Sigmund "Ziggy" Cooper had been in the system for as long as he could remember. He'd also been tasteless for about as long. He, unsurprisingly, doesn't remember how he lost his sense of taste, but he did take his file from the office one day. It said that his mother's name is Vanessa Cooper - he vowed to change his name when he could after he read on - it also said that he was admitted to hospital when he was two with burns in his mouth and the beginning of his throat, nowhere near his voice box. He was brought in by his neighbor, Charlie Grover - Hello new last name! - who was a stay at home dad. The burns in his mouth were caused by bleach left open by his mother, who'd gone out earlier, and destroyed his taste buds and most of his salivary glands, thus destroying his taste. The main thing Ziggy was glad for was that his smelling ability was greatly unhindered meaning he could still cook.
When Ziggy was nine, he developed a sense of humor to compensate for his lack of taste. Some people, mainly the younger kids, found it funny, while the older kids tried to punch the energetic kid while he dodged.
When he was sixteen, he met Benny who introduced him to the Scorpion Cartel. Benny sympathized with the teen knowing no family would want to adopt the poor kid after all the crap he'd been through.
When he, rather unwillingly, became Ranger Series Green, he realized that he'd unwittingly found the family he thought he'd never find.
Summer, with all her fussing, was a mother-like figure, while Scott, with his ex-military mindset and bossiness, had unknowingly become a father figure.
The duo had unwittingly become parent figures to the motley group.
Dillon and Flynn, and Gem and Gemma when they came later, had become the siblings he'd wished for since he was six, they were creative when it came to methods of getting everyone to relax after a long, pain-filled, day of fighting. Dr. K is harder to put into a niche. She's concerned - mainly for her tech - like a parent but she also argues a lot like a sibling. He filed that away for further contemplation.
On the day his family found out about his missing sense started out just like any other…
Ziggy had been mixing up some batter to bake cupcakes after waking up earlier than normal. He was just about to stick a finger in to test the consistency, when Dr. K snuck up on him.
"Ranger Operator Series Green-" She started, the suddenness of her voice startling him, almost causing him to drop the bowl. She stood impatiently as Ziggy held up a finger, asking for a moment.
"We really need to get you a bell." Ziggy said, lowering his finger and the bowl when he felt his heart beat return to normal.
"I don't understand what you're saying."
"He means," Summer interjected, walking down the stairs and throwing a look at Ziggy, "is that you walk very quietly and a bell would get him not to scream like a little girl at nine a.m."
Ziggy stuck his tongue out at the blonde, causing her and Dr. K's eyes to widen in surprise.
"Series Green, what happened to your tongue?" K asked.
"Well, I have a piercing hole from a few years ago - I think it's closed now - but I don't think that's what you're talking-!"
Dr. K had pulled on a pair of latex gloves while Ziggy was talking before pulling his collar and holding Ziggy's mouth open while peering in it.
"Uh... Dr. K, I don't think you have the right qualifications for that one." Summer tried, seeing a flash of pain cross Ziggy's features.
"What's going on down here?" Flynn asked, pulling on a shirt as he walked down the stairs, Scott not far behind.
"She hasn't taken up dentistry, has she?" The red ranger asked, looking up from tightening his belt.
"Ziggy has weird patches on his tongue." Dillon supplied from the couch, having camped there when he couldn't stand the snoring upstairs, startling everyone and allowing Ziggy to free his face from K's clutches.
Ziggy stretched his jaw to get some feeling back. "Your hands are freezing." Was the only comment he gave following the grabbing.
What happened to your tongue, Ziggy?" Summer asked, trying the gentler approach.
Ziggy sighed in defeat as Dillon walked over, masking his curiosity better than the others. "As everyone, bar Dillon - who I don't think even knows where babies come from - knows I used to belong to the government." Ziggy said. "But my name wasn't Ziggy Grover. It was..." He trailed off. Dillon chuckled, his enhanced hearing picking up what everyone else missed.
"What is it, man?" Flynn asked. "It can't be worse than what my cousins could come up with." He paused seeing Dillon's shit-eating grin and smiled himself.
"Tell them, Zig, because I could just broadcast it everywhere." Dillon half threatened.
Ziggy's eyes widened slightly before he held up his index finger and ran upstairs.
While he was upstairs, everyone turned to Dillon and assaulted him with insults and questions. "Summer," he said, pausing the shouting, "your name is no longer the longest here."
There was a second long silence before Dillon's eardrums were assaulted once more.
There was a shrill sound - that made Dillon wince - a few seconds later and everyone turned to see Ziggy lowering a shiny whistle and holding a battered file.
