What seems like a normal day at Dōmori Elementary is disrupted by some weird phenomenon, usually targeting one of Nūbē's own students. Nūbē is forced into action, most often using the power of the Demon's Hand to assist in solving the problem, but occasionally the solution lies either in another of his spiritual weapons, or somehow reasoning with or appeasing the threatening entity. By the end, things always seem to get back to normal, with Nūbē and his students having learned something from the experience. Most of the series retains an episodic formula, forgoing an overarching storyline in favor of more character-driven action, although there are several recurring antagonists throughout, as well as some longer story arcs towards the end of the series.

On a mission on P4X-639, a planet experiencing strong solar activity, the SG-1 team encounters an alien archaeologist named Malikai (Robin Mossley). When a geomagnetic disturbance hits its peak, the Stargate activates simultaneously on the planet and on Earth, and a flash strikes Malikai, Colonel O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Teal'c (Christopher Judge) near an Ancient altar. Moments later, O'Neill finds himself in the Stargate Command (SGC) cafeteria in the middle of a breakfast conversation with Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) and Major Carter (Amanda Tapping), who claim to have no knowledge of the planet. O'Neill and Teal'c later express familiarity with the events, and they are checked and certified to be in perfect health. Before SG-1 can resume their planned mission to the planet, an unscheduled offworld activation of the Earth Stargate, accompanied by flashes, transports O'Neill back to breakfast.

While the events at the SGC repeat themselves, Daniel makes first progress in the translation of writings in the photos of the ancient altar. SG-1 return to the planet where Malikai lets slip he too remembers what's happening, but O'Neill finds himself back at breakfast before the altar's activation can be stopped. With the help of O'Neill's and Teal'c's explanations, Carter devises a plan to break the time loop by preventing an incoming wormhole, which fails. Meanwhile, Daniel attempts to translate the altar's writing loop after loop, but his memory is reset each time along with everyone else's, and he cannot possibly translate it all within just a few hours. Ultimately, O'Neill and Teal'c realize the only solution is to learn and remember the alien language themselves. After many loops of teaching, Daniel makes an offhand remark about events that occur during each loop having no consequences once the loop is over, which inspires O'Neill and Teal'c to indulge in wildly outrageous behavior as a means of dealing with the boredom and frustration of being caught in repeating time. The pair play golf through the active Stargate (much to General Hammond's irritation in at least one loop), Teal'c takes action against the painful starts of his loops by slamming the door back in the face of the airman who accidentally hit him with it in the beginning of each loop, O'Neill tries pottery-making (clearly improving with each progressive loop), bicycles through the base, and just before the end of one loop, resigns from the Air Force whilst wearing an outrageous sweatshirt for the sole purpose of grabbing Carter and kissing her in the seconds before the loop resets.

After what is later believed to have been at least three months, Daniel is finally able to reconstruct the planet's history with the finished translations: the Ancients had attempted to escape a mysterious plague by building a time machine but never got it to work properly. Upon returning to the planet, SG-1 learn of the death of Malikai's wife, whom Malikai wants to visit in the past with the help of the time machine. O'Neill's experience of his son's death convinces Malikai to shut down the device before yet another new loop can start. Back at the SGC, O'Neill, Carter, and Daniel have their first breakfast after the loops, and O'Neill answers Daniel's question about unusual activities in the loops with a long look at Carter.

Dr. Alan Feinstone is a successful dentist. However, everything changes on the day of his wedding anniversary, when he discovers his wife Brooke is cheating on him with the poolman, Matt. After they finish, Alan retrieves his pistol and follows Matt in his car. He is led to Paula Roberts's house, a friend of Brooke's. Alan invents a story about a surprise party for Brooke and watches Paula invite Matt inside. Paula's dog attacks Alan, and he shoots it in self-defense. After returning to his car, he drives to work.

At his dental practice, Alan's first appointment goes poorly when he hallucinates a child has rotten teeth and accidentally stabs him. As Detective Gibbs investigates the death of Paula's dog, Alan sees his second patient, April Reign, a beauty queen. Alan hallucinates she is his wife, and, while she is unconscious, takes off her pantyhose and fondles her before choking her. As she wakes, Alan snaps out of it and hides her pantyhose. Alan tells her manager, Steve Landers, she is still dizzy from nitrous oxide. When Steve realizes what really happened, he returns, punches Alan, and threatens a lawsuit. Alan ends the day early and sends his staff and patients home, including Sarah, a teenager who wants to have her braces removed.

Later that night, Brooke meets Alan at a new opera-themed room at his practice. After sedating her under the premise of cleaning her teeth, he pulls out her teeth and cuts off her tongue. Detective Gibbs and his partner Detective Sunshine arrive at Alan's house the next morning to ask him questions. After the policemen leave, Matt discovers Brooke, who is still alive but sedated. Alan stabs Matt to death.

Sarah and Paula are waiting for Alan at his practice. Alan sees Paula first, much to Sarah's disappointment. When Paula's conversation turns to how good a job Matt does for her, Alan overly-aggressively drills into her tooth, destroying it. His assistant, Jessica, questions what he is doing, and he snaps out of it. Alan asks Jessica to finish for him, but after he discovers she has sent Paula home, he fires Jessica. When she pulls out April's pantyhose and threatens to expose him, Alan kills her.

At the police station, Detective Sunshine discovers that the bullet pulled from Paula's dog's only matches one gun in the area: Alan's. IRS agent Marvin Goldblum, using Alan's tax problems as leverage, extorts a free dental exam and a payout. Instead, Alan tortures him. Detective Sunshine and Detective Gibbs drive to the Feinstone house to question him further. Near the pool, they discover Matt's body. They quickly break into the house and find the mutilated Brooke, tied to the bed but still alive. Later, Alan's other dental assistant, Karen, finds Marvin still in the dental chair. Alan attacks her, then kills her by injecting a needle full of air into her jugular vein.

After Alan removes Sarah's braces, he imagines her teeth rotting. He pulls his gun, but she escapes and hides in one of the dental rooms, where she finds the blood-soaked Marvin, who attacks Alan. When Alan recaptures her, Sarah hysterically promises to brush her teeth three times a day and to never eat candy. Satisfied, Alan leaves. The two detectives arrive and rescue Sarah, but are too late to capture Alan.

They follow Alan to a university, where he teaches dentistry classes. There, Alan maniacally instructs all of his students to pull all of the teeth out of all their patients. As he hallucinates and shoots a dental student that he mistakes for Matt, the detectives burst into the room, but Alan uses a hostage to escape. Eventually, he wanders into an auditorium where an opera singer is practicing. Enchanted, he watches her from behind. When he reaches out to touch her, she transforms into Brooke, who laughs at him. Defeated, he falls to his knees and is arrested by the detectives.

Alan, now in a psychiatric hospital, is carted off to his regular dental appointment. The dentist working on him is revealed to be his toothless wife Brooke, who works violently on his mouth.

The story revolves around Mary Jo Walker, a single mother whose usual reaction to trouble is to pack her car with her belongings and take her pre-teen daughter Ava in search of greener pastures. The film commences with a strong-willed Mary Jo in an altercation with a man. As this is something which is routine in Ava's life, she packs a suitcase as she prepares herself for their inevitable departure.

