Author's Note: Still can't figure out what I'm doing with second half of two chapters of two other fics. A I hate stuck points. More fickle though

Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers or any related media or characters. The story idea is my 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 ratings exist for a reason, but I'll warn before stuff if I can.

Extra Note: Contains some spoilers for certain plot points in the series, blah blah, AU, blah, my usual

EXTRA WARNING: This chapter will be really wtf in some ways. This is mostly because we are dealing with deities and they aren't always the most sensical creatures. Also the end of the chapter has this fic taking a minor rating jump. So you're all aware.

It was a week of non-stop rain before Venjix first attacked. The bot was one hell of a whopper but what was worst about it was it seemed designed to make precise, quick hits that could damage or cripple an enemy severely. Really, with that and how off most of the team was, it could wipe the floor with them.

The trouble with it, however, was that the bot wasn't interested in the rest of the team. It kept leveling these blows at Dillon and Dillon alone – and when his suit couldn't take any more and he de-morphed, it started leaving heavy, bleeding marks. The monster did eventually short out from the rain, but not before inflicting a rather strong stomach wound. Tenaya watched all this from her position nearby, wondering just what the point of that plan was.

She had gotten too sick of being inside after the fourth or fifth day and so had headed for the city on the pretense that she was doing reconnaissance on what was causing this ridiculous rain and how it was keeping most of Venjix's bots out of the city. The girl hadn't gotten a chance to report on the extreme lethargy that had overtaken most of the team, however, as she had immediately wanted to run and play soon as she was exposed to the water for too long.

Now she observed the group trying to heft Dillon back to his car to take him back. The man was in no shape to drive and the others didn't look much better, despite having not taken much damage. The one who seemed to actually be doing the most heavy lifting – actually half carrying his friend – was Ranger Green. He was also the one who convinced Ranger Yellow to trade vehicles with him for a time since he seemed to be unable to handle anything with more than two wheels. It all seemed so strange. Tenaya made to follow them, both because she wanted to investigate – and because she had a date with a certain little Doctor.

–

K looked excessively harried when she was looking over Dillon's results. Her hair was rather mussed – almost like she'd been tearing it out during the time she was napping while the computer scanned him after the fight. His stomach was no longer profusely bleeding – his implants adding an accelerated healing factor. That was a bonus to them, at least, or so he thought. Not that Dillon could think much – his head was starting to feel heavy and fuzzy again like he was about to pass out, despite not having lost that much blood. Maybe he was going to have more of that weird dream.

"This isn't good," the young genius hissed in horror, looking at the scans before her.

Immediately Scott headed over to look, the leader having been pacing around and looking agitated since his friend had gotten so messed up during the fight. All of the team was nervous – Summer sitting nearby, petting Dillon's arm as he lay on the examining table, Flynn leaning on a counter, the twins at their work table, and Ziggy sort of hovering off to the side where the man couldn't see him. They all started looking and acting a good deal more worried when even the red ranger started to seem panicked at what the paper said.

"What does it say, Doctor?" Summer squeezed his hand tightly, not at all liking the sound of this. Dillon idly thought that if it were bad news, holding on tighter to him and staying closer was probably a bad idea.

K gulped lightly, opening her mouth to say, "The percentage of Ranger Black's body taken over by the virus has just jumped a dramatic amount. Tests conclude this is due to his upgrades accelerating his healing, but causing all of the newly healed areas to be corrupted with Venjix tech. This may allow the virus to take him over at any point."

Well, that explained the muzzy-headed feeling. Dillon was just about to curse this turn of events or confirm their fears, but all of the sudden, things went dark. The world was a blur again and though he tried to fight it off, that horrible stinging sound that came with the virus's control wrapped through his head and he found himself completely out.

Usually, this resulted in him eventually regaining consciousness somewhere other than where he'd previously been and not having a clue as to what happened. This time, however, it felt like that warmth from his dream returned for a moment. But this didn't feel like his usual fragmented memories of the events – more new, and fresh.

"Wow. Two for one. I give the Champion points for creativity," the voice of Fyre seemed amused, though there was something different about his voice now. It sounded younger, more playful and less serious.

Dillon might have taken a moment to wonder why he was hearing that voice now of all times, but right then the blackness vanished from around him, and he realized that he was standing and had just dropped something. Looking around blearily, he found Scott and Flynn helping Summer off of the floor – all three of them looking at something past his side. Absently, the man realized he was holding Dr. K's sonic canon and part of the room in front of him looked destroyed. However, he was more concerned about the fact that the Doc herself was lying on the floor, cold eyed, with what looked like a civilian dressed Tenaya 7 trying desperately to wake her back up.

