Author's Note: Me and my little fics. XD This one is just something to do between chapters of "A Second Chance" since I'm stuck on them 3 :3 A small AU where Zigs is a good bit different, both because of events in his life that I'm changing for this story and because of...other things ^~. Also, some chapters might be shorter than my usual 2-3k per. Just sort of going with the flow here.
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 slash, femslash and possibly even some het. Please keep this in mind. Fic rating is also in place for a reason – I might be writing some heavier scenes at points, though I will warn before any of them.
Extra Note: Contains some spoilers for certain plot points in the series, and follows the plot of several episodes, though altered a bit. AU as per usual.
Ziggy's day was spent on his personal appearance, something the young man hadn't really gotten to put much effort into in years. Sure, he'd sometimes play around with the hand-me-down or trashed clothes he found, sewing on patches or adjusting bits, but for the most part the young man had just always looked how he had to look. His hair had been wild and overly long for years, since running away from the orphanage he was raised in. After time in the wastes, the length and tangled mass had become truly unbearable. So, because of his present status living among civilized people, it was time for a look change.
Cutting his hair took a bit of consideration and effort. It was naturally curly which meant it tangled and moved in all sorts of crazy ways, depending on the length and just how much conditioner was applied. Being homeless didn't leave much time for hair care so presently it looked like shit. However, the more vain part of the youth was fond of at least having some curls, so he attempted to salvage as much as possible of the brown mop. It was nearly an hour before he had a reasonable mess of soft brown curls, hanging at most to his shoulders when fully stretched out. Now THAT was better!
Adjusting his clothes came next, and by the time he'd de-girlified and tightened up the pieces he'd gotten from Summer, it was getting to be late in the afternoon. Heading downstairs, Ziggy was surprised to find the team still out at auditions and Dillon outside on a small break from his training – if the man stayed with Dr. K too long, he tended to get irritable and sloppy and neither could stand that. Deciding to check in on the young genius, the brunette sauntered into the labs in time to hear a call from the main team.
"Dr. K! We've found someone!" Scott's voice was about as excited as he ever got, which wasn't too much but still audible in his speech. Ziggy leaned lightly over K's shoulder, not too concerned about the small jump the doctor gave when she felt the weight and realized he'd managed to get into her hidden room again.
Flynn's voice was heard next, "You won't believe this – she's just perfect for the job. Former News Helicopter pilot, eager to work, polite, nice, unbelievably pretty-" the man was cut off by Summer breaking into the conversation, "Doc, her scores are off the charts. Just like Dillon's were..." Ziggy found himself exchanging a small look of surprise with K at that. She shrugged after a moment, "All right." the raven haired doctor agreed, nodding as her companion motioned (through very odd and quick hand gestures) that he'd run the morpher to the group, "I'll be sending Ziggy with the Series Green morpher for this new recruit then."
Unlike the young woman, who merely believed this was an astounding, if implausible coincidence worthy of some consideration, Ziggy knew something was awry. One of his 'powers' was a tad predictive and was completely out of his control. The young man could feel whether or not something might turn out good or bad, just suddenly being stricken by a strong bad or good feeling. Usually he had absolutely no idea what they were about – like the unbelievably good feeling he'd had before taking a nap and nearly getting run over by a certain black muscle car – but once in a while Ziggy would get lucky and have a pretty good hint as to what he was feeling good or bad about – and in this case, it was the ranger candidate, or something pertaining to her.
The young man was also very suspicious of her, especially since he was almost positive the only way Dillon had gotten readings off the charts was because of his cybernetic enhancements and that would imply this girl was either upgraded, like Dillon, or affected by the outside to be superhuman, like he himself was. And neither of those boded well, particularly if the team hadn't been informed of it beforehand. Summer had almost seemed a bit curious too, but Flynn and Scott had merely been pleased. With Dillon busy and the other three having seemingly no idea of how suspicious this all was, the youth took it upon himself to investigate her a little, under the guise of kindly delivering the morpher.
Walking into the main room, Ziggy leaned down to pick up the morpher as K sent it from the Series Green chamber to the floor. As he bent over, the youth tried to ignore the feeling of the young doctor's eyes on his rear end, a curious and almost intrigued feeling to her gaze. That was one of the better advantages of the whole psychic thing – made it somewhat easier to tell whether or not someone liked him or was interested. Not that many people were or that he was interested in many other people – it was just nice to note. Though, he'd had a good deal of skill in that before – he'd just been way less confident about it.
