Disclaimer: Power Rangers and their characters are Saban’s. Mega Man and his characters are Capcom’s.

Authors’ note: DO NOT READ ON UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE FIRST SEVEN!!! The fanfics will get confusing if you don’t know what is going on. The fanfics are accumulative to each other. This part of the series is the transition into the Mega Man X series, but the transition will be somewhat long; so, bear with us. Also, please send us feedback because we love it.

The Nightmare of Failure
by ZeoSaturn and DonsArtNGames

Jason was having a picnic with all of the Anibots on a grassy hillside. All of them were laughing, making jokes and were just having a good time. Emily, his girlfriend, was also there socializing with the girls as well as Jason. All of the sudden, a light gust of wind picked up and Jason closed his eyes for a few seconds to enjoy the day. When Jason opened his eyes again, everyone was gone.

He looked around to see if they had walked off. He went over the hill to see if his friends were there. They weren’t. In the distance, he could see a figure behind the tree. Jason yelled to get the person’s attention, but the person didn’t hear him. Jason ran up to the tree and looked at what the person was doing. It was a creepy sight. He was looking at a graveyard and the person was digging right in front of a tombstone. The man stopped digging, bent down and picked up a body. Jason immediately recognized it. It was Tommy. Jason backed up when he realized that the grave was for his best friend and then looked at all of the other tombstones. They had the other Anibots on them. Jason’s eyes opened wide.

"What happened here?" Jason asked. "What happened to everyone?" The figure turned to put Tommy’s body in the grave and that is when Jason got a good look. It was himself. "ME!? Is this my future? Our future?"

"Maybe," a snaky voice said. It came from the tree.

"Who’s there?" Jason yelled. "Show yourself!" A black crow flew down from the tree right in front of Jason. The crow changed into a man with a black cape, a spiky feathered helmet and green, purple, and black armor appeared.

"Me," the man said.

"Who are you and what do you mean ‘maybe?’"

"Who I am is for me to know and you to find out, Red Ranger."

"What makes you think I was the Red Ranger?! Answer me!"

"Ha! You are so hung up on you failing your friends, Jason. You can’t get over the failures that you have done. You fought by yourself when you were the Red Ranger against the Sphinx monster and you would had failed them if they hadn’t come and rescued you. And what about your best friend? You failed him, too. Numerous times. Failed to get the Green Candle to save Tommy’s Green Ranger powers. Some friend you are!" Jason grew angry and tried to punch the man, but the man disappeared.

"You let your friends down, Jason." the snaky voice said. A mixture of green, purple and red fog rolled in. Jason looked around trying to find the man. Then, he saw a hand come up from under the ground at one of the tombstones. A new fear engulfed Jason. Another hand came up from a different tombstone and then another.

"What is going on?!" Jason said in a frightened voice. The bodies that were connected to those hands came out of the ground. "GUYS!?" All of the Anibots were coming out of the ground. They were rotting zombies and they were all coming towards him. They grabbed him and began pulling on him. Tommy and Emily grabbed Jason’s throat and began to choke him. "No! NO! NOOOO!"

Jason felt his sweat covering him. Jason was having a hard time breathing. He managed to open his eyes again. Adam, Zack and Tommy were coming to him.

"Bro, are you ok?" Zack said. He and Tommy were untangling the sheets that Jason had managed to wrap and choke himself in.

"Yeah," Jason said relieved. "I think so."

"What happened, bro?" Tommy asked.

Jason told them what happened in the nightmare.

"Yike!" Zack said.

Jason continued, "Yeah, it scared me to death seeing all of you as zombies. It was weird too. I felt that I have seen that guy before somewhere."

"Don’t worry, Jase," Adam said giving Jason a towel from their bathroom. "It was just a dream."

"I know," Jason said.

"You let your friends down," the snaky voice said ominously. Adam, Zack and Tommy started to look around the room.

"What was that?" Zack said.

"Who’s there?" Adam said sternly. The snaky voice laughed evilly and faded. "I think he’s gone."

"That’s the guy from my dream," Jason said. "He was the one making the threats."

"Guys, let’s go to sleep," Tommy said. "We will figure this out in the morning."

