Diabolico

Diabolico (a name based on the word "diabolical," whose root comes from the Spanish for "devil") is the primary villain for the first part of the Lightspeed Rescue series. He is a golden devil-like demon with an elongated skull, multiple horns and spikes on his head and shoulders, and a second monstrous face on his chest. With Queen Bansheera absent and Prince Impus still an infant, Diabolico is the de facto leader of the demons. In addition to commanding the villains, Diabolico was given the Star Power by Queen Bansheera prior to his imprisonment, indicating that she considered him to be her greatest servant.

Some time before the series, Diabolico appeared before Captain Mitchell and his two children when they were hanging off the edge of a cliff after a car accident. He offered to save Mitchell's son, Ryan, if he could take custody of the boy; unable to let his son fall to his doom, Mitchell reluctantly agreed. After telling Mitchell that Ryan would return on his twentieth birthday, Diabolico saved the boy from his fall and spirited him away for training as a mighty warrior.

Diabolico led the demons' efforts to destroy Mariner Bay and rebuild Queen Bansheera's empire, but the Lightspeed Rangers thwarted him at every turn. After several failures, he sent Ryan - now a bitter young man - to steal the Titanium Morpher from the Aquabase and use its power against the Rangers. Unfortunately for Diabolico, Captain Mitchell was able to redeem his son, who returned the Titanium Morpher and informed Diabolico that he was severing his ties with him.

Queen Bansheera quickly became tired of Diabolico's failures, threatening to take his Star Power and give it to her son Impus if her general could not produce results soon. In response, Diabolico summoned his most powerful monsters - Demonite, Falkar, and Thunderon - with orders to spread explosive feathers across Mariner Bay and destroy the Rangers when they tried to interfere. The powerful demons almost succeeded in their task, but Ryan - having accepted his role as a hero - became the Titanium Ranger once again and fended off the monsters. As punishment for Ryan's interference, Diabolico cursed his one-time protege; every time he morphed, a cobra tattoo would move up his back until it reached his neck and killed him.

Despite this advantage, Diabolico's monsters continued to fail against the Lightspeed Rangers. Growing increasingly desperate, Diabolico considered killing Impus himself to prevent himself from losing his Star Power, but lost the chance when the other demons walked in on him. In a final attempt to destroy the Power Rangers, he personally enlarged himself and engaged them in battle. He had the upper hand until Ryan - now purged of the cobra curse - joined the team, allowing them to form the Lightspeed Solarzord. This new Megazord absorbed one of Diabolico's blasts and used it to power its cannons, bombarding Diabolico until he finally fell in defeat. With his destruction, the Star Power went to Impus, who quickly matured into Olympius.

   As with all defeated monsters, Diabolico's spirit was sent to the Shadow World. However, he was eventually revived by Vypra and Loki to take revenge on Olympius, who used Vilevine to try and destroy them. Diabolico immediately returned to his queen's side, attempting to regain favor with her and recapture the Star Power from Olympius. He managed to trap the demon prince in the Shadow World, but Olympius escaped, vowing vengeance on Diabolico in turn. Diabolico also thwarted the Sorcerer of the Sands' attempt to destroy Skull Cavern, annihilating the ancient wizard in the process.

When Queen Bansheera regained her body after absorbing Vypra and sent Loki to eliminate the Rangers, Diabolico overheard her declaring that she was only using Loki to try and destroy all of her foes at once. He immediately came to Loki's aid, only to be sucked into a vortex and dropped outside Skull Cavern with his fellow demon and four of the Lightspeed Rangers. During the resulting battle, Bansheera forced Diabolico to fire on the Rangers before Loki could get out of the way; the Rangers survived, but Loki did not. Infuriated at his queen's callousness, Diabolico contacted Carter (currently trying to free his friends from Skull Cavern) and revealed Bansheera's weak spot. Although Carter took Diabolico's advice and was able to free the victims of the vortex, Bansheera survived, forcing Diabolico to flee.

While walking through a forest and fuming over the deaths of Vypra and Loki, Diabolico encountered Olympius, who had been hiding out while recovering from his last battle with the Rangers. The two demons battled fiercely, but Diabolico was defeated in the end. He was dragged back to Queen Bansheera, who turned him into Olympius' mindless "pet". The two then attacked the Rangers, but some verbal pushing from Carter reawakened Diabolico's mind. As he battled Olympius, he tried to give Carter the key to the Ancient Tomb, but Olympius killed him moments before he could do so. After the Rangers killed Olympius in turn, Bansheera revived the two of them as giant Super Demons. More powerful than ever and firmly under Bansheera's control, Diabolico wreaked havoc on the city and the Rangers' Megazords alongside Olympius. It took the power of the new Lifeforce Megazord to finally destroy the two Super Demons, after which Diabolico's key flew to the Ancient Tomb and revealed the final plan of Queen Bansheera.

Although Diabolico was destroyed, he made one final appearance at the very end of The Fate of Lightspeed. While Queen Bansheera attempted to drag Carter into a portal to the Shadow World, Diabolico's spirit appeared before them and offered his help. To Bansheera's dismay, Diabolico intervened on the Rangers' behalf, severing her tentacles with a blast of energy. As the Rangers pulled Carter out and closed the tomb, Diabolico's laughing spirit forced Queen Bansheera into the Shadow World, leaving her at the mercy of the imprisoned demons.

Diabolico displayed strong spiritual powers, as he was able to appear in a spiritual form even when he was imprisoned and after being destroyed. He displayed some knowledge of magic, as he recognized and countered the spell used by the Sorcerer of the Sands to try and destroy Skull Cavern. One of his odder abilities allowed him to detach his hand and send it to grab distant objects before pulling them back to himself (or sending himself to his hand's location). He could also control the weather and fire energy blasts from his hands and mouths. His weapon of choice was a skull-themed staff with axe-like blades at one end, capable of firing powerful blasts of varying form. With the Star Power, Diabolico was immensely powerful; one of his energy beams was enough to put a hole through the Supertrain Megazord. Even without the Star Power, he was a competent fighter, nearly besting Olympius in their first battle.

After being brainwashed by Queen Bansheera, Diabolico's eyes become pure black, with small arcs of electricity running across them periodically. In his Super Demon form, Diabolico takes on a more monstrous appearance, sprouting more spikes on his body and lengthening his existing horns. Instead of his staff, he wielded a jewel-encrusted sword as his weapon. His power was at its absolute peak in this form; alongside Olympius, he destroyed nearly all of the Rangers' Megazords, a feat that only the strongest monsters and villains in the Power Rangers franchise can achieve.

Some subliminal messages suggest that Diabolico is Olympius' father: he was clearly a favorite of Bansheera (presumably an ex-lover), the other demons saw him as a kind of a king consort under their queen, and Olympius was expected to succeed him as the owner of the Star Power.