Mother and daughter embark upon a journey. When a reunion with an old beau in Missouri proves to be less successful than anticipated, Mary Jo accedes to Ava's desire to see the Pacific Ocean and heads west. Mary Jo wishes to separate herself from her old life, which is manifested when she and her daughter throw the former's clothing from the car window. En route they are assisted by long-distance trucker Jack Ranson, who coincidentally re-enters their lives after they have settled in San Diego. Once again, Mary Jo forgoes both her independence and daughter's well-being in favor of having a man in her life. She quits her office job. On face value, Ava's life has changed for the better. For example, she makes friends with a girl in her class (although they later part ways when the girl becomes jealous of Ava's acting talents). Ava also secures a starring role as Romeo in the school play, "Romeo and Juliet". Lastly, Ava is ecstatic when she finds a boyfriend, who takes her to watch a movie. Matters, however, become complicated when Jack becomes verbally aggressive towards Mary Jo. Jack exhibits his true personality when he takes Mary Jo and Ava to a fine dinner and becomes infuriated by Ava's attitude. Ava, however, is just excited about the prospect of having a leading role in the play.

When Ava and Mary Jo flee the restaurant, they spend the night in a motel, a scenario with which both mother and daughter are familiar. The next day, Mary Jo is adamant that the two leave town, with only their clothing on their backs. Ava decides to put her foot down and rebel. She tells her mother that she is tired of moving from state to state and is frustrated by her mother's carefree attitude. Although Mary Jo is at first furious at Ava's refusal to cooperate, Mary Jo then realizes that there is the need to make significant changes in their lives. She finally accepts that her behavior has had severe negative repercussions on her daughter.

Toward the end of the movie, Ava and her mother stay at a house that a friend of Mary Jo's has loaned to them. Ava rebuilds her friendship with the same girl in her class. Lastly, both she and her mother start to rebuild their lives together. Mary Jo gets a job at a plant nursery and also moves in with her former office boss, a sympathetic widower who had been concerned about them.

Psychoanalyst Saul Benjamin takes on a patient temporarily as a favor to a colleague friend, Otto Jaffe, who is infatuated with her. After her doctor dies, Chloe Allen comes to see Dr. Benjamin and immediately he is smitten with her, too.

The doctor-patient relationship is violated by Dr. Benjamin's romantic impulses toward Chloe and by his intense jealousy of anyone who comes near her, including Ted Caruso, an arrogant Broadway actor with whom she has become involved. The psychiatrist's wife also is carrying on an affair with Jac Applezweig, an artist.

The ghost of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, visits Dr. Benjamin from time to time to dispense warnings and wisdom. Benjamin's work begins to suffer as he abandons patients like Mrs. Mondragon, finding her tedious, and treats the paranoia of another, Marvin Zuckerman, by designing a peculiar handmade hat for him to wear.

A board of inquiry calls in Dr. Benjamin to consider revoking his license. In the end, he admits his feelings to Chloe and concludes that he prefers true love to treating the sick.

Every year the Chincoteague fire department rounds up the wild ponies of Assateague Island and holds an auction to thin out the herd. The young children set out to raise enough money in hopes that the Phantom will be caught in this years round up. They soon realize they will get more than they bargained for when the Phantom has a surprise for everyone: a foal named Misty.

A group of martial arts and combat masters are invited to a fighting contest, "Dead or Alive", on an isolated island within an advanced complex, with the ultimate prize of $10 million. Among the competitors are Kasumi, a shinobi ninja-princess looking for her brother Hayate (who was competing in the last tournament), Tina, a professional wrestler setting out to prove she has more potential (complicated by her father Bass being one of the contenders), Christie, a master thief and assassin, her treacherous partner Maximillian 'Max' Marsh, and Hayabusa, a friend of Kasumi and Hayate who follows Kasumi to keep her safe, using the invitation to DOA for this. A final competitor is Helena Douglas, daughter of the tournament's late founder. When they arrive, they are monitored by the island's supervisor, Dr. Victor Donovan, who, aided by egghead Weatherby, is gathering data (using injected nano-sensors) from the fights for some mysterious project. To add to the situation, an assassin from Kasumi's colony, named Ayane, has followed Kasumi to kill her and wipe away the disgrace the princess has caused to the clan.

The contest plays out, with multiple contestants fighting and being defeated (including Gen Fu, Bayman, Leon, and Zack), until only Kasumi, Christie, Hayabusa and Tina are left, with Helena being defeated by Christie. During the course of the film, Max and Christie form a plan to steal the fortune stowed away inside a hidden vault. During her fight, Christie sees that the key to finding and unlocking the vault is a tattoo on the back of Helena's neck. Meanwhile, Kasumi begins to suspect Donovan of lying about her brother being killed in the previous tournament, and Hayabusa, infiltrating the main facility to find the truth, is captured. She is more than once confronted and nearly killed by Ayane, who Kasumi tries to convince that Hayate is alive (since it is eventually clear that Ayane loves Hayate). Also, Weatherby begins to fall for Helena, and in the end tells her about what he knows of the mystery project, and that before Helena's father could shut the project down, he died (indicating that he was murdered).

On the final day of the tournament, wondering where Hayabusa is, Kasumi, Christie and Tina look for him and discover a secret entrance to the main complex, where they find Hayabusa unconscious. They are then gassed and captured. Meanwhile, Helena resolves to stop the mystery project, and has to fight the armed staff of the island, sent to kill her and Weatherby by Donovan. They are followed inside by Max, who finds his way to the vault, and is then knocked out by Bayman, who is working for Donovan. Inside the main complex, Donovan shows the four semifinalists the project he has been developing; an advanced form of neural interface that allows him and others to use the fighters' combined skills to become the ultimate fighter. After 'downloading' the data into the device (shaped like a pair of sunglasses), he then shows that he kept Hayate alive and in peak condition to test the technology. He challenges Hayate to fight and win, if the others are to survive. Hayate accepts and is defeated, then thrown through a wall to die. Hayate is saved by Ayane, and the two of them apparently accept each other.

With the successful demonstration, Donovan prepares to sell the technology around the world, and begins "downloading" it to the watching buyers. Weatherby stops the broadcast and alerts the CIA, which provokes Donovan to head for them. Helena keeps Donovan back while Weatherby frees the others, but both are defeated and Donovan activates a self-destruct sequence which will obliterate the base. Kasumi, Helena, Christie, Tina, Ayane, and Hayate launch a combined attack on Donovan, while Hayabusa and Weatherby find Max and escape with him, despite Max's urge to go back for the money. During the battle with the fighters, Donovan's 'glasses' are knocked off and he is easily paralyzed by Hayate and Kasumi. The fighters then all escape as the base explodes and Donovan is consumed by the flames, making their escape by a hijacked pirates' boat.

In the final scene, Helena, Ayane, Christie, Tina, and Kasumi are shown together again preparing to fight an army of ninja in Kasumi's palace.

''Misty of Chincoteague'' begins with an account of the wreck of a Spanish galleon off the coast of Virginia. The ponies in the hold of the galleon swim to Assateague Island and become feral as the years and eventually the centuries pass.

The book then tells the story of two children, Paul and Maureen Beebe, who live with their grandparents on Chincoteague Island. Paul and Maureen work to earn money to buy a Chincoteague Pony mare named the Phantom, who has escaped the roundup men on Pony Penning Day for the past two years. Paul and Maureen save enough to buy Phantom, and Paul is able to capture her on the roundup because she is slowed down by her new foal, Misty. However, a man from the mainland buys the pair of ponies for his son before Paul and Maureen can give their money to the fire chief. Paul and Maureen are distressed, but they end up being able to buy Phantom and Misty because the original buyer's son won a colt in the yearly raffle and then decided he didn't need another pony, and chose the colt from the raffle.