Everyone went to their beds and fell back asleep. Morning came and Jason still looked a little tired. Since the spring semester was a week away, they didn’t have to worry about school and could wake up late. They were finishing the decorating in their rooms, unpacking and made sure the townhouse was in good condition.

"Jase, are you sure that you are ok?" Tommy asked him while he was putting up a Space Power Rangers poster up above the door where it was before last semester.

"Yeah, I think I am," Jason said rubbing his tired eyes. "Have you ever talked to the Space Rangers yet, Tommy? Do you know who they are?"

"Yes I do. The blue one is T.J. and I gave him the Red Turbo power when I left. Very good fighter and very nice person. He and the Pink Ranger Cassie saved me from Divatox. Here. This is them out of suit." Tommy went into his wallet and took out a picture of T.J and the Space Rangers. He pointed to T.J. "Him. That’s T.J."

"I think you left the Rangers in good hands, Tommy, even though that was about a year ago." Jason’s face went pale when he looked back at Tommy. He was looking at the zombie Tommy.

"Bro, are you ok?" Jason blinked and then saw the real Tommy in front of him. "You feeling ok?"

"Yeah, I think I need a nap. I am seeing things."

Tommy smiled. "Go ahead," he said. "I’ll leave." He went to the door and went out. Jason laid down on his bed on top and fell asleep. After he was asleep for an hour, Tommy, Adam and Zack came into the room to finish some of the decorating.

"Tommy, you and your Ranger posters," Zack said jokingly as he set up his night stand.

"What?!" Tommy said. "I like them. It’s all of us."

"I know. So, do you think that David is going to like going to the Light Institute and being an Anibot?"

"I think he will," Adam said and then noticed that Jason was asleep. "Guys, Jason!"

"He can sleep through anything," Zack said. "Don’t worry. The atomic bomb would go off and he wouldn’t hear it." Adam and Tommy began to laugh.

"When he found out that I was his brother, he want to see if we were equal," Tommy said.
"Well, I think that we are equal now."

"David’s cool, too. He likes watching me do my dancing."

"He has also acts like you too, Tommy," Adam said. "He blushes around Kim. I think that he really likes her." Tommy blushed.

"Stop it," Tommy said. "I do not!"

"Yes, you do. When we told you to ask Kat out to the luau party that Ernie threw, you thought that she didn’t like you and Rocky said that you were a bumbling idiot when you did ask her out." Zack laughed.

"Shut up, Adam!" Tommy said taking his pillow and hitting the both of them with it. Jason at that moment was starting to wake up from his nap.

"Oh, he’s waking up, Zack said. "I guess I was wrong. Good afternoon, Jason."

"Guys?" Jason said as he yawned. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see his three friends in front of him. Instead, the zombie versions of his friends were there climbing up to him. "AHHHHHH!" With one smooth motion, Jason heard three loud slams.

"Ouch!" Zack said as he rubbed the left side of his face.

"He’s definitely picked up in strength," Adam said rubbing both his face and his rear.

"And he did it with one punch," Tommy said as he rested the right side of his face on his hand. The left side of his face was already bulging and red. The others had heard the commotion and ran to the hall where Adam, Zack and Tommy were.

"Guys!" Aisha said as she came up. "What happened?" Jason gained his focus and realized what had happened. He had punched the real Zack, Adam and Tommy clear across the room and into the hall.

"Guys!" Jason said as he ran to them. "I’m sorry! You scared me half to death! I...I....I..."

"What the heck happened?!" Zack said.

"You all looked like zombies like in my dream and I freaked. I am really sorry you guys!"

"It’s ok," Adam said still rubbing the side of his face. "The pain will eventually go away."

"Maybe you need more sleep, Jase," Zack said getting up. "Go finish your nap."

"I am not tired," Jason said as he and the other Anibots helped the three up. "Just seeing things."

"Ok," Tommy said. "It’s ok. Come on, guys. Let’s get ice packs." Everyone, but Jason walked the three to the kitchen. Jason went back into the room looking at his hand.

"Man!" Jason said astonished. "Have I grown that much in strength? Did I really hit them that hard?" Jason went to his bed and remade it. "Since there are no more enemies, I have to watch it now that I don’t hurt someone accidentally again." After he was finished, Jason turned around and was startled at first. Right in front of him was the Tommy zombie. Thinking that he was seeing things again, he put his hand on the shoulder. "Tommy, are you feeling better?" Just then, the zombie grabbed Jason by the throat and began choking him. Jason was gasping for breath as he wailed around. He was now very confused and very scared. "Tommy! What are you doing?!"

