. But I'm not Disney. So no.

Summary: Everyone knew Dillon's virus was getting worse. But even Dillon didn't realise that the wastelands outside Corinth were affecting it. Set during/after Belly of the Beast (Ep. 18).

Dillon's dark eyes flickered in the heat of the fire as he stared into the depths of the room. If something - or someone - had been trapped by those flames, there was no way it could have survived.

Damn those explosives. It would be the one time they were forced to blow up the place up instead of salvage it. There could have been so much they could have used if they had just hacked into the factory's computer files, or something other than attempting to blow the Venjix doomsday bot to pieces. But it wasn't the time for that. He had to find some clues here. Now.

The noise behind him made him jump, but it was Summer who climbed over the metal bar, tucking a bobby pin frantically into her hair. "There's not going to be anyone else in here, Dillon!"

Dillon groaned. Of course, running off on his own and not have another ranger follow him was too much to ask. "Just a few more seconds. Please." It wasn't really a request, because he didn't wait for her to protest, and had already turned into the next room.

More flames flared up, throwing more of the intense heat into his face. Honestly, Dillon thought, he was lucky heat wasn't one of the things that triggered his Venjix implants.

Summer grabbed his arm, as if attempting to drag him away, but her fear was evident as it only came across as a small tug. "Dillon... No. If we don't get out of here now -"

"You're right. You need to go, now!" Dillon threw her hand off, pushing her back the way they had come.

"I'm not leaving here without you!" Summer shoved him away, though she continued to back away from him towards the door. She was ready to bolt, it was clear, even if she seemed like she was staying.

Dillon exploded. This really wasn't the time; one of them had to get out of here, and he wasn't going to be the one. "Why are you always trying to save me?!"

Summer's eyes softened, her voice faded against the loud crackling of the flames. "Because you're worth saving."

Dillon's heart was pounding. Something in him registered what she had just said; but most of his consciousness was still dragging him, deeper and deeper into the flames... His sister. His sister was here, somewhere, or she had been...

There was an echoing crash of metal and Summer shrieked, hopping away from the door they had just come through, gripping Dillon's arm so hard her hands shook.

Another beam had fallen - right in front of their only exit.

Dillon cursed silently, but he slowly loosened Summer's grip, his gaze still locked on the beam. Part of him hoped it was just the heat, and the beam was a mirage. But no, it was firmly there. "Looks like...neither of us is leaving."

She turned to face him, and he lurched forward, his hands locking with hers. Summer leaned forward, pressing her body against his, as if trying to avoid the flames, but to Dillon, it didn't feel like that was the only reason.

"Great last moments, huh?" Dillon managed darkly, but he stayed, hovering protectively.

"Not helping, Dillon..." Summer's voice was tight.

"Arms around me?" he muttered, almost flinching as Summer pressed even tighter against him. The heat was starting to scorch his back, and a tingling pain was spreading through his nerves. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. So this was how the great Subject D-44 was going to meet his end. Wouldn't Venjix be pleased.

Summer slid her arms around him, coughing a few times. Too hot to respond, Dillon thought to himself. It was getting harder to think in here - and the pain was getting worse. Even the ranger bio suits wouldn't protect them against this - and their morphers were dead anyway.

The cold water hit them, and Dillon almost believed they had finally burned to death - but a few notes of a mechanical whale song echoed through the air, along with the remaining misty spray from the water. Oddly zord like. Somehow, Dillon thought as he spotted the blue machine hovering above the building, there wouldn't be any cheerful-looking whale zords in his perception of death.

Beside him, Summer let out a breath, pulling her arms away from him. She laughed.

Dillon couldn't help but laugh with her.

Summer glanced up at the zord, taking a few steps away as if to follow it; the tail of it had just disappeared over the edge of the ruined walls.

"It didn't see us," she said. "I guess it'll loop back around. Find us then."

Dillon just nodded, staring down at himself; from what he could see of himself, his hands were smudged with soot or ash or something. In the ruins of the still smouldering factory, they'd be hard to spot, and they didn't have anything to signal with.

He didn't mention that to Summer. Her hopeful gaze was too beautiful in this situation to kill.

After a moment, she turned again, closing the gap between them again, standing there with him as they stared up at the hole in the roof, waiting for the zord to come back and find them. They couldn't leave just yet; despite the waterfall it had dumped onto the building, said building was still flaming in places - most notably the doorframes, which would make escape all the more difficult.

A spark flickered across Dillon's vision, like an electric pulse was spreading through his eyes. A tingling stung his fingertips, and he reached up, gripping Summer's shoulder. Hard. Shit. Not now.

She took the moment to glance at his whitening knuckles, his suddenly ashen skin, the feverish look in his eyes.

"Summer," Dillon said, and he couldn't remember if she replied.

{~}{~}{~}

The whale was one heck of a zord, Scott conceded as the three remaining rangers watched the trackers of Rangers Gold and Silver move around the perimeters of the factory remnants. Dr. K was tapping furiously at her keyboard, muttering to herself using way too many technical terms and syllables, Flynn was fixated on the dot that signified the position of Gemma, and Ziggy, well, Scott never knew what he was up to. As for Ranger Red himself, he was wearing a path in the floor next to his car, glancing worriedly over to the screens from time to time, turning his morpher over in his hands.

It had been twenty minutes since the whale zord had put the fire out, and the factory was too unstable to enter at the moment, and worse, it had been over an hour since the last sign of Summer or Dillon. Their morphers had been drained, and their trackers weren't responding.

The communicators beeped twice.

"Come in, Gem and Gemma," Dr. K answered them tersely, though her eyes never strayed from the screen to her right. Scott glanced up at her as she addressed the siblings by their names instead of their ranger titles, but the tension in the air was high and K was bound to slip in her typical pattern of speech when the circumstances were the way they were.

There was silence a moment. Then Gemma's voice came over the speaker. "We're here, but..."

Flynn let out a sigh of relief, and opened his mouth, probably to ask Gemma something, but he was silenced almost immediately by the Boom Twins' next statement.

Gem's voice cracked slightly halfway through. "We couldn't find them."

"We think they're gone." Gemma added softly.

There was another moment of horrifying silence. Finally, Scott turned away, but it was too late not to hear.

"We're...

"...Calling it."

"Two rangers..."

"…Down, Dr. K."