"I was born Sigmund Cooper." He said, putting the file carefully in front of Dr. K. "I was legally taken from my mom, Vanessa, after being admitted to hospital with chemical burns in my mouth." He finished uncharacteristically quiet.
Summer went over to her teammate and enveloped him in a hug. She rested her head on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around her.
"I changed my name to Ziggy Grover, after the man who brought me to hospital and visited when he could, for a fresh start and to put some distance between me and her if she even tried looking for me."
"Oh"
"Ziggy."He heard from behind him before four more arms wrapped around his torso.
"Mr. Grover used to tell me I had either cousins or siblings running around somewhere because he'd always hear shrieking and laughter coming from the apartment. I haven't heard from either him or his kids since I ran away when I was sixteen. Can I use one of your ports, Doc? To see if they got in ok."
Dr. K looked up from the details in the file in front of her - after getting nudged by Scott. "Pardon?"
"Can I use one of your computer ports?" He repeated, standing up and stretching before realizing he still had four extra arms. "May I take these two, too. They're not letting go." Gem and Gemma tightened their grip in response. Dr. K waved her hand at him before returning to Ziggy's file, hoping to learn more about him.
"Sorry mate, I need Gemma out here for a minute." Flynn said, making Gem glare at him as Gemma walked over to the blue ranger, who wrapped an arm around her.
"And Gem promised to help me fix the jeep. Or at least try!" Scott amended, seeing the incredulous and skeptical looks he was getting.
Still scowling, Gem walked over to Scott and crossed his arms.
Ziggy shrugged his shoulders before entering Dr. K's lab.
When the door closed, she put down the file.
"It'll cost you, whatever it is you want me to do." Dr. K stated.
Scott gently removed the file as Flynn replaced it with her wireless mouse and keyboard. Summer placed a big box of marshmallows on the other side of the keyboard.
"Firstly, slow the connection inside the lab." The blonde asked.
Dr. K nodded and typed a command into the system with the keyboard. There was a muffled groan from the lab as Dr. K popped a green marshmallow into her mouth with a slight grin.
"Now we need you to do a gene search on the mite. He might have family here." Flynn explained.
Dr. K typed in another command and everyone turned to the screen near the fridge as numerous DNA cards flashed on the screen.
Ziggy groaned for what felt like the millionth time since discovering today was a very slow connection day. Gem and Gemma came in, leaving the door open for fresh air, just as the search engine finished searching through Corinth's databases for anyone with the name Cooper. He immediately removed his own name and anyone with it as a first name. That left him with a handful of named photos. He'd found Charles with relative ease but when he clicked onto the man's name to find his address, he came face-to-screen with a ten year old version of himself and a little six year old kid with his new-ish name.
"Oh my gosh,"
"Ziggy! You looked"
"so cute!" The twins exclaimed.
"The fluff ball can be cute?" Dillon asked. "This I gotta see." He ruffled Ziggy's hair, much to his dismay, before looking over his shoulder at the picture on screen. One-by-one, everyone entered the lab - Dr. K kicking Ziggy out of her chair - to look at the very few pictures of Ziggy in his very brief childhood.
"If you wish, I can use a sample of your DNA to locate any familial relations you may have in Corinth." Dr. K informed the green ranger. "A single drop of blood should suffice."
Ziggy nodded and held out one arm while covering his eyes with the other. "Tell me when you're done."
Dillon held Ziggy's wrist steady as Summer pricked the thumb sticking out of Ziggy's clenched fist.
Dillon rolled his eyes before affirming his young friend's suspicions.
Ziggy opened his eyes to see two different lollipops – one a honey yellow color and the other blue – fighting directly in front of him. He followed the hands holding the lollipops to Gem and Gemma. They both looked sheepish when they saw him looking at them.
"You two can keep those." Ziggy tried diplomatically. "I have a box of marshmallows in the kitchen."
The three primary colored rangers' eyes widened in realization as to why all the marshmallows were green. Dr. K glared at the trio when she heard the statement as she knew she was going to be covering for them.
"That won't be necessary, Ranger Series Green." She said ignoring his kicked puppy look he was throwing at her. "The small amount of blood required will hardly lower your blood sugar levels that dramatically."
Scott slipped out of the lab unnoticed to get replacement marshmallows for his friend.
Ziggy sighed and watched the screen as his DNA card formed. "All I see are lines."
Dr. K released an exasperated sigh. "Those lines tell me every biological trait in your body. These two markers," she said, pointing to a pair of lines, "tell me your hair and eye color"
Ziggy still looked confused. "How's that going to help find relatives in Corinth?"