At that moment, the real Tommy walked in with a blue ice pack on his face and said, "Jase, I think that we need to watch what we are doing from now on." Tommy then saw the zombie. "WHAT THE!?" He was surprised to see a zombie version of himself and then he realized that the zombie was trying to kill Jason. "I don’t think so!" Tommy punched the Tommy zombie in the face, but to Tommy’s surprise, part of the face turned to dark green goo and flew off the face onto Jason. The zombie let go of Jason and dropped him.

"UH!?" Jason said after he took a big breath and looked up at the two Tommys. "What the hell!?" The zombie was moving toward Tommy.

"Take this!" Tommy said as he punched the zombie in the gut. The zombie stood there looking at where Tommy had punched him and then looked up at Tommy and sneered. The zombie grabbed Tommy’s arm and flipped him over him and into Jason. The two slid back into the wall. Jason looked up and saw that there was a hole in the gut of the zombie. Tommy looked at his arm. It was covered in goo. "GROSS!"

Jason got up and ran toward the zombie. Jason flew at the zombie, went through him getting covered in goo and fell into the hall making a loud thud. Everyone was at the end of the hall on their way back to the rooms when they saw Jason hit the wall across from Jason and the other guys’ room. Tommy saw that the zombie was now on the floor trying to get at Tommy’s heels. Tommy lifted his leg and used an ax kick to obliterate the head. The zombie melted into a heap of steaming goo.

"Jason!" Trini said as they ran to Jason to help him up. "What are you two doing, fighting with each other?!"

"No," Tommy said as he pointed to the goo. "There was a zombie form of me attacking us. He was choking Jason and..." Tommy looked down and saw that where the goo had been was no longer there.

"Sure," Kimberly said sarcastically. "and your clone came back to attack us again."

"He had a clone?!" Zack said. "And I thought that one Tommy was bad."

"Zack!" Trini said. "That wasn’t nice and Tommy, you don’t tell us anything!" Tommy turned red out of embarrassment.

"We did fight a zombie! See! Uhhh...." Jason said showing the goo on his clothes, but realizing that the goo had disappeared too. "It was here, guys!"

"The two of you need to stop roughhousing and making lies," Billy said.

"Brother, I thought you knew better than that," David said as the rest of the Anibots began to leave. Adam and Zack stayed holding their ice packs up to their faces.

"Bro, what were you two doing anyway?" Zack said annoyed.

"Like we said, Zack!" Jason said who was now mad that they didn’t believe him. "An ugly zombie version of Tommy attacked me and we fought it. I was running toward it and I went straight through it."

"Are saying that I am ugly, Jase?" Tommy said jokingly with a smile on his face. Jason looked at him with an annoyed look and then smiled thinking that it was funny.

"No, Tommy. But we aren’t lying, guys."

"Wait," Adam said. "Jason, tell me something. Did the supposed ‘Tommy zombie’ appear in your dreams last night?"

"Now that you say that, yes. That is what he looked like exactly." The two were starting to believe them.

"Are you implying that someone else is behind this?" Zack said.

"Yeah, maybe Zedd and the others are still trying to fight us," Adam said as he sat on the floor. The others sat on the floor as well.

"Why? We kicked their butts! Justin scared Elgar half to death! Didn’t they learn their lesson?"

"Apparently not," Jason said. "Well, if this is an attack, then we have to be on our guard." The door bell rang.

"I’ll get it!" Zack said as he got up. He went to the door, opened it and saw a sandy blond haired girl that looked a little bit like Katherine. She was wearing orange.

"Hi, is this townhouse #4?" the girl said.

"Yes it is," Zack said trying to be polite.

"Thank you. I am the new girl here. Dr. Light said he sent a letter to tell you guys about it, but he doesn’t know if you guys got it yet."

"Oh, I see. The girls rooms are down the hall and to the right. Would you like me to help you?" Zack offered his hand out to help.

Zack helped her to the room where Katherine, Trini and Tanya slept and put her stuff on the empty bed that was there. At the point where they finished bring her things in, Tanya came into the room. She recognized the girl.