Standing back up, he turned to smile at K, winking at her lightly. "I'll be back soon."
She stared at him for a moment, taking in his new, much more sleek appearance – the tight jeans, the shorter hair, the cute little vest and shirt combinations, "You look different..." the girl found herself commenting before immediately slamming the door to her room shut, moving fast enough that the youth barely caught sight of the blush on her cheeks. Soon as possible, her headset was back on properly and she was speaking to him through a screen, "Yes, anyway – protect that morpher with your life. It contains the base code for the entire Series."
Heading towards the building the team had been doing their "auditions" in, Ziggy tried to quell the increasingly worse feelings slowly creeping into his mind. There was something VERY amiss about this whole business and he did NOT like the idea that the closer he brought himself to this place brought him closer to doom of some sort. He'd always been a somewhat cowardly fellow, always on the run and always wary. Right now, going forward with that morpher was defying everything his body said was correct – but he had to do it just the same.
As the young man got close to the building, he stopped, closing his eyes and letting his powers go a little. Reading minds and projecting thoughts was a very complicated power to have – you could hear the thoughts of others, but without a good deal of control, you'd be constantly drowned in everyone else's thoughts and feelings, so much so that you'd never be able to hear or have your own. Releasing a little of that control was terrifying, even if it was for a good purpose. Right now, Ziggy was searching for the Rangers, trying to figure out if they were in the building and conscious. The state of their thoughts tended to give that away. The search would have to be quick, however, because otherwise other thoughts would start pouring in and once that happened, the floodgates in his mind would snap and it'd take forever to get it under control again.
Sometimes, when he had a free moment to think about it, Ziggy considered it funny how a person's thoughts were merely blank streams of words in a muddle of voices till you knew a particular person. Then their voice became stronger in the muddle, changing from just another thought to their actual voice. And the more distinctive a voice, the more easy it was to find. Because of this, Flynn was the first one of the team Ziggy was able to locate – and he was thinking about fruit smoothies, which made it even easier to pick up on. From there, the search could be narrowed, as people who were in the same general vicinity had similar thoughts. Easily, he latched onto Summer's and Scott's thoughts – one thinking about whether or not this new Ranger would be as hard to get close to as Dillon was, and the other thinking about whether or not he should wax his car.
That was a relief since their thoughts would have just been an uncomfortable buzz of blankness or random thought had they been unconscious. Immediately, he blocked up the mental waves of thought again. However, as he did, caught what sounded like a choked thought – half normal but half overridden by something Ziggy'd never felt before – a weird pressure that didn't quite feel right. Had Ziggy left the channel open, he'd have been able to take time and feel that weird pressure and see what caused it, but at present, he needed to go see about this new ranger candidate.
Inside, Ziggy looked around the empty hallways for the door leading into the area where the Rangers were holding testing and auditions. He'd managed to feel vaguely where they were but not how to get in there, or if they were even actually inside. However, before he could head inside to check, the sounds of a scuffle caught his attention and the young man raced over, that awful feeling beginning to become stronger and stronger.
A few guards had been doing a small scan of a young woman as part of general procedure, particularly for someone so far off the charts as this woman had been. They were now unconscious on the floor and the brunette girl between them had just started to transform from a regular looking human girl to a strange woman in a skintight suit and a visor.
He blinked at her for a second, "Whoa, that ain't normal." he said quickly before it all clicked into place – okay that explained why she'd been off the charts and he'd had such a foreboding about this, she was a VENJIX ATTACKBOT! Immediately Ziggy turned and hightailed it, intending to get the morpher away from this woman and following his gut instinct. His gut told him it was best to run outside and away, rather than to try and find where Scott, Summer and Flynn were.
A firm grip on his arm stopped Ziggy in his tracks. "I'm afraid I can't let you out to warn anyone in the city of what I am," the female behind him smirked under her visor, a chilling image, "at least...not till I've bonded with the Series Green morpher."
"Thanks for informing me exactly what you mean to do." Ziggy informed her and immediately twisted out of her grip before willing his super speed into action. It drained the young man a lot to use the bursts of inhuman power that had come from his time in the wastes – drained him so much more than using his psychic powers ever did – and so he tried to do his best to use the advantage of time to get a good distance away, steal a scooter and call for help from a decent distance from where he'd left the stunned Tenaya.
Pressing the button on his mini-communicator frantically, he tried very hard to get in touch with the pair at the Garage, "Dr. K! Dillon! Can either of you hear me? Cause there's kind of a HUGE problem!" Ziggy hissed, trying not to make his position too obvious.
