Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers or anything associated with it. I just own an idea that I really really hope makes it into the new movie. As always please read, review and enjoy!
Fallen
"She's here!"
Rita stared across the command center to Zordon's glowing form, her hands tightening around her staff as the power coin within it glowed a fierce green in response to the robot before her pointing several forms of weaponry at her.
"Back away traitor!" Alpha 5 demanded as his weapons began to heat up.
"You do not get to tell me what to do anymore Alpha," the as the glow of her staff now began reflecting off her green and gold armor.
"ENOUGH!"
Zordon turned his gaze to her.
"Rita, why are you here?"
She raised her head up and smiled imperiously. "I am here as a courtesy. I would like to respectfully ask, one last time, for you to give me what is rightfully mine."
"You're not even worthy of the coin you have now witch!" Alpha bit in harshly.
Rita's hand tightened on her staff and the coin began to glow.
"One more word out of you and I will turn you into scrap metal!"
"Alpha enough! Stand down."
"Zordon…"
"Even in my diminished state, a fight between her and I would kill us both. She knows that very well. Stand down old friend."
"And I know that such a fight would annihilate the city and likely a large chunk of the continent," Rita chimed in smugly. "We wouldn't want that now would we?"
"Please Alpha."
The robot hesitated a moment before nodding and lowering its weapons.
"Aye, aye."
"Thank you. Now leave us."
"As you wish."
Alpha walked away into the distance, the clang of his footsteps gradually fading away into the corridors of the long dead ship.
Zordon's gaze never left Rita's own.
"You know you're too late. The coins are in the hands of new rangers now."
Rita smirked. "Yes I've met some of them. And I have to say I am far from impressed."
"There's a strength to them that you underestimate Rita."
The witch scoffed as she lowered her staff and began to walk lazily around the command center, still keeping her eyes on her opponent.
"They are children of a primitive race given powers they have no hope of comprehending. They're one potentially good quality is that they'll probably do whatever you say."
Zordon quirked an eyebrow.
"You want me to tell them to surrender their power coins? To you?"
Rita shrugged.
"It's either that, or I kill them all and take their coins by force. After all…"
Her fingers began to drum along her staff.
"I've killed rangers before."
Now Zordon glared hatefully.
"Are they no longer even worthy of being called your friends Rita?"
"I gave them the mercy of quick deaths. I won't do the same for your new rangers."
There was silence between the two of them for a long moment before Zordon broke it.
"What happened to you Rita? How could my Green Ranger fall so far?"
Rita's eyes glowed and she gripped her staff until her knuckles went white.
"Do not call me that! I am not your ranger anymore, I am on my way to becoming something far greater than one of your impotent little soldiers."
"Impotent? You were the greatest of all rangers, a hero to billions of sentient beings. Tyrants, monsters, and would be warlords feared you more than more than any other force for good in the universe. You were my brightest pupil Rita, what madness took hold of you that you would murder your own friends?"
Rita finally turned away at that remark and her eyes softened into something bordering on sorrow.
"The madness that comes with the realization that they were among those holding me back."
The command center shook for a split second.
"How dare you," Zordon's voice was pure steel. "They were your teammates, your family, not some deadweight to be cast off."
"Oh I know, Zordon. I know exactly what they were to me, but that still doesn't change the fact that they were keeping me from fulfilling my destiny, from completing the mission that I had worked towards my entire life. A universe at peace."
That seemed to shock Zordon.
"You think all of this destruction and murder is what will lead to a universe at peace?"
Rita turned to regard Zordon contemptuously.
"What you never seemed to understand Zordon, is that the universe doesn't need rangers. It needs something far more powerful. That for all the destruction we stopped from the warlords and other threats that we put down, sentient beings throughout the galaxy always begin to destroy one another, or themselves."
She turned away.
"Do you remember our battles with the machines? An entire race of mechanical monsters bent on enslaving worlds. I fought them with everything I had, we all did. We even united several worlds against the threat. And when the machines were finally defeated, do you remember what happened?"