"Emily!" Tanya said as she hugged her. "Long time no see."

"It has been a while, hasn’t it?" Emily said.

"You know her, Tanya?" Zack said a little puzzled.

"Yeah, she is Jason’s girlfriend," Tanya said. Zack smiled deviously.

"Ha, ha, ha! Thank you VERY much," Zack walked out of the room.

"What was that all about?" Emily asked.

"That’s Zack," Tanya said. "He is one of Jason’s good friends. He likes to give him a bad time when Jason hasn’t told him something."

"Kind of like Rocky?"

"Yeah."

"Guys, lunch," Katherine yelled. Everyone else when to the dining room and sat down. The two girls unpacked a couple of things and were the last ones to go to the dining room. The former Zeo Rangers were surprised to see Emily, but no one was more pleased to see her than Jason.

"Guys, this is Emily," Tanya said. "She is going to be in our room."

"Nice to see you again, Emily," Katherine said. "You are going to be going to the Institute?"

"Yes," Emily said. "I want to get my teaching degree here. They told me that they have an excellent program here."

"And a certain someone here too," Rocky said elbowing Jason. Jason turned red.

"It is nice to see that you are staying with us, Emily," Tommy said. He pointed at the person as he named the people that Emily didn’t know. "That’s Zack, Billy, Trini, Kimberly, Aisha, Justin and you know the rest of us."

"Are all of us from Angel Grove?" Emily asked.

"Yup," Kimberly said. "Some of us are from other places but we always called Angel Grove our home."

"Well, let’s eat," Rocky said. They all proceed to have lunch. They all thought that it would be a good idea to give David and Emily a tour of campus after they finished unpacking . As everyone else was pointing out the buildings and neat places to hang out, Jason and Tommy lagged behind the group talking.

"Jase, do you really think that this was an attack?" Tommy said.

"Don’t know really," Jason said. "Either that or it was a warning. It is going to be hard talking about the Anibots now when Emily is around."

"Well, she never noticed us talking about Power Ranger things."

"But she was working for Ernie and was waitressing tables. She isn’t doing that now."

"Do we want to keep it a secret from her? I think she would understand if you told her."

"I don’t know. She is a very caring person and got worried when I would go off and ditch her to be the Gold Ranger before. I hope that she does."

After they finished giving David and Emily the tour, they went to a park that was just of campus. They walked the trails.

"Even though it is winter, it still looks beautiful," Emily said.

"Dr. Light had this park commissioned and keeps it looking great," Kimberly said. "We love going through here to get a breath of fresh air or let out stream."

"It’s great." Just then, a crow swooped down and landed on Jason’s arm. The crow bit Jason and then grabbed his transformation bracelet and flew away toward a tree that was across a dead grassy field.

"HEY! Give that back!" Jason said as he ran toward where the crow had gone. All the other Anibots and Emily ran after Jason.

"Jason, it just a trans- oomph," Justin said but then was elbowed in the chest by Rocky. "Bracelet."

Jason saw that the crow dropped the bracelet on its way to the tree and the crow landed on the bottom branch. Jason picked up the transformation bracelet.

"AHHH!" Emily yelled. Jason looked back and saw a horrifying site. There were the zombies Anibots from his dream attacking his real friends.

"EWWWW!" Kimberly said when she looked at her hand after punching her zombie equivalent in the stomach.

"Tommy, we have to transform," Adam said quietly to him.

"We can’t!" Tommy said. "Emily’s here and the zombies are trapping us in! We can’t transform in front of her!" Jason saw that he was the only one free and ran behind the tree. He strapped the transformation bracelet to his wrist, punched in his password and transformed in Mega Man. Jason ran toward Emily and began to obliterate the zombies.

"Mega Man?!" Emily said surprised. Jason kicked off the Adam and Kimberly zombies, but then the Rocky and Zack zombies jumped onto him. Jason was now having trouble defending himself against the zombies, because they were now attacking him.

"No!" Jason said as he was being overwhelmed. His mind was replaying the nightmare. "No! Guys, I’m sorry! I’M SORRY!!"

"What’s going on with Mega Man?" Tanya said.

"The nightmare!" Zack said. Tommy saw that Emily was looking at Jason and ran to the same tree that Jason transformed behind. Tommy transformed into Proto Man and ran to Jason.