It was then that he looked down at what the primary colored trio was staring at that was so much more interesting than the possible attackbot. There he saw on the floor just what he'd dropped – when he'd come to, he had just let go of Ziggy's neck, and let the teen fall to the floor, eyes already cold and lifeless from having his neck snapped in just such a way as to instantly kill him.

He felt almost numb, and the world around him felt cold as he heard the others speaking and the Tenaya-lookalike's cries for K to just please wake back up, all of it sounding like it was being spoken through a filter of water around his head. He was losing air and it did really feel like he was swimming, the numbness mixing with a taste of blood in his mouth – or was that salt?

All of the sudden he realized very much that he WAS drowning. There was no doubt about it – Dillon was drowning on dry land, and the world before him was spinning as he heard what sounded like those weird far away voices again, trying to talk someone down from something. What was going on and WHY? It was all starting to overtake him and he almost lost all air.

And then he was just fine, as a hand smacked him solidly in the face. He could barely make out someone trying to talk to him, his senses not really ready to work again yet. They'd gone from being shut off by Venjix to being shut off by randomly dying and now he was just trying to get his bearings and – wait was that Ziggy smacking him?

"Aren't you dead?" those were the first words out of the man's mouth once his throat started to work. Really, he was pretty sure he'd just been having a huge panic moment over having killed his friend in a Venjix rage, and now the other was standing there just casually slapping him in the face and shaking him out lightly.

The teen widened his eyes and chuckled at that, his voice sounding way too pleasantly surprised than someone who had just been no-longer-among-the-living had a right to be. "Now, why did you want me to be? Cause I'd hate to burst your bubble, but I'm kinda immortal, and as a God you really can't do me harm anyway. Not unless I want you to anyway."

It was about this point that Dillon realized Ziggy's hair seemed a little longer now, to his shoulders, rather than awkwardly cut close to his head. It seemed to fluff up nicely and it properly didn't look like any specific color, but more just a general warm dark hue. He was also standing a little straighter and more calmly. The rain had been affecting him oddly lately but this oddly? Just then, it hit the man that he had just been told his friend was a God and he couldn't hear the sound of rain outside anymore.

"Oh no..."

The boy burst out laughing at that. Well, not really a boy – what was he anyway? At least Flynn, Scott and Summer still looked decently horrified. Not-Possibly-Tenaya was still on the floor hugging at the seemingly lifeless Doc K, and this all was getting unbelievably weird. He backed up a bit to sit on the examining table once more and get his bearings – only to find he'd overturned it at some point and end up crashing to the floor. This just drew more riotous laughter from the Apparently-Immortal-Ziggy, who seemed to be having a blast watching this.

Thankfully, at least one of the others had the presence of mind to ask what the hell was going on. The Red Ranger, being the serious leader, took a moment to gesture wildly before saying in his most exasperated voice, "Ziggy what the heck is going on? We just watched him kill you, then keel over, and then you get up and start laughing, smack him till he stops choking on nothing, and now you're talking about being an immortal."

It seemed this address was enough to draw the attention of the other and remind him of just what was going on. "Oh yeah you people haven't got a fucking clue what just happened do you?" he said with an almost wonder. "Well see, I'm a deity – the ruler of Dreams among other things actually – annnnnnnnnd I'm involved in a game with the other deities where we live as mortals and stuff for fun to see who makes it the longest till we die and get our powers all the way back. But see I was just stuck in a penalty for a bit – long story as to why – so I was not only mortal, but I didn't remember I wasn't really mortal. So the only way to get out of that is to become dead, which I'm amazed I actually made it this long without doing because holy crap am I bad at staying alive even when I remember I'm immortal, and this incarnation was pretty damn useless, let me tell you, though you probably know that already anyway. Anywho, hi, I'm Dreamer, what else do you need to know?"

The entire room – including not!Tenaya – turned to stare at him right then. That had been the most extreme case of Ziggy randomly going on a long rambly tangent that made very little sense if you weren't paying close attention. But usually he wasn't this horribly weird to understand.

Eventually, Summer got up the energy to move her mouth a few times before eventually forcing out another question, "Doesn't that mean you're the one Dillon's been having dreams about? The reason it was raining?"

Stretching some, the boy seemingly ignored the question for a moment, helping his friend back up before turning back to the blonde addressing him as if surprised that she seriously wanted an answer to that, "Are you kidding? Of course I am. Who else would I be?"

At this point, the girl that he was really starting to suspect might actually be Tenaya 7, spoke up angrily. "If you're a God, then do something about this! Bring her back!" she demanded, eyes still tearstreaked as she clutched the dark haired girl.

