Unbeknownst to most, Zordon can see the future.
They are not exactly visions, but more like shadows - mere glimpses of the future world which vanish as quickly as they come. He knows little. His end will come in the midst of a ferocious battle, but not from the strike of an enemy. Instead, he will fall to the sword of one he considers a son.
He also knows that he deserves such a fate. He has known that since he drafted five "teenagers with attitude" into a war older than the universe itself. From the moment he met them, he saw the damage he would deal to each - that he would break them more than Rita Repulsa could ever manage.
Billy, the blue ranger, has always been alone, even before he becomes a ranger. His intelligence has never done him any favors, serving to alienate him from his peers and relatives. Becoming a ranger will only further alienate him from the world he fights to protect. He will learn from Alpha, and as he learns, his knowledge will become less human and more alien in will create masterpieces which could easily win him Nobel Prizes, but the secrecy of rangerhood will prevent him from sharing them. Zordon sees that, in the end, Billy will leave for the stars to save himself from an experiment gone wrong. He will pretend to leave with a heavy heart, but in reality he will leave with relief as he escapes the world which never accepted him in the first place.
Zack, his black ranger, loves fun. His spirit will uplift the others; he will somehow make the darkness seem not quite so dark. He will become the tallest tree within the forest, taking on the lightning for the others - with him at their sides, they will not burn. Yet, in the end, there will be no more wood left to burn. His branches will become ash as the lightning strikes far too many times. His fun will become forced cheer, and the battle will carry on without his light. He will leave for a peace conference as a jaded shadow of his former self. He, like the others, will not look back.
Trini, his capable yellow ranger, is the left hand. Even in her life before she becomes a ranger, she is silent and swift, yet always making ripples in the world. She is the silent mover and shaker, heading school activities, helping others where she can, and generally acting the way a ranger should even as she receives no thanks or praise. She does so much, but to the world, she is invisible. This is why he grants her the Sabertooth power. Yellow is the dependable ranger who does what no one else can with swift and silent force. Much like Zach, Zordon places much on the shoulders of the young teen, but he does so with a heavy heart. The lessons he forces upon her - to stay out of the spotlight, to hand the flashy work off to her contemporaries - will stunt her growth into the influential powerhouse she could have been in another lifetime. He knows she will leave with Zack, but that she will die eight years later in a car accident just as unknown as the day she left.
Kimberly, his pink, will become the team's heart. No matter how far into the violent depths her fellow rangers plunge, she will yank them out with fierce passion and a reminder that they must fight for the right reasons if they are ever to win the war. She will last much longer than the others, but someday, she will run out of strength to pull them back from the brink. Her air will fail and she will drown in the fight. His pink ranger will leave with more than a few scars, both her body and heart crippled with fatigue. She will wander until the final battle calls her home. She will mourn his death, but a small piece of her heart will go black and she will silently rejoice that he can never again touch another teenager the way he did her friends.
He will break his red with nothing more than role. It is quite simple, really. Jason will take the chains of command with silent grace, and he will perform admirably. But, as with all leaders, he will tire. His resolve will fade as he sees his comrades fight non-stop to protect the earth. He will watch silently as Zack loses his dance, Billy falls out of touch with humanity, Trini melts into shadows, and Kimberly's heart cracks under the strain of rangerhood. Through it all, he will never blame Zordon, nor will he blame Rita. The blame will press upon his own shoulders. He will go, just like Zack and Trini, to a peace conference with a heavy burden. His experiences as a ranger will make him a restless wanderer. He will go, but he will always be on the peripheral - just close enough to step in when needed.
Zordon acknowledges that he will break many rangers, but there is only one he will shatter. Tommy will come to him with the seeds of rage already sown within his heart - Rita will make sure of that. It will be her ultimate revenge: to send him someone he knows he will destroy inside and out no matter how hard he tries to avoid it. Zordon will guiltily nurture these seeds into something useful, moulding his white ranger into an angry, bloodthirsty machine. Tommy Oliver will never be able to leave his ranger days behind. He will return, again and again, seeking to fight the evil off for just one more day. He will push his body to its limits with the excuse: "It's the right thing to do." But the truth is, he will never be able to stop fighting.
Zordon knows all these things, but there is nothing he can change. He will meet his death with an empty sadness - the names of the young teenagers he could not save on the tip of his tongue.
Hi there! If you've gotten to the end, congratulations! So this is my first attempt at a PR story, but hey, if you've been in the fandom long enough, you should at least try your hand at it once, right?
Anyhow, this series is mostly headcanons I've got based around PR, and it'll be pretty broad. I figured I should start at the beginning, so the first is MMPR, obviously. Some of these will be dark, others will be funny, and some will just be weird.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my wacky brain!
-stormnml