"Bro, hold on!" Tommy said as he blasted three of the zombies off Jason.

"Proto Man!" Zack said.

"Run! Get away from here!" Tommy said signaling the others take Emily away from the park. The others began running back to the townhouse. "Bro, catch!" Tommy tossed his shield to Jason.

"Uh?" Jason said as he caught Tommy’s shield. "Where did this come from?" Jason was puzzled not realizing that his mind was back in reality.

"Bro, shield yourself!" Tommy yelled. Jason realized that Tommy was going to fire a huge shot and did what he said. Tommy charged his buster. "Proton Blast!" Tommy yelled as he shot at the zombies. It hit all of the zombies and the shield. He had destroyed all the zombies. "Bro, are you alright?"

"Proto?" Jason said confused. "Where did you come from? Wait! This isn’t my dream, is it?" Tommy smiled to know that Jason was fine.

"Be on your guard, Mega. I don’t think that this is over. Rita and the others wouldn’t attack us for no apparent reason." At that moment, more zombies popped out of the ground, but they weren’t zombie versions of his friends. They were all monsters that Jason had defeated while he was a Ranger. There were about forty zombies coming after them.

"Gezz! What the heck is going on here?!"

"We have company!" The zombies ran toward the two. Both Jason and Tommy got into fighting stances and were prepared to fight them. Tommy and Jason went all out on the zombies splattering green goo everywhere. Unfortunately, there were a lot of them and the two weren’t fast enough to be able to fend them off.

"Bro! Double team blast!" Jason said looking back at Tommy.

"Right!" Tommy said as the two stood back to back. "Let’s do it!" Jason and Tommy began charging their busters and fired them on maximum charge.

"Plasma Blast!" Jason yelled.

"Proton Blast!" Tommy yelled.

The blasts pierced through the zombies like a hot knife through butter. They slowly turned clockwise making sure that the blasts hit everyone of them. All of the zombies turned into puddles of goo and disappeared.

"We did it!" Jason said as he high-fived his best friend. "Nice job, bro!"

"Yeah!" Tommy said giving Jason a thumbs-up. A few seconds after that, Tommy felt himself being lifted off the ground. "What the!?"

"Proto!" Jason saw Tommy levitating in air. "What!?" Suddenly, Tommy was thrown into the tree. "Tommy!"

"I can’t move!" Tommy said as he tried to move, but realizing that some unknown force was holding him. Jason ran up to the tree, but before he came ten feet in front of him, the crow landed in front of him. The crow began to change into a person. Jason then realized who it was. It was the taunting man from his dream. "Who?"

"Who I am is none of your concern, Proto Man," the man said. He had the same snaky voice that Jason heard in his dream which made him nervous. "Mega Man, be forewarned. You will have a fierce and difficult war in front of you."

"Who are you?" Jason said. "What do you want?"

"You will soon find out. Not now though. I want to make sure that you and your friends suffer first."

"Don’t underestimate us, whoever you are!" Tommy yelled. "You don’t know who we are!"

"Yes, I do, Green Ranger," the man said as a huge sword appeared in hand. The sword was a twisted blade of shiny metal that was half the man’s height with a embedded purple and red ball near the handle . He held the cutting edge up to Tommy’s throat. Jason went wide-eyed as he saw Tommy’s face go from angry to fearful. "I know who you all are. You can’t hide from me. I know that you were also the White Ranger, the Red Zeo and Red Turbo Ranger. I know more than the both of you think I do!"

"Let him go!" Jason yelled. "Damn you!"

"Are you afraid that your friend might die, Jason? Afraid of failing your best friend for the fourth time?" Jason grabbed his head to cover his ears.

"Don’t listen to him, Jase!" Tommy yelled. The man moved the sword closer to Tommy’s throat. "He is trying to get to you!"

"Stop it!" Jason yelled. "I...I....I..."

"You failed to get your friend’s candle to save his powers. You failed to get your friends’ and your parents back when you gave up your Power Coin to Goldar as well as everyone else’s. Who had to bail you out? And what about the time..."

"Stop! Stop it! No more!"

"Jason!" Tommy yelled.