Ziggy looked from her to the limp K a few times, looking almost sympathetic before he broke out laughing once more. This made the maybe!Tenaya look really very much like she was about to jump up and hit him if it didn't mean dropping the other girl. However, he soon spoke in a way that completely changed her mood.

"I can't bring her back – she's not dead. 'Lucia's just acting that way because she hasn't figured out what's going on or if it's still dangerous to get up. That and she probably likes the fact that you're practically smashing her face into your chest, but you know, that's just my opinion." He waved a hand after saying that, seemingly ignoring the upset-and-confused-cyborg-girl and heading over to help pick up a set of increasingly confused twins, who looked like they were just waking up from a very heavy daze that being knocked out with a table will do to people.

Immediately, Dr. K turned away from the chest she was being held against to give Ziggy a dirty look, "Spoilsport." she grumped a little. And it became increasingly obvious that her voice no longer properly held that almost robotic snappish click to it, now sounding much more wistful and somewhat like crashing waves.

The boy chuckled, "Come on, little sister, you'll have time to get your kicks later. Anyway, you owe Dillon an apology – you drowned him, you know."

The man was becoming increasingly pissed off at this whole discussion. It made his head spin more than the damn water had. He was vaguely aware of the feeling returning to his body when suddenly he grabbed Ziggy's shoulder and promptly decked him. "Stop acting like a weirdo. It's fucking weird," he mumbled before heading off to his own room to lie down. He did not want to be dealing with these people right now.

–

"Master Venjix, Master Venjix! Ranger Black and Tenaya 7's files have just vanished from our computers!" came the over-excited ravings of General Crunch, who had just run into the room flailing like a madman. "Ranger Black isn't even on our radar any more – it's like the virus just left him!"

Oh could today GET any stupider? Venjix had been dealing with his generals all acting screwy due to that rain and then Tenaya had had to run off because it was affecting her human nature as well as her machinery. Things had almost seemed like they might look up when Kilobyte had come in from doing a little bit of research at the other hybrid camps that when the subjects were grievously injured their upgrades sped up healing and infection – Venjix had chose not to ask how this information was acquired. Now it seemed information was missing and though the rain had stopped, Ranger Black had gone from being fully under their control to not at all.

Venjix might have become completely pissed off, had a very upset looking Tenaya 7 not stormed in soon after, mumbling something about needing to go to bed and about humans being stupid. That both didn't look good and also sounded quite promising. Maybe the virus just needed to take up positive thinking for a change.

–

Dillon was not having a pleasant night. It had seemed like soon as the rain stopped that his nightmares had come back and on top of that, there was so much information swirling his head and everyone just seemed to want to bug him. Twice Summer had come up to try and talk to him, once Scott, and the twins had even taken the time to poke their heads in, though that was more curiosity than anything. In fact, the only person who he really might consider talking to right now, was the one who hadn't bothered coming upstairs.

He'd been having nightmares about turning into a full machine for a long while before the rain had started. Usually they involved Summer panicking over him having a metal hand and then him being attacked by metal strings that encompassed his whole body. Today, however, he just couldn't get the image of Ziggy's cold and lifeless eyes out of his head. He remembered those soft brown eyes he had seen in the dream and never paid attention to when they were in front of him in the flesh, but empty like that and without life, having been caused by his hand, that had been horrific. The fact that the other hadn't come up to explain any of this to him or try to talk it out didn't make this any less frustrating or awful either.

"Well I was waiting till you were a bit more amiable towards company." came a soft voice in his mind as it seemed like a hand rested under his chin and turned his face from the lifeless mortal form to face the beautiful and almost frightening God within the darkness. Barely able to be made out, and yet still there.

Right about then, Dillon woke up, both shocked and exhilarated by seeing that. Generally not being the religious type, he had never considered whether or not a deity of something like dreams would be attractive to look at in their true form. Or that they'd be able to enter his nightmares and shift them. Part of him wondered just what sort of affect that could have on their relationship as teammates. The rest of him very much wanted to know if they even counted as teammates anymore since one of them was an immortal after all.

A soft chuckle reached his ears as Ziggy leaned on the doorframe, looking at him through the darkness with those gentle brown eyes, that now seemed to almost glow with power. The rest of him still seemed human, besides the odd quirk with his hair, but those were distinctly otherwise. Carefully Dillon sat up and waited for the younger male – or did he count as older now? - to start speaking.