"I've set up an algorithm that's scanning DNA cards of everyone in Corinth and on the missing people lists for a 25 to 75% match to your DNA card. This allows for cousins, nieces, nephews parents and so on." Dr. K explained as the monitor beeped. "There are five matches. Do you want to see them?"
Ziggy took a deep breath to calm his nerves before nodding. Dr. K clicked the yes button in the dialog box and two short columns of pictures appeared on the screen.
"How did Tenaya get in there?" Scott asked, breaking the silence and frightening everyone who didn't notice his return.
"Hang on. Didn't she have to pass for a Corinth citizen?" Summer asked. "And doesn't almost every citizen in here have a DNA profile on record?"
"Well, yes but that would mean Venjix had access to our mainframe. Why didn't he attack then?" Dr. K said trying to be rational
"Maybe it was a bug that died after it did its job." Scott suggested. "The army used them often enough before the dome went up."
Unnoticed by the speculators, Dillon was looking at the screen with Ziggy.
"That kid looks a lot like you." Ziggy said pointing to the small smiling boy in the picture. "And that looks like Tenaya."
Dillon looked at the pictures and saw the similarities he thought his friend saw. He nudged Ziggy out of the way of the keyboard as he set up his own task for the computer.
Gem and Gemma walked over before moving a scowling Dillon out of their way so they could locate the program Dillon was unsuccessfully trying to locate. They pulled up the pictures he wanted and the quartet sat back to watch the speculations of the others and let the program run.
The speculations ceased when the program beeped, alerting the room that it had done its job.
"What did you do with my computer?" Dr. K asked.
"Facial recognition software." Gem and Gemma said.
"Dillon was trying to find it"
"but he couldn't"
"so we took over"
"and he told us"
"what pictures to use."
"Two children on the Missing Persons list aren't missing anymore?" Summer asked.
"Yeah. Me and Tenaya." Dillon deadpanned.
"What do you mean?" Summer asked.
Dr. K went over to her computer to look through its readings. "He's correct. Before the dome went up, all missing persons records from before the dome went up were inputted as well to ensure that if a person came in here with amnesia, for example Dillon, their identity would be identifiable easily." The young doctor explained. "They mainly focused on the missing children. Between four and seventeen who went missing from school for longer than twenty days or haven't been seen around where they were living in the same amount of time."
"Who filed us missing?" Dillon asked.
"The same gentleman who helped Ranger Series Green when he was a child."
"Mr. Charles helped me twice?" Ziggy asked incredulously.
"It looks like it, Zig." Flynn said putting a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Though it does explain a lot."
"It does not." Ziggy tried. "Though, if it did, what would it explain?"
"How you can get Dillon out of his funks without getting maimed or killed is where I'm starting." Summer said.
"Or how you're allowed to sit in the Fury at all" Scott said.
"Oh!" Flynn exclaimed. "How about how you can get Dillon to stop doing stupid things, mainly by doing the something stupid before he can. Though I might try that on Scotty boy, it seems to work."
"Or-"
Ziggy ignored the tirade with an exasperated look at Dillon who gave him a look to say You started this. The curly haired teen rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless.
"Uh...guys?" Ziggy tried to interrupt their interesting debate about the things they saw with no avail. "Guys!"
Another shrill sound permeated the air. Everybody turned to look at the green and black clad teen who shook his head. Everyone then turned to Dillon who was walking out of the room.
"Dillon?" Ziggy asked. "Dillon, no!" The curly haired youth shouted, realizing where his half machine teammate - no brother - was heading and chased after him. "Leave my marshmallows...Scott, why are my marshmallows pink?"
Summer glared at her red companion. "You were supposed to get green ones!" She ground out.
"I did!" Scott defended.
"Then how did he find out then?" Summer asked.
"Maybe Gem and Gemma told him." Flynn interjected, pointing out that the twins weren't there.
"They wouldn't, would they?" Summer asked the boys.
There was laughter heard from the kitchen as the trio walked up to the door of the lab. Summer and Flynn glanced at one another behind Scott's back.
"Well Scott, he did accuse you first and foremost." Summer said as Flynn pushed him further into the kitchen.
Scott glared at the smirking duo before turning to his four other teammates.
"Well, Scotty? What do you have to say for yourself?" Ziggy asked their leader.
The intercom crackled to life over their heads for the first time in a while. "Ranger Operator Series Green, please refrain from seriously maiming and/or killing Series Red. There would be insufficient time to find and train a new Series Red. The same applies to you Series Black as well."
Scott could have sworn he heard Dillon mutter spoilsport under his breath but he wasn't sure.