"Can’t take it, can you?" the man said. "How about the times when you almost came close to failing your friends. You almost lost them on Rita’s island, remember? Or when you almost lost the Gold Ranger powers? You almost killed Trey, the one that gave you the power. And should I mention the time when you almost lost Tommy here to the Machine Empire? Brainwashed and gullible."

"Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!!!" Jason said falling to the ground in anguish.

"Jase, he is trying to get to you!" Tommy said. Jason collapsed and went unconscious.

"I knew it," the man said as he took the sword away from Tommy. Just then, Tommy fell forward into the ground. The force that was holding him back had felt. Tommy then realized that that force was coming from that man. "Jason Lee Scott and Thomas Oliver, you and your friends won’t survive the war that I am about to have with all of you. You, Jason, are the worst leader that Zordon had ever picked. Shows what the old man knows." With that, the man became a mist of red, purple, and green energy disappeared.

"Mega!" Tommy said as he got up from the ground and ran to his best friend who was in a heap on the ground. "Mega! Snap out of it!"

"Bro?" Jason said as he opened his eyes. "Are you ok?"

"Come on, Jase," Tommy said as he helped Jason to his feet. "Let’s go back."

"You failed your friends," the man’s voice said and then laughed evilly.

"So it was him," Tommy said as he helped Jason get back to Dr. Light’s lab.

In the lab, Jason was looked at to see if he was ok. The two of them detransformed and Jason and Tommy told Dr. Light about what had happened and asked if the others made it back.

"Emily isn’t too happy, Jason," Dr. Light said. "She thinks that you and the others ditched her."

"I know that she might think that," Jason said. "She doesn’t like it. I have done that before."

"She’ll get over it, bro," Tommy said. "All that matters is that you are ok."

"That guy is right though, Tommy. I have failed too many times. I am not a good leader."

"He is messing with your mind! He was trying to get to you! Bro, you have never failed me. You have always come through for me. Besides, you are the best leader that I have ever had. You helped Dr. Wily, David and me see the light and I don’t think that’s failing what so ever. That guy, whoever he is, is trying to tear you down. Don’t let him!" Jason gave a small smile. "Let’s go see the others."

Jason and Tommy went back to the townhouse to see the others. Emily ran up to Jason and hugged him.

"Jason! You left me! Again!" Emily said.

"I thought that you were behind me," Jason said. "I didn’t mean to separate from you."

"I know. It’s ok. Don’t do it again!"

"I won’t."

Jason, the rest of the Anibots and Emily went though out the rest of the day doing what they could to past the time. At about ten o’clock at night, Jason walked into his room. Tommy was in there on his bed reading a book until he noticed Jason coming in.

"How are you doing bro?" Tommy said.

"I am a little tired," Jason said as he sat on the floor across from Tommy’s bed. "Man, whatever that guy did...it hurt. I felt as if I was reliving my nightmare."

"Jase, I think that whatever power that guy had, it was strong. I think that he was making your fears worse. Plus, he was able to hold me hostage and keep me from moving. And the thing is, he did it effortlessly."

"Whoever this guy is, he is bad news. He is must worse than any of the monsters that we ever faced. He wants us dead. This guy is sick!"

"I know. We have alerted the others so..." Zack and Adam came into the room.

"Jase, are you ok?" Adam said.

"Yeah, just talking about that guy that attacked us," Jason said.

"We need to be on alert," Zack said. "I don’t think any of us have faced an enemy like this. This guy is stronger than Lord Zedd."

"No, stronger than Divatox," Tommy said, "and what gets me is that he knew so much about us. I mean, not all the Rangers knew that I was the Green Ranger and he knew as if he was fighting alongside me back then."

"And he knew my fears," Jason said. "Somehow he found out about us."

"We need to figure out how to defeat him," Adam said. "He is powerful and we need to do something. If we aren’t careful, he will eliminate us."

"And I thought that we were done with fighting," Zack said. "There goes retirement."

"We need to find his source of information as well," Tommy said. "Somehow, he knows Jason’s weakness and I am afraid that he will find out about all of us. We aren’t finished fighting yet."

The man laughed evilly as he was watching Jason and his friends from his secret hiding place.

"Power Rangers!" the man said flagitiously. "You will all fail! Thomas, you will not escape my grasp again and Jason, you are finished. AH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Tommy turned. He knew that he heard someone laughing.

To be continued....
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Next chapter: Chapter 9: A Thing with Heights