Zordon sighed.
"Yes. War broke out between the various worlds."
"Yes. One planet even began a genocide against members of its own species. And what did we do?"
"Those were not our wars to interfere with."
"WE DID NOTHING!"
Her eyes glowed again and her hair began to radiate upwards.
"We stood by as worlds destroyed themselves. Bound by your hypocritical vow not to interfere with the affaires of planets and so we save worlds only so that they can continue to destroy themselves."
She took a deep breath and her eyes returned to normal.
"For so long I thought I truly was a symbol of hope to uncountable billions of people. They would see the green ranger and know all would be made right. But as it turns out, I was nothing more than a false hope."
"So instead you became a murderer? A betrayer?"
"I've done what is necessary."
"You killed your friends for power."
"And with that power I will become what the universe truly needs! It doesn't need rangers it needs an empress. An all powerful empress to quell the violence, to punish those who would do harm amongst their own kind and others."
Zordon closed his eyes for a moment as though pained, when he opened them there was a new sadness to those ancient eyes.
"All species must live and develop on their own, whether they evolve to greatness or destroy themselves is not for anyone to decide but them. What you're doing, it is not the way Rita."
"But it is! One person, with all the power coins could wield a power, a force the likes none have ever seen before!"
She was almost right in front of Zordon's tube now before she even realized it, the young student pleading to the old master like so many millennia ago…
"Give me the power coins Zordon and I swear to you that I will finally fulfill the dream you always spoke of, a universe at peace for all people. Please…"
Zordon saw her eyes seem to glisten with barely held tears as she gently reached a hand out and pressed it against the glass of his containment tube.
And as he closed his eyes he too remembered that young student, telling her stories and teaching her on a world so far away, gifted and intelligent beyond anything he had ever seen, boldly proclaiming that she would become the greatest force for good among all the stars.
Oh child. Truly I have wronged you greatly.
He opened his eyes and the girl was gone, replaced by the witch that he had to stop, no matter the cost.
"The fight against evil Rita, is not something that can ever be won once and for all. It's a conflict that rages forever. You cannot force people to be better, even if your plan worked, eventually it would only end in the destruction of everything that you're trying to preserve. There is no power in the universe that can change that, believe me I tried finding it."
Rita's hand slowly slid down the containment tube and fell to her side limply.
"So even you never truly believed in your own dream."
"I will always believe in it. But this can never be the way to achieve that dream."
"I see."
For just one moment, the young girl was in front of Zordon again, uncertain and looking for guidance.
"Then we have nothing left to discuss."
She turned away and moved towards the entrance.
"It's not too late Rita!"
That halted her steps although she didn't turn around.
"It's not too late to stop this. We do not have to be enemies, you can stop this war between us."
Rita didn't move for a moment, but she finally answered her voice was ice.
"No, you could stop this war, I can't. If I abandon the path I've chosen now, I will be spitting on the sacrifices that I've already made. And I will never allow those sacrifices to be meaningless no matter what I must do."
She turned around and looked at him with the eyes of the young girl one last time.
"Goodbye, Zordon of Eltar."
Then she was gone.
Zordon, alone in his containment tube had never felt the weight of all the millennia he had lived so keenly.
Gradually he heard Alpha's footsteps enter the room again.
"Should I alert the rangers?"
"No, she will not do anything tonight. Let them rest for now."
"Aye aye," the robot acknowledged as he made to leave.
"Alpha?"
"Yes Zordon?
Within his tube he looked skyward, imagining the stars that he would likely never see again.
"I fear this campaign will be a long one."
At that same moment on a mountain overlooking the town of Angel Grove, the self-styled Empress Rita was looking up at the same stars that the one who had been most like a father to her must have been seeing in his own mind.
She sat down on a nearby rock and drew what appeared to be a dagger built around some kind of flute and began to play a melody.
A melody with a great sense of loss.