Soon enough, Dr. K's modulated tones came crackling back to him, "What is it, Ziggy?" Quickly, he explained the situation as best he could, "Uh, the girl they picked is actually from Venjix aaaand she wants the Green morpher and is chasing me to keep me from telling anyone." he said quickly.
"Is the morpher secure?" K's voice was urgent this time. Ziggy's response was a simple yes, though he looked around carefully just the same – if she was following, it was best NOT to let her know he had it.
The next response he got, however, was from Dillon, "I'm on my way." Somehow that DIDN'T bode well. Carefully he tried to navigate out of the area of hung laundry that he'd been hiding in when the feeling of the approaching doom as well as a small whistle began. Ziggy winced a little, sensitive against the shrill sound and trying not to let it show too much. Damn weird conditions to his powers.
"I am not scared of you, lady." his voice was more confident than it should be, Ziggy's pain and weakness leaving him extremely defenseless and now only his faked confidence was all he had to keep from collapsing. Well that and the adrenaline rush.
Within the next moment, he was in the air, "Well you SHOULD be," and right then the young man was pretty sure he'd said the wrong thing. Oh well, at least she'd stopped whistling.
"Just who are you?" the boy asked, having absolutely no clue as to why the hell he had just blurted it out, his body just taking over at that point. That turned out to be the RIGHT thing to say because the female stopped like she had a programming glitch and began to speak very formally, "Tenaya, Generation Seven, Venjix Human Infiltration Attackbot. I am your thoug-" She was cut off by Ziggy's reply, "Yeah I don't care THAT much," and he promptly pressed the button to shoot wiper fluid from the scooter onto her visor and took off like a bat out of hell, leaving her knocked over for a moment, tangled in clothes, and with fluid covering her visor.
He abandoned the scooter when his second wind came, letting the young psychic hop between fire escapes quickly to avoid Tenaya when she was able to give chase. Up ahead he saw Dillon's car and darted forward, making a hard landing on the ground by it and clambering in awkwardly just as his friend stopped.
"You okay?" the older man asked, forgetting the entire situation for a moment seeing Ziggy flushed and panting, getting a look at his shorter hair, tighter pants, and a bit of his abdomen as his shirt had ridden up from all of the running. Ziggy reached out to push Dillon's face back towards the road, not appreciating his companion's distraction right then, particularly since he could hear that damn telltale whistling again. Just DRIVE! He managed to think loud enough to block out any other interests were presently occupying the other man's thoughts and they were off.
Before they could make it too far, Tenaya leaped onto the hood of the car, preventing Dillon from seeing enough to drive straight, bringing them to a stop as they crashed into a load of cardboard boxes piled outside a warehouse. The woman smirked again, immediately yanking Ziggy from the passenger's seat, out through the window.
"So, you're the one who was bringing the morpher for me, no wonder you ran. But no matter, I shall have it anyway." she informed him. Dillon had other ideas, however and immediately moved in to knock the younger male from her grasp and begin a fight Ziggy couldn't see very well from his position of trying to get off the ground and not pass out. Sometime during the whole mess, he thought he heard the woman start her weird spiel again – getting a good bit farther this time but still not completing it – and Dillon morphing to keep fighting her.
His minor recovery and slow regaining of breath were immediately brought to a screeching halt as Tenaya 7 managed to toss Dillon aside hard enough to keep the man from being able to get up immediately. She bent down by the fallen young man and drew the morpher from his not-at-all concealing pocket (seriously, why had he wanted his pants to be tighter again? Damn comfort and looks coming before the ability to hide stuff like morphers.) He was dimly aware she'd begun to monologue about something again, though not her name at least.
Thinking Venjix really needed to check her for glitches, Ziggy grumbled out, "You talk too much," before kicking the morpher from her hand and standing up to grab it. They grappled for a moment, his strength gone too much to do much against her. However, his powers had seemingly put him on autopilot and without even realizing what he was doing, he'd bonded with the morpher, just as she'd been trying to get it away to do the same.
In a flash of light, Ziggy was suddenly in something that was totally and completely not spandex ever, and felt a good bit more alive, a new sense of power thrumming through him and melding happily with what had slowly been building over time. However, that awful sense of dread and foreboding came to fruition here as he realized that, while the city was now safe from this infiltration...he was now exactly what he hadn't wanted to be. A Power Ranger. One with much more important concerns to think about than his new predicament – because that was the least of the trouble that was going to be happening today.