"Uh...Summer gave them to her!" Scott stated, throwing the only girl ranger to the metaphorical - and possibly literal - wolves.
Ziggy turned to the blonde and raised an eyebrow.
"OK. So maybe I gave them to her. But Flynn got them from the cupboard!"
"Uh...Scott was the one who got the wrong color!" The Scotsman said, trying to evade Ziggy's unusually unreadable face.
All focus returned to the grumpy red ranger again.
"Just so you all know, I'm raiding your "secret stashes"" Ziggy said, putting air quotes around secret stashes. "as punishment for eating them - Dr. K - and stealing them."
There was a symphony of protests from the trio and Dr. K as they gave out to him. Ziggy raised a finger for silence, which came a moment later.
"I also only say one thing because there is a line of base programming that the Doc couldn't get rid of in the morphers. I know a guy familiar with the tech - he loves my color best by the way - and he showed me that line and how to activate it." Ziggy smirked.
"How could you activate a dormant piece of coding, assuming it exists at all, without the use of a computer?" Dr. K asked, coming out of the lab once again. "Assuming your hypothetical line of code exists, what could it possibly do?"
"I'm glad someone asked that, actually. You know how the original rangers and how they - bar the green one. Stop snickering Dillon! - were chosen by a giant head in a tube, Zordon. Now, Zordon knew people got stressed or angry and sometimes say things - rude things - in front of kids. He enlisted a robot - Alpha 5 I think - to insert a code into the grid that would stop any present and future rangers from saying stuff like... Dillon, say something rude. My friend activated mine."
Dillon smirked as Ziggy's turned into a frown at that. "Gladly. Shit."
"With the program Zordon made," Ziggy started again, "it doesn't beep it out like on tv. Nope. You get kiddified versions! Like, this is what happens, shi-take mushrooms. It takes a single phrase to activate the code. A phase not often said like...Zordon says no swearing!"
There was a series of chirps from the remaining six morphers in the room and a brief shimmer over their owners mouths.
"Series Green. What did you do?" Dr. K said, going over to the monitor in the kitchen and pulling up the schematics for the morphers with the discarded wireless keyboard and mouse to find a new piece of code there like Ziggy had said.
"Sh-ugar! He's got it affecting the ones I learnt as a wee lad blocked off." Flynn fumed.
Summer was testing it using different languages. The way they figured that was because the words broke off after a second and changed.
"It affects all languages and dialects Summer." Ziggy said, breaking off Summer's surprisingly long list of foreign swears. "I tried all three versions of French and got nothing but a laughing red head and a bruised ego. Also met my uncle that's on the list - very surprised about a lot of things about him - he laughed too - so did his friends daughter who called me her cousin - but he said he'll undo the writing part - only because that's my addition - if you tell him water animal based zords are better than whatever animal yours is. He actually picked that part - something about drunk yellow, red and lunar rangers but I think I fell asleep during that story. Oh god! You b-ooger! You rubbed off on me!" The curly haired youth punched his brother and pulled his now bruised hand away shaking it to dissipate the pain. "I hate you and I hope you get a good hit from Tenaya next time. How hard is it?"
"Not as hard as you'd think. Just pretend you're stuck with Mr. Military in a sparring session."
"So hide somewhere and hope he doesn't look?"
"Ziggy, everyone knows where you hide." Scott interjected. "I just prefer you seeing why the extra training helps. Plus I get sodas while you hide."
"Wha- but... You said they came from the fridge." Ziggy exclaimed, turning to Dillon.
"And they did." Dillon replied. "Just not our fridge. The one in the grocery store."
Ziggy glared at the taller man. Summer and Gemma silently cooed at how adorable he looked. Ziggy noticed and leveled a glare at them too.
Scott and Flynn glanced at one another and that was their downfall. The burst out laughing at the green rangers' face in such an unusual - for him - manor. Dillon and the girls soon followed. Dr. K looked confused at the whole ordeal from her perch at the kitchen island.
"Fudging schist heads!" He exclaimed starting a new wave of laughter, Ziggy joining in this time as even he couldn't contain it. "This was fun but I have a cousin that needs babysitting - well she says cousin, her dad says free childcare - while her dad hangs with my uncle. Dillon's driving me because he set up a pool with his team about who was related. I think Dan won. They all bet on their color I think."
A/N: I have really got to stop distracting myself from writers block on one story to create another. Anyway, the censoring aspect that's in the morphers belongs to Tsukino Akume who kindly let me use that aspect of her own AU Bright Skies which I recommend reading too. Also, this is 7 and a bit pages long. Enjoy and await the second half and maybe epilogue to come.