Paul and Maureen eventually break Phantom to ride, and the next year Paul races her on Pony Penning Day. Phantom wins, but the next day becomes distressed when she sees the herd she once belonged to, led by a stallion called Pied Piper, being released to swim back to Assateague. Paul releases Phantom, and she gallops to join Pied Piper and the herd as they return to freedom on their ancestral island. Misty remains behind with Paul and Maureen.

Seaman "Bake" Baker and Sherry are former dance partners, now separated, with Baker in the Navy and Sherry working as a dance hostess in a San Francisco ballroom, ''Paradise''.

Bake visits the ballroom with his Navy buddy "Bilge" during a period of liberty, reuniting with Sherry (but costing her job), while Bilge is initially attracted to Sherry's sister Connie. When Connie begins to talk about marriage, Bilge quickly diverts his attention towards a friend of Sherry's, Iris, a divorced socialite.

The sailors return to sea while Connie seeks to raise money to salvage her deceased sea-captain father's sailing ship. When the boys return to San Francisco, Bake attempts to get Sherry a job in a Broadway show, but fails amidst a flurry of mistaken identities and misunderstandings. He redeems himself by staging a benefit show which raises the final seven hundred dollars needed to refurbish the ship – although he has to jump ship in order to do so. Bilge, now a Chief Petty Officer, is ordered to locate and arrest him, but allows Bake to complete the show.

After the concert, Bake and Sherry are offered a show on Broadway, which A.W.O.L. Bake accepts on the proviso that Sherry asks him to marry her. Of course, he first has to be sent to the brig and take his punishment.

The narrator, a version of Borges himself, meets Ireneo Funes, a teenage boy who lives in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, in 1884. Borges's cousin asks the boy for the time, and Funes replies instantly, without the aid of a watch and accurate to the minute.

Borges returns to Buenos Aires, then in 1887 comes back to Fray Bentos, intending to relax and study some Latin. He learns that Ireneo Funes has meanwhile suffered a horseback riding accident and is now hopelessly crippled. Soon enough, Borges receives a note from Funes, requesting that the visitor lend him some of his Latin books and a dictionary. Borges, disconcerted, sends Funes what he deems the most difficult works "in order fully to undeceive him".

Days later, Borges receives a telegram from Buenos Aires calling for his return due to his father's ill health. As he packs, he remembers the books and goes to Funes's house. Funes's mother escorts him to a patio where the youth usually spends his dark hours. As he enters, Borges is greeted by Funes's voice speaking perfect Latin, reciting "the first paragraph of the twenty-fourth chapter of the seventh book of the ''Historia Naturalis''" (by Pliny the Elder).

Funes enumerates to Borges the cases of prodigious memory cited in the ''Historia Naturalis'', and adds that he marvels that those are considered marvellous. He reveals that, since his fall from the horse, he perceives everything in full detail and remembers it all. He remembers, for example, the shape of clouds at all given moments, as well as the associated perceptions (muscular, thermal, etc.) of each moment. Funes has an immediate intuition of the mane of a horse or the form of a constantly changing flame that is comparable to our (normal people's) intuition of a simple geometric shape such as a triangle or square.

In order to pass the time, Funes has engaged in projects such as reconstructing a full day's worth of past memories (an effort which, he finds, takes him another full day), and constructing a "system of enumeration" that gives each number a different, arbitrary name. Borges correctly points out to him that this is precisely the opposite of a system of enumeration, but Funes is incapable of such understanding. A poor, ignorant young boy in the outskirts of a small town, he is hopelessly limited in his possibilities, but (says Borges) his absurd projects reveal "a certain stammering greatness". Funes, we are told, is incapable of Platonic ideas, of generalities, of abstraction; his world is one of intolerably uncountable details. He finds it very difficult to sleep, since he recalls "every crevice and every moulding of the various houses which [surround] him".

Borges spends the whole night talking to Funes in the dark. When dawn reveals Funes's face, only 19 years old, Borges sees him "as monumental as bronze, more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the prophecies and the pyramids".

Borges later finds out that Funes died from "congestion of the lungs".

Lubji Hoch, the son of an illiterate Czech Jewish peasant, escapes the Nazis, changes his name to Richard Armstrong, and becomes a decorated British Army officer. After the war he is posted to Berlin as head of press relations in the British sector. He appropriates a floundering newspaper, his entrée to the business of publishing. On his return to the UK, he builds a publishing empire.

On the other side of the world, in Australia, Keith Townsend, son of a millionaire newspaper owner, is groomed to follow in his father's footsteps. Private schools, an Oxford degree, and a position at a London newspaper prepare him to take over the family business. He quickly becomes the leading newspaper publisher in Australia.

As Armstrong and Townsend battle to seize control of existing publishers on the world stage, they become fierce competitors. Hubris and overreach finally lead to financial disaster and tragic consequences.

The game begins with Bond in a Chinese village, ruled by a female martial arts warlord called Zhong Mae. After Bond infiltrates her dojo, steals the plans given to her and defeats her, Bond escapes the ninja clan by speedboat and returns to London. M, head of MI6, tells Bond that the plans are for a secret weapons cache somewhere in an unknown part of the world. Bond heads to Kurdistan to find 008, who is missing in action. Bond manages to rescue 008 after killing Iqbal, who rules the town. 008 instructs Bond to go to Marrakech to find one of Bond's old enemies, Oddjob, who is working for someone that is smuggling the weapons.

After a little bickering within the black market, betting at a casino, and meeting the Rat Man, Bond receives a sleeping dart gun which he uses on Oddjob's henchman. After stealing the henchman's room key, Bond is ambushed by Oddjob inside his hotel room and taken to the Sahara Desert. A traveler gives Bond a canteen, which Bond uses to sustain himself as he goes through the desert, which slowly begins to kill him. Bond makes it to a nearby airport, which has been instructed by M to take him to Tibet, where he must scale a mountain, defeat Sumos and get captured by Oddjob again.

While awaiting torture in the secret weapons base, Zhong Mae arrives and tells Bond that she has changed sides, stating that she was only trying to aid her village financially. With her help, Bond defeats Oddjob and interrogates him on who is behind the plot. Oddjob gives the name: General Golgov, a top general in Russia. Oddjob tells Bond to return to Kurdistan where he finds Golgov's two associates, Saddam and Khatar, while Zhong Mae tells Bond to find her friend, Mustafa. After Bond defeats Khatar and Saddam, Mustafa thanks him for stopping the war that destroyed Iqbal's village and gives him a mirror. With aid from a guide, Bond makes it to the edge of Golgov's base which Bond manages to infiltrate. Inside, Bond kills Jaws and begins to unravel the general's true intentions: a nuclear holocaust with the general emerging as the ruler of the world. Bond uses a bazooka to destroy the General in his robot and aids Zhong Mae in shutting down the base. Bond and Mae take a boat out to sea where a British sub rescues them and congratulates Bond.

''Streetwise'' is set several years after ''Final Fight 3'', and focuses on Kyle Travers (voiced by Trent Kaniuga), Cody's younger brother. In ''Streetwise'', Kyle roams the streets of his hometown, doing detective work, on the search for his captured brother. Kyle will run into familiar faces, as well as new ones.