"What, you really expect me to do all the work?" the boy teased, walking over to lean lightly on the edge of Dillon's bed. He looked almost submissive from that position but the feeling of power from those eyes was enough to keep Dillon transfixed and completely at his mercy.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to lose himself. He had never possibly considered that the reason it was raining so much around their group was because the person he was supposed to be reminding was one of them. Or that maybe Ziggy was the only one besides him with any energy because the rain was a sign of the deity's power. Or that maybe the one person who he barely noticed but always needed, might be the one who could leave him so completely at their mercy.

A small laugh and roll of those eyes broke the hold they had over the man, and Ziggy grinned some, "I never would have pegged you for the poetic type, Dillon." he joked.

"I never would have pegged you for an immortal God of Dreams." the black ranger shot back, leaning in close and glaring at his friend, "I also wouldn't have pegged you for knowing who I am or where my sister is and that I just had to wring your puny little neck like I wanted to get that information." He snarled this part in the hopes of using what might remain of the younger male's innocence and timidity against him. However, that smell that fresh rain reminded him that he was dealing with something beyond his own comprehension. And at this distance the man could also pick up on something else – a sort of aura around the other. Somewhat like mystery – that had been what kept him from being memorable in the dream before where all the others were so solid – but also a dark and desirable undertone that brought to mind the question of who was best to fulfill one's wildest dreams but the deity of them himself.

The boy laughed at this and leaned up to lightly press his nose to Dillon's, "While I do find where your thoughts are going intriguing, you do need to focus, pretty boy. I do know more than you initially pegged me to know, but I don't know what you want me to. Only Andalucia knows for sure where your sister is, and that's presently very vague as she's been under penalty a lot longer than I have and is still readjusting to her powers. And I never really found out who you were, just that you wouldn't make it without my help and once you'd been restored and sent back to your world with your sister, I was immediately put under penalty and couldn't learn anything more."

His breath brushed across the older male's lips as he explained all this, and Dillon very much wondered if he could go back to those other thoughts now. However, he tried to hone in on what was being said as best he could, and eventually forced out another question, his voice a husky whisper against his wishes. "Why does only Andalucia know?"

"You are my Champion. Your sister, I chose to be Andalucia's, so they are bonded together. We can only properly locate our own Champions or people we know. It comes of there being a lot of mortals and a lot of information to sift through." The younger man indulged him a little by leaning up to tug at his lower lip playfully, and it became very hard for the black ranger to do much more than fight for more of these teasing little touches and kisses.

He breathed heavily after a few moments, not having the energy to keep chasing without getting a bit of air between attempts, and he tried to think of the other thing that had been bugging him. "Why...choose me as your Champion if you didn't even know me? And how did she become Andalucia's? She wasn't even there when you made me yours."

Tenderly, the smaller male brushed his fingertips along Dillon's cheek, letting the man catch his breath still, but considering the answer. "A whim, mostly. You seemed like a nice kid, and I felt I could relate to you some, and really, I did have to pick a Champion and pick one out for 'Lu' – we all picked our Champions differently, depending on what we felt was the best way to do so. I just decided I'd pick one when I was in the mood, and Andalucia made me pick her's too since she knew I'd be more likely to do it at all if I had to choose her's too. Responsibility and all that rot."

After he spoke, the teen leaned in and rewarded Dillon's minor patience with a long, slow and tender kiss. It tasted like what heaven had to be like but he had never thought of before, and it felt so perfect and gentle that when the other pulled away without allowing the man to embrace him or investigate this feeling more, it almost felt like a part of his soul was being ripped apart. But he'd never been poetic like this before – or felt a need like that before.

The other laughed a little and pat his cheek, "It comes from the power awakening in you from being my Champion. You're bonded to me because of it, and it's going to make you loopy and affect you weird for a few days. I'll leave you alone till you have your senses back about you and if you're still interested then, I'll see about losing a bet with my cohorts to satisfy your curiosity about that feeling," he trailed a finger lightly over the older man's somewhat plumped lips as he said this, and that finger trailed down over Dillon's chest and stomach before reaching a bulge he hadn't realized was in his pants.

"For now, though, that's a bit of revenge for not paying attention for me over the past few months, and for shooting my baby sister. If you think trying to sleep with Venjix nightmares was torture – you haven't even yet imagined what trying to deal with that problem will be like when the person who caused it to remain unfinished can manipulate your thoughts and cut you off at the worst possible moments."

And with that and a little laugh, the other darted out of the room and back into the darkness. Though whether he actually went outside or elsewhere Dillon wasn't quite sure. What he was sure of was that he probably need a cold shower about now, and that what his friend had just said was probably going to make for the most interesting and yet awful few nights till the other stopped being mildly irked at him.