"So you understand now?"

Kira opened her eyes to the familiar voice and sat up. The same bed, the same room, and the same chair that Dr. O now sat in.

"The 'you didn't want to stay' thing? Yeah, I get that. But you were trying to tell me something else. About how…" The mentor looked up, his eyes soft and kind. Kira's words melted off her tongue.

"Much you mean to me." Dr. O finished. Kira could only nod, the look she was receiving so intense that her heart was starting to pound. "You were something that I couldn't understand."

Kira cocked her head to the side, slightly confused by this comment.

"Keeping to yourself, not worried about what others thought; it wasn't what I expected from a senior in high school. And you were already so serious about your music, so sure that's what you wanted to do. I had never met anyone like you."

This made Kira smile, and her mentor smiled back at her.

"What was it?" Kira wondered. "That made me important."

"How…" Dr. O paused, thinking of the word, "devoted you were. You believed in Trent when no one else did. You made sure that everyone was safe in fights. For a girl who didn't want any part in the ranger business, you did a good job of keeping the team together."

Kira slid closer to the end of the bed, enjoying the feeling of being in Dr. O's presence again. Even for the past 12 hours, she had missed the reassuring smile and the knowledge that he carried.

"I couldn't figure you out, either." Kira admitted. "You were so…uptight, keeping to yourself, not letting us get close. You told us to leave and forget everything."

"That was from experience. The first set of teens that I met, they stayed because they didn't know what else to do. The other three started to leave, and then thought maybe that wasn't right, so they stayed."

"You met four teams before us?" Kira's shock showed clearly on her face.

"Yep. They all wandered off into the woods, fell into the sinkhole, opened up the secret door to the lab, and took the dino gems. And all…"

"Wait!" The yellow ranger cut her leader off. "Are you saying that you took all of them on some kind of "adventure" to the museum."

"Not all were the same. Only one of the groups was in detention. One was a study group, one was an advanced class that felt like they knew too much to be in my class, and the last one before you, Conner, and Ethan was just three kids who were walking randomly through the woods."

"Did you connect with them?" Kira was fascinated with the idea of meeting teenagers who were potential rangers, but never made it far enough to try.

"I thought I had with the advanced class. They were able to challenge each other, and me, while learning even more that I had been able to find out. But all of them were willing to accept ranger duty, so I had to turn them down."

"And what happened, when you said 'Oh, sorry, you can't be rangers now'?"

"They had their memory erased and were moved over a town or so. Most of them were disappointed when I said that it wasn't going to work out."

Kira tucked her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over them. She smiled at Dr. O, never fully realzing that she was sitting here, in this moment, just talking to him, even though he was dead.

"I know there's more you want to know." The mentor told her. "And since you're sleeping, there's a longer time that you can stay. So, ask away."

"About this prophecy." The words were out of Kira's mouth before he had even finished. She wanted to know so badly. "It said you had to sacrifice yourself. Were you…forced to, or did you really want to?"

"The warrior told me that it would happen whether I wanted it to or not. He held special magic that would take over my body and make the words come out of my mouth and the explosion go off."

"What did happen in there?" Kira turned red slightly in the cheeks. She felt bad, always asking questions and then cutting him off. There was just so much to know.

"It was a self-destruct mode, just like our zords have. I knocked Zeltrax out, took off my helmet and put the note inside, then ran over and pushed the button on the panel. But, when I told you to leave, and I would be right behind you, I wanted you to get out. I was ready to end the evil once and for all, and I knew that I couldn't let you get hurt in the process."

Somehow, Kira was even closer now to her mentor. He seemed to have leaned in too, and their faces were only feet apart.

"I thought you weren't supposed to pick favorites," Kira whispered.

"I didn't. In an all male team, you're my favorite female." Dr. O replied. He was right next to her, his lips barely on top of hers. Kira's heart started to beat like a drum. She had never felt so excited and so relieved to finally be taking a step forward…

And then Dr. O moaned in pain and fell back into his chair. Kira jumped up and knelt next to him as the mentor held his stomach and bent over, trying to hide the contortion of his face.

"What's wrong?" Kira asked.

"Go get the others. Someone found my body."