Story

Kyle and Cody Travers are brothers who take part in the sport of underground fighting. As Cody Travers' younger brother, Kyle is the star of the underground Metro City fight club, spending nights fighting various other fighters in order to earn enough quick cash to make ends meet. After the end of a fight one evening, Kyle and Cody decide to meet at the local bar to celebrate with some beers and a round of pool; however, Cody has some unspoken business that delays his arrival for an hour. After Kyle arrives at the bar, he plays a game with his girlfriend and bar owner Vanessa Sims (whose brother is a member of the police department), while waiting for Cody. Kyle later finds out that Cody is using a powerful strength-enhancing drug called "glow", which helps the arthritis in his knees. Kyle later discovers that glow is being made by a psychotic priest named Father Bella, who hopes to use the drug to bring about the apocalypse. When Kyle finds Bella on the roof of his church, Cody is with him, mutated by a concentrated dose of glow. It is later revealed that Bella is actually the younger brother of Belger, the antagonist of the original game, just before he and Kyle begin to fight.

During the battle, Cody regains his senses, and throws himself and Bella off the roof landing in the courtyard. Bella regains consciousness from the fall and begins to reach for his handgun but is stopped by Kyle. Bella utters his last words "I am your savior," before Kyle fires a fatal shot directly to the former's head, replying "You're nothing." Afterward he finds Cody unconscious from the fall.

Some time later, Kyle and Cody wake up in the hospital, where they meet with Vanessa whose brother was killed during the final battles; she holds onto her late brother's badge in his memory. Cody's arthritis is now gone and he seems eager to resume fighting. Kyle notices Dr. Chang, the creator of "glow", leaving the police station on the local news and mentions he has a feeling this might not be over quite yet.

Characters

The game's protagonist is Kyle Travers, younger brother of Cody Travers from the original ''Final Fight''. He is a 27-year-old former Marine who has lived on the streets of Metro City, along with Cody, since childhood. Coming from a broken family, Kyle was brought up by his brother, who taught him how to survive life on the streets and earn respect. Haggar reveals that Kyle was a troublemaker and hoodlum prior to joining the military, calling him a "skinny legged punk". Later, as a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, Kyle uses his talent to support himself in the local pit fighting club. He goes in search of Cody after he is abducted from Kyle's girlfriend's bar. His girlfriend, Vanessa Sims, and her brother, Sergeant Sims, aid Kyle in his search by providing him with information as they get it.

Enemies include 2P, Andore (voiced by Gerardo Sprigg) and Cammy. The game's antagonist is Father Bella. He has been distributing a new drug called GLOW throughout Metro City. It is later revealed that he is the younger brother of Belger, the antagonist of the original ''Final Fight''.

The movie follows two distinct plot lines until the two eventually merge: the first is that of the bored middle-aged man seeking a departure from monotony in his life; the second is that of the blind man and the little boy, his grandson, who are interdependent. None of the characters have been given names and are therefore referred to only by description.

The film opens with a middle-aged man lying on his couch with a look of discontent as his wife finishes cooking their dinner on a rather uneventful night. As she rushes back and forth setting the table, he sluggishly rises and walks across the room to the window and gazes out onto the busy streets. His wife eventually walks over and gazes too, but quickly sits at the table and begins to eat dinner. The man takes one look at the food and then casually leaves the apartment and begins to wander the streets in search of something exciting.

The scene switches to a man sitting in a chair holding a little boy about four or five years old. Another, younger-looking man enters the room through a door on the left of the screen towards another door on the right of the screen. The little boy jumps from the man's arms to the younger man, and the older man reaches out for him; it is here that we see that the older man is blind. The little boy runs to the younger man and grasps his leg, saying, "Daddy!" He looks at him briefly, then makes a hasty exit. The little boy begins to cry and the blind man sits him up on his lap and comforts him, stroking his hair and talking to him. Then the little boy helps the blind man put on his coat and hat to go out.

The middle-aged man eventually encounters a pimp and a harlot. The middle-aged man, the harlot, and the pimp run all around town getting into all sorts of scenarios: scuffling over a seat on a park bench, falsely claiming to have been robbed, going to a dance, and gambling in a card game. They all end up at a party and are seen eating at a table all together. The middle-aged man looks at his wedding ring, and inside of it he sees an image of his wife walking backwards away from him. He begins to miss her and his regular life.

Around the same time, the blind man and the little boy have left the house and are standing outside a shop along the busy street. The blind man is holding the little boy's hand, but he is distracted by a dog and breaks his grip to chase the dog. The blind man is startled and calls out for him in a slight panic. The little boy is stranded on a traffic island in the chaotic, bustling street, surrounded by horses, bicycles, pedestrians, and cars whizzing by. A police officer stops the traffic and walks the little boy across the street into the police station. Meanwhile, the blind man is sliding along a wall, looking desperately for the little boy. He mistakenly steps too far into the street and falls down onto the sidewalk after being nearly run over by a car. He pants heavily, upset and disoriented. A passing pedestrian stops and helps the blind man up and offers to help him get home. The police take the little boy home and put him to bed. Later, the blind man arrives home and sighs in relief at finding the little boy safe at home.

The harlot takes one of the men home and when another man sees him in the house, the other man is murdered. Unbeknownst to both parties, both the middle-aged man's group and the blind man's group are in the same house. The little boy wakes up and hears his father's voice and runs out to him. He again leaves in a haste, but this time the little boy follows him. The blind man wakes up hearing the little boy's cries and stumbles upon the murdered man. He is visibly frightened and breathes heavily. A policeman finds the little boy and brings him home again and the murder scene is discovered. The blind man comforts the little boy as the police take in suspects.

The middle-aged man is imprisoned, after being surprised by the murder scene. He is about to commit suicide by hanging himself from the window with his tie, when the little boy reveals that it was his father who committed the crime. A policeman enters and allows the middle-aged man to go. He returns to his home and leans upon the shoulder of his wife, defeated. She reheats the soup from the night before and normal domesticity returns.

Charles Dalgleish Forrester is revived from cryopreservation in the year 2527, having been killed in a fire 500 years earlier. Thanks to his insurance, after the expenses of his revival are paid he has a quarter of a million dollars, a fortune in his eyes. He can afford the luxuries of 26th century life, such as a Joymaker, a scepter-like portable computer terminal with some extra features like a drug dispenser.

After a heavy night partying, with some distant memory of an argument with somebody, he wakes in his new apartment, and over a 20th-century breakfast, checks in with his Joymaker. The Joymaker communicates by voice, and addresses him always as "Man Forrester". He is informed that he has a message from a woman whose name he doesn't recognize, and that someone called Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major has taken out a hunting license on him. Baffled, he eventually encounters the woman from the party who he believes is called Tip. She maintains she is Adne Bensen, the woman whose messages he has been ignoring. Apparently she got on so well with Forrester that she is ready to begin a relationship. She takes him back to her apartment, where he finds she has two children, around 8 years old, who seem somewhat precocious for their years. With names like "Tunt" and "Mim" flying around, he mistakenly assumes those are the children's names, baffling them when he uses them that way.

Later Forrester encounters Heinzlichen with a few friends, who without much ado beat him up so badly he goes to the hospital. It transpires that Heinzlichen's hunting license allows him to kill Forrester providing he pays for the revival, and the whole vendetta is over some insult at the party, which Forrester can barely remember. It's possible Forrester trod on Heinzlichen's foot. Since Heinzlichen is from the human colonies on Mars and is adapted to low gravity, this is a major ''faux pas''.

Mistake follows on mistake, compounding confusion. Forrester comes to believe that Adne is attempting to entrap him in fatherhood, presumably for his money, when she leaves a message saying that "we have to choose a name". He is equally disdainful of a friend who keeps asking him to join his Club, expecting that also to be just a ruse to get at his money.

Eventually Adne sets him straight. Firstly, he'll be broke soon because, unbeknownst to him, all the 20th century foods he likes are very expensive, as are all the other Joymaker functions he enjoys. He needs to get a high-paying job. Secondly, the "name" she was asking about was a "reciprocal name," one used only between two close friends or intimates. Each uses it only to address the other, as "Tunt" was the children's name for each other, and "Mim" was the name used between Adne and the children. Tip was the name she and another close friend used, so Forrester could not use it. The friend wanting Forrester to join his Club was in fact offering him a paying position in the organization, though Forrester is not sure he likes what the Club stands for.

However, Forrester's woes are not over. He first takes a high-paying job for what turns out to be an alien life form. The alien is known to all as a Sirian, but only because that's the star system in which he was captured (Sirius). Earth is in a state of preparation for a Sirian attack it is expecting. When the alien ship was first encountered, the Earth ship shot first and asked questions later. The only thing stopping an attack, it is believed, is that the Sirian's home world population has no idea where Earth is. The captured Sirians live on Earth in a state of virtual house arrest, with their movements restricted and monitored. Forrester's job is to be the Sirian's guide to Earth culture and history, and is paid handsomely for it. Unfortunately Adne and the others shun him for working for the alien.

The Sirian asks many questions about seemingly arbitrary topics of human history. When Forrester fails to respond to one of the Sirian's requests in time, he is promptly fired by the Sirian.

He then takes a high-paying job which is an apparent sinecure, watching over some machinery, until he learns that all the previous holders of the post are in cryopreservation after being blasted with radiation. Against the warnings of the Joymaker, he quits in the middle of a shift. In this time, this is a huge error, and all his funds are taken in fines. He is reduced to nothing, and forced to live with all the other bums on Skid Row.

The existence is actually quite comfortable. Nobody can afford a Joymaker, but rich people pass through doling out money to 26th century panhandlers, and there are cash-only eating places with coin-operated Joymakers at the tables. However, there are also people looking for thrills on the cheap, wanting to kill someone without having to pay for the revival. After a near miss, he runs into the Sirian again, who drugs and hypnotizes him. Under the delusion that he is helping Adne take a trip, Forrester places the Sirian in control of a spacecraft.

The ship heads into space and escapes, but not before the whole world learns that the alien has escaped, though not Forrester's role in the affair. The entire human population goes into a panic. Most commit suicide in order to hide in the cryopreservation banks. Heinzlichen comes after Forrester one more time, and Forrester kills him. This was simply Heinzlichen's way of getting into the freezer. Eventually Forrester is almost alone.

At this point the Club he had been asked to join goes into action. They are a 26th-century version of Luddites and are bent on dismantling the world's technological base by subverting central computing systems, believing this will improve human welfare. Ominously, they are "helped" by the Sirians in doing so. In the end, medical technicians and the Luddites are the only people left awake. Forrester learns about the conspiracy of the Luddites. Forrester cannot reach the technicians because all the computer terminals have been programmed against him. His only hope is to kill himself. He walks up to one of the automated medics, and cuts his throat.

Fortunately the medic, reacting to its programming to save lives over that set up by the Luddites, gets him to a medical facility in time, and he is able to abort the revolution. Eventually people start being revived, and he is reunited with Adne.

65,000,000 years ago, aliens known as the Dragozaurs came from space to Earth in order to absorb the planet's life force. The planet responded by converting a select number of prehistoric animals, including dinosaurs, into the Dino Knights in order to defend it. The Dragozaurs resurface in the present day to collect the planet's life force, and the Dino Knights re-awaken from their long slumber in order to stop them.

One of the major themes of the novel is the way in which the title character attempts to come to terms with taking part in the murder of a reserve police officer by his friend Crilly, an operation for which he was the getaway driver, while at the same time trying to fend off the anti-Republican "Orangemen". To make matters worse, Cal finds himself falling in love with the slain man's wife, Marcella.

Cal lacks self-esteem, one source of which is the death of his mother, who held him in high regard; following her death, Cal seems to be only capable of thinking of himself in a bad light. Another factor adding to Cal's initial unhappiness is being a Catholic on a mainly Protestant estate and being part of the minority in Northern Ireland.

He is afraid of Crilly, his friend from school who is a bully, who works for the IRA and uses Cal as a driver. Cal chooses not to follow his father's line of work as he cannot stand the smell of the abattoir. This contributes to, in the general opinion, his feeling of weakness and inferiority.

Cal's self-hatred and depression manifest themselves in a number of ways, such as swearing at himself "You big crotte de chien", hatred of his name, even a hatred of his own reflection. When seeing Marcella with her daughter Lucy, he feels this self-loathing again, believing that this bond between mother and daughter is a "pure love" that he is not worthy of intruding upon, or even observing.

Cal's self-hatred is intensified by his feelings of guilt, even sickness, at the part he played in the murder, describing it as "a brand stamped in blood in the middle of his forehead which would take him the rest of his life to purge". As his love for Marcella grows, so too does his guilt. From this he develops a sense of acceptance at his arrest and brutal treatment, grateful that at last someone is going to beat him "within an inch of his life”, giving him the ability to feel able to repent and allowing the mental anguish within to be transformed into a physical act that he can more readily deal with.

The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are travelling with pregnant V.F.D. member Kit Snicket to Hotel Denouement, the last safe place for volunteers to gather. She tells them that, prior to V.F.D.’s gathering in two days, they will be disguised as concierges to observe the mysterious 'J.S.,’ in order to identify him as a volunteer or a villain of V.F.D. The hotel's managers are identical triplets Frank, Dewey and Ernest - Frank is a volunteer, while Ernest is on the opposing side as a villain, and Dewey is someone of legend who many do not believe exists. He has created a book cataloging all information of the V.F.D.

During their first day of disguised employment, the Baudelaires split up to assist the hotel's guests - Violet assists Esmé Squalor and Carmelita Spats by bringing them a harpoon gun, Klaus assists Charles and Sir (the owners of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill) by escorting them to the sauna while also hanging flypaper outside a window for one of the managers, and Sunny assists Hal (an employee at Heimlich Hospital), Vice-Principal Nero, Ms. Bass and Mr. Remora (teachers at Prufrock Preparatory School) while locking a V.F.D device onto a door of the laundry room, converting it into a Vernacularly Fastened Door - all the guests discuss the mysterious J.S. and together the siblings discuss who asked for what, as each of them run into a separate manager.

Klaus concludes that Carmelita Spats requested the harpoon gun to shoot down a bird carrying the sugar bowl, as Sunny mentioned that Hal and a manager were discussing the sugar bowl (an object both volunteers and villains are seeking for unknown reasons) and the Medusoid Mycelium (a deadly fungus parasite they encounter in the previous book) - the flypaper would retrieve the bird's body, and the sugar bowl would fall into the laundry room, in which the room's door was converted into a Vernacularly Fastened Door.

Shortly after his proposal, a man encounters them and reveals himself as Dewey Denouement, the third of the secretly three brothers. He also tells them that a pool reflection of the hotel is the actual safe place, as the hotel's words and structure were designed backward to reflect the actual words onto the pool - beneath the pool is an underwater catalog containing crucial information concerning V.F.D. They are then encountered by Jerome Squalor and Justice Strauss, who have joined V.F.D. after believing messages being sent to J.S were being addressed to them.

While the four re-enter the hotel, Count Olaf intercepts them, and threatens Dewey with a harpoon gun for the code needed to access the door. While the children attempt to prevent the killing, Mr. Poe suddenly enters, causing Olaf to shove the weapon into the Baudelaires' hands — surprised, they drop the gun, causing it to discharge and kill Dewey. As a crowd arrives, the Baudelaires and Olaf are sent to court; however, everyone except for the judges must be blindfolded for it to be legal. The other two judges are later revealed to be The Man with a Beard But No Hair and The Woman With Hair But No Beard. During the hearing, however, the Baudelaires realize that it was a trick for Olaf to kidnap Justice Strauss, pursue the sugar bowl, and burn the hotel and its inhabitants. Klaus, realizing that the sugar bowl was actually underneath the pool, reveals the door code to Olaf. Violet gains access to a boat for all of them to escape the authorities, while Sunny assists in burning the hotel as a signal to V.F.D. that the gathering has been canceled due to the invasion of enemies. The Baudelaires, along with Justice Strauss, attempt to alert everyone about the fire; it is unknown whether anyone escapes.

Shortly after the authorities arrive, the orphans, along with Olaf, are about to disembark by sea; however, Justice attempts to intervene. Sunny apologetically bites her hand, and the four sail away from the area, and out to sea.

Whilst preparing for a magical act, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck discover a magical box. This turns out to belong to an evil magician (Pete) who sends Mickey and Donald to a magical world. Mickey and Donald must now work together in order to find a way back home.

An underground complex, known to humanity as Site Zero, has been discovered in Japan and seems to be the cause of increased earthquake activity. It was built by mysterious forces and is controlled by a being known as Nexus. A research facility is established to study the complex and its inhabitants, the T'lan. As the game begins, there have been minor skirmishes between humans and the seemingly invincible T'lan.

Protagonist Derrick Cole has developed amnesia from an injection of T'langen, a fluid recovered from Site Zero which was intended to create supersoldiers with T'lan abilities. He is in a recovery facility near Site Zero at the beginning of the war between the humans and Nexus, which overflows into the facility. Derrick is rescued by a mysterious woman named Alex Hendrickson, who seems to know him and is dismayed about his amnesia. As they make their escape, they are separated by an earthquake during an encounter with T'lan warriors. As they go their separate ways, Derrick's new abilities manifest and he is able to break through the T'lan energy shields, much as Alex can. The two eventually reunite and encounter Solus, a human-like T'lan who defeats both Derrick and Alex with ease before running off to complete a different objective.

Derrick and Alex learn of an evacuation helicopter on the roof of the building and plan to use it to escape the hostile soldiers and T'lan. However, the U.S. military destroys the helicopter and Derrick and Alex escape to the Terminus 4 research facility, where they encounter the Beta Project test subjects. These are children who have been slowly injected with small amounts of T'langen over a long period of time to give them the same abilities as Derrick. Alex recognizes one named Ernest and calls out to him, promising that help is on the way. Further, into the research center, they meet Stefania Wojinski, a neurologist specializing in memory loss and recovery, who has had her project funding terminated. After a brief discussion with her about Derrick's memory, the two are finally greeted by Chief Researcher Glen Ogawa. They learn that Nexus is planning a massive attack on humanity. Glen gives Derrick an additional injection of T'langen known as "accelerator", boosting his physical capabilities and giving him new powers.

Departing to Site Zero, Derrick and Alex are separated again and they both agree to regroup at the entrance. Along the way, Derrick encounters USMC Lieutenant Gianni deLuca and his squad, equipped with anti-T'lan lasers. Derrick learns from Gianni that Nexus is planning on deploying its T'lan troops all over the Earth using crystal rockets, and it is Gianni's mission is to stop them. Gianni and his squad plan to join up with another unit. While Gianni and his squad have a different goal, other squads are ordered to shoot Derrick on sight. The two part ways and Derrick travels to Site Zero on foot. Traveling into Terminus' sewer system, Derrick is interrupted by Solus, who has been ordered to stop him from entering Site Zero. Narrowly escaping, Derrick reunites with Alex and the two head into the complex.

Inside the complex, the two learn from Gianni that Stefania stole a valuable disk containing all of Terminus 4's research on Site Zero and the T'lan, deleting all backups. The U.S. military wants the information, so they send in a team to retrieve the disk before they order a nuclear strike. Deep into Site Zero, Alex is captured by Solus. As Derrick makes his way through alone, he witnesses Stefania's execution after she turns the data over to the military. Derrick travels on foot to the silos but arrives to find Gianni's squad decimated. The rockets are launched, and the T'lan are scattered all over the world. Derrick enters the heart of Site Zero to stop Nexus but is challenged by Solus. During the fight, Solus kills Alex, and the U.S. military launches a nuclear strike in a last-ditch effort to destroy Site Zero. The resulting explosion reacts with Solus' shield and Derrick is sent 15 years into the future.

Derrick awakes in a device designed by Stefania, and it is revealed that the device was used to piece together Derrick's fragmented memories. Derrick finds himself in a dystopian future controlled by the T'lan. A group of Terminus 4 scientists explains that Derrick will experience the "pendulum effect", swinging him back in time to shortly before he left. This will allow him to relive events, and hopefully, prevent the rockets' launch. Traveling through the complex to reach Glen, Derrick finds Alex. They meet Glen, who reveals that although they failed to stop the launch 15 years before, they had time to further refine T'langen. The "ultra accelerator" injection gives Derrick the power he needs to change the past. As the pendulum effect begins, Alex accompanies Derrick to the present, knowing she will be killed by Solus. They are separated in the pendulum-effect tunnel and will arrive at different times. Derrick arrives moments after Alex is captured by Solus, while Alex is sent to the recovery facility at the moment where she rescued Derrick, facilitating Derrick's journey at the beginning of the game.

Derrick saves Stefania before she is thrown off a ledge, and uses an elevator to take him deep into the silos, allowing him to reach Gianni's squad in a timely manner. Derrick defeats Solus, saves Alex and destroys Nexus, ending the T'lan threat. Derrick and Alex escape from Site Zero as it collapses. In a helicopter above the site with Stefania and Gianni, Alex questions the future; since she is still alive, the future has been divided into two separate timelines. As the pendulum effect begins to throw Alex into the future she jumps out of the helicopter to avoid dragging the others with her. Derrick has a choice: remaining in his own time or following her to destroy Nexus in her timeline. If Derrick chooses to go with Alex, they both go to an unknown future. If Derrick chooses to stay in the past, then, after the ending credits, a message from Dr. Ogawa appears saying that Alex has died alone.

Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a secret service department in the British Government, and good friend of Modesty Blaise, is being driven by his chauffeur along a narrow road on the edge of the gorge of the Tarn River in S. France. His chauffeur stops to help two nuns change a tire on their car, and Sir Gerald is taken prisoner – by the nuns, no less.

On the other side of the gorge lies Quinn, only semi-conscious after having stumbled and fallen while hiking. But he is sufficiently aware that he sees the two cars stopped on the road, and he tries to summon help by waving his handkerchief. Unknown to him, he is spotted by Mr. Sexton, who is the leader of the kidnapping operation.

This starts a long chain of events. Modesty rescues Quinn the next morning, and then later Quinn provides the missing information that convinces Modesty that Sir Gerald has been kidnapped. (Until now everyone had believed that Sir Gerald had died together with his chauffeur when his car went tumbling down into the Tarn River.) Modesty and Willie Garvin have by chance already determined the probable location of Sir Gerald's captivity: Chateau Lancieux in the foothills of the Pyrenees in S. France.

A hasty rescue mission is set in action. Modesty and Willie gain access to the chateaux via a deep cave, but on entering into the basement they are captured by the formidable Mr. Sexton, who prides himself on being the world's greatest unarmed combat man. Now Modesty and Willie are scheduled to die at Mr. Sexton's hand, one at a time, to further the process of softening Sir Gerald up for interrogation.

Willard (Norm Macdonald) is an overworked, underpaid chauffeur who works for a mean-spirited pie heiress named Mrs. Crock (Elaine Stritch), just as his father did before him. All Willard wants for Christmas is a new uniform, as the one he currently wears is the one his father was buried in, but Crock gives him a cheap pair of cuff links and a pie instead, while lavishing expensive gifts on her business partner Chip Oswald (Sherman Hemsley) and her prized dog Muffin. Finally fed up with being mistreated, Willard and his best friend, local chicken restaurant owner Rusty (Dave Chappelle), concoct a scheme to kidnap the dog and hold it for a $1,000,000 ransom. Muffin attacks him, leaving a great deal of destruction and Willard's blood at the scene, and the plan fails when the dog later escapes.

However, Crock and the Pittsburgh police misinterpret the hastily scrawled ransom note and believe that Willard himself has been kidnapped. Crock refuses to pay up initially until met with public protests led by Willard's on-again off-again girlfriend Hillary (Sarah Silverman). Willard and Rusty come up with a new scheme, in which Willard films a fake ransom video and releases it to the media, putting pressure on Crock to come up with the money to preserve her public image as a kindly old grandmother. The plan calls for Willard to mug his boss as she goes to drop off the ransom money, and to have a dead body left behind dressed as Willard to throw off the police. They enlist the services of a creepy morgue employee named Grover Cleaver (Danny DeVito) to find an appropriate corpse and schedule a meeting at night in the park.

This plan also goes wrong, however, when Willard succeeds in getting the money, only to lose it to two small children who attack him with a taser and a shiv and steal the suitcase. Willard is found by the police and sent to a hospital, as the children have soundly brutalized him. The police then find the dead body that was supposed to take the place of Willard as he made his getaway, and Willard claims that it was his captor. The police are suspicious, as Grover used the body of an old homeless dwarf, but Willard claims he was "more ferocious when he was alive." Willard dejectedly returns to work for Mrs. Crock (who claims that he now owes her the ransom as well) until the mother of one of his attackers shows up and returns the briefcase. Overjoyed, Willard and Rusty plan to go on a long vacation only to find that the briefcase was filled with newspaper and cabbage.

After interrogating Willard and Rusty (during which Rusty reveals his habit of striking people with desk lamps when nervous), the police go after Grover, who goes on a rampage, kidnapping Mrs. Crock while waiting for the share of money Willard promised him. Willard goes to Grover and confronts his employer, finding out that the money was actually in the briefcase but was stolen by Chip Oswald, who planned to double-cross them all and make off with his boyfriend. He also discovers to everyone's disgust that his father was also Mrs. Crock's lover as well as manservant. After the police converge on Grover's place, Crock convinces them that the trio are actually her rescuers.

In the end, Willard leads the police to Chip's house, where the ransom money is discovered. When Chip pulls a gun, Rusty panics and knocks him unconscious by hitting him in the head with a lava lamp. Mrs. Crock expresses her gratitude by paying for Willard to attend college at the University of Southern California and buying him a new Armani suit, and paying for Rusty to open a new Chicken Hole on the beach. Willard finally reconciles with Hillary, while Crock herself ends up in a romantic relationship with Grover.

Bruno Costas (played by Antonio Birabent) seeks revenge on the people involved in the death of four high-school students during a hostage situation gone bad, five years before. The show's two protagonists are ex-detective Renzo Márquez (played by Julio Chávez) and psychiatrist Laura Santini (played by Paola Krum). To add a further twist to this whodunit (although it has many elements of a ''whydunit''), Márquez and Santini are on-again, off-again lovers.

In the second half of the series, Renzo is aided by a homicide detective, Marina Segal (portrayed by Cecilia Roth), who herself is eventually held hostage by Costas. During her captivity, the psychopathic murderer forces her to kill her mother who had left the family for another man years before, causing Marina's father to commit suicide. Her troubled childhood has led Marina to seek thrills by playing high-stakes Russian Roulette. It's as the corpses of her defeated adversaries begin to surface, she is assigned to the case.

Big Red is a Champion Irish Setter; his new master Mr. Haggin wants him to be a show dog. Rene, an orphaned boy hired to take care of the dogs, gains the love and respect of Big Red. When Mr. Haggin realizes that Big Red now sees Rene as his true master, he separates them and forbids Rene to see Red. Rene asks Emile, the other dog handler, why he has separated him from Red. Emile tells him that Red has to obey his master or he will not win at the show, and if he does not win Mr. Haggin will sell him ... just like that. Rene asks Emile if he could just see Red for one minute, to say good-bye. When Emile will not let him, he waits until it is dark, then goes to the window, tells Red good-bye and then walks away. Red tries to get out of the house and finally jumps through a window, but he is cut by the glass. They bandage him up but Mr. Haggin tells Emile to put him to sleep. When Emile comes back the dog is gone; Rene has taken Red to his cabin deep in the woods. Rene nurses Red back to health and then returns him to his master, who offers to give Rene his job back, but Rene refuses. When Mr. Haggin sees that Red has scars and will not be able to be a show dog, he says that he can use him to breed, but then changes his mind and decides to sell Red and the she-dog, Molly, that he had bought to go with him. But on the train, the two dogs escape. When Rene hears about this, he sets out to find them and he later encounters Molly giving birth to the puppies inside the maternity den. Mr. Haggin goes looking for Rene but has an entanglement with a mountain lion. And after Rene and the dogs save him, Mr. Haggin makes a deal with Rene to come and live with him and keep the dogs. Rene agrees and they go home.

Lisa is home from school with the mumps, so Marge teaches her to sew. While Homer is at the mall buying magazines for Lisa, he splurges on a $125 pair of Assassins athletic shoes after seeing Ned sporting them. Santa's Little Helper promptly destroys Homer's Assassins. Marge shows Lisa a patchwork quilt, a family heirloom, which Santa's Little Helper chews apart. When Homer and Marge want to rid themselves of the dog, Bart and Lisa promise to train him so they may keep him.

Santa's Little Helper attends an obedience school run by Emily Winthrop, an English woman. After seeing how misbehaved the dog is, she sternly suggests Bart use a choke chain to correct his behavior. Since Bart is reluctant to use firm discipline to train him, the dog fails to master basic commands like sitting and heeling. Emily grows more exasperated with Bart and his dog at each class.

Thinking it will be their last time together, Bart plays with Santa's Little Helper the night before the final exam. The dog is finally able to understand Bart's commands and passes obedience school, to Homer's chagrin. Lisa marks the occasion by starting a new quilt to replace the one the dog destroyed.

A Florida con man named Thomas Jefferson Johnson (Eddie Murphy) schemes to use the passing of the longtime Congressman from his district, Jefferson Davis "Jeff" Johnson (James Garner) (who died of a heart attack while having sex with his secretary), to get elected to the United States Congress as a freshman Congressman, where the money flows from lobbyists. Omitting his first name, and abbreviating his middle name, he calls himself "Jeff" Johnson. He then manages to get on the ballot by pitching a seniors organization, the Silver Foxes, to endorse him.

Once on the election ballot, he uses the dead Congressman's old campaign material and runs a low budget campaign that appeals to name recognition, figuring most people do not pay much attention and simply vote for the "name you know." He wins a slim victory and is off to Washington, a place where the "streets are lined with gold."

Initially, the lucrative donations and campaign contributions roll in, but as he learns the nature of the con game in Washington D.C., he starts to see how the greed and corruption makes it difficult to address issues such as campaign finance reform, environmental protection, and the possibility that electromagnetic fields from overhead power lines may be giving kids in a small town cancer, which the electric power company is concealing.

In trying to address these issues, Congressman Johnson finds himself double-crossed by the powerful chairman of the Committee on Power and Industry, Rep. Dick Dodge (Lane Smith). Johnson decides to fight back the only way he knows how: with a con. Johnson succeeds and exposes Dodge as corrupt. As the film ends, it appears likely that Johnson will be thrown out of Congress on account of his previously unknown criminal record, but he defiantly declares, "I'm gonna run for President!" then breaking the fourth wall.

The plot of ''Urban Assault'' is set in the near future, where a set of hazardous natural disasters involving ozone depletion, termed ''The Big Mistake'', results in toxin generation and eventually destruction of the ocean's phytoplankton, causing the Earth's food chain to collapse gradually and consecutively. Scarce food supplies and environmental damage results in a resource war with accelerated scientific developments, and the plasma formation technology — the ability to form solid constructions of matters using only energy — in conjunction with the futuristic state-of-the-art host station technology, allows cybernetically-linked military commanders uploaded into these mobile war machine battle-stations to create entire armies made out of fully roboticized artificial intelligence military drones under their direct command & control to wage war across the global theatres.

The technology was leaked to enemy factions, destroying fragile political alliances and launching the planet into a third world war. Citizens are forced into newly emerging domed cities and communities, which shield them from dangerous levels of solar radiation and filters the toxic air. However, most of the population had already consumed contaminated food and exposed to excessive amounts of ionising radiation, that most died within several years. Most of the planet's surface had been devastated and rendered uninhabitable. The wars have become entirely roboticized, solely involving various types of war machines and military drones with artificial intelligence modules that are directly connected to the command & control system of the host station battle network. The surviving humans had divided into warring factions: The Resistance, Ghorkovs, Taerkastens, and the Black Sect.

A group of alien invaders, the Mykonians, view humans as being unworthy of such a resource-rich planet, and implant their Parasite Machine into the crust of the planet to extract energy and heat directly from the Earth's core. The Parasite Machine is causing the Earth's core to cool, weakening its magnetic field and lowering the temperature of the planet. The weakening of the magnetic field will eventually cause solar radiation levels on the planet's surface to rise and obliterate all of the planet's biomass, making it suitable for Mykonian colonization. In the campaign, Mykonian forces are usually present in Northern Europe and Scandinavia, where the cool temperatures allow for more efficient data transfer.

A second group of alien invaders, the plant-like Sulgogars, have invaded Northern Africa, where the relatively warm climate creates a suitable spawning ground. It has been mentioned that Sulgogars eat humans and extract minerals from the ground, and the fact that humans killed the ocean may have contributed to their animosity against the human race. The Sulgogars are also known to have migrated into the ocean body of the Earth shortly before the events of The Big Mistake, which supports this theory. In the original campaign, the Sulgogars are rarely encountered and only appeared in a few missions including the final confrontation.

In addition to the in-game mission briefing texts, a significant portion of comprehensive, in-depth background lore of the game are scattered and hidden deep inside the game's Help files. One could access these fragmented storyline materials by clicking the special glowing button that appears on numerous help pages.

The events in part one of the novel all take place in South Africa. In a busy South African street, Julie Summers' car breaks down. She goes asking for the nearest garage, where she meets Abdu. He accompanies her to where she left the car. The events in part two of the novel all take place in Abdu's homeland. In the airport of an unnamed Arab country Julie and Abdu pass through the usual paper work.

The plot contains some storylines which are intertwined. We can name these storylines according to their setting places. The first one is the Soviet Storyline and is about the medical doctor and psychophysiologist Ivan Girin, who studies the hidden possibilities of human brain and is interested in human beauty. The second storyline is about a group of Italians who go to Africa to find diamonds, but find Alexander The Great's Crown with mysterious crystals in it. The third storyline is about Dayaram Ramamoorty, the sculptor from India, and Amrita Tillottama, the dancer. The characters meet each other in the end of the novel.

A noble mouse named Despereaux saves a princess named Princess Pea.

Book I: A Mouse Is Born

A small, sickly mouse named Despereaux Tilling is born in a castle with his eyes open (most mice are born blind). Despereaux, unlike other mice, spends much time reading , and particularly enjoys a book about a knight saving a princess and living happily ever after. One day while reading, he hears music that sounds like honey. He follows the sound, which leads him to Princess Pea and King Philip. He sits at the king's feet to hear the music, falls in love with the princess, and speaks to her. The king leads the mouse away because mice are related to rats, who were outlawed some years ago. Furlough Tilling, Despereaux's brother, sees this, and tells his father, Lester. Lester calls the mouse council as Furlough goes to collect Despereaux. The mouse council orders Despereaux to be sent to the dungeon to die, because talking to a human is forbidden. When Despereaux goes into the dungeon, he meets Gregory, the jailer, who saves him because Despereaux tells him a nice story.

Book II: Chiaroscuro

Book II centers around a rat named Roscuro who loved the light and was less vicious and cunning than the other rats. After he took a red table cloth from a prisoner who confessed that he traded his own daughter for it and didn't look back at her when he left her, Roscuro decided to go into the light; against the wishes of his friend, Botticelli Remorso. He climbed onto a chandelier, above a banquet. However, he fell into the queen's soup, and the queen, whose habit was to state the obvious, said, "There's a rat in my soup," before dying. The princess, now hostile to Roscuro, ordered him to leave. Roscuro, angry, desired revenge against the princess. The king, upset by the death of his wife, banned the use of spoons, soup, bowls, and rats.

Book III: The Tale of Miggery Sow

Many years before Despereaux and Roscuro were born, a six-year-old girl named Miggery "Mig" Sow witnesses the death of her ill mother. Afterward, Mig is sold to work by her father for some cigarettes, a hen, and a red tablecloth to a man Mig calls Uncle. Uncle often clouts Mig's ears, leaving her partially deaf. Mig decides, upon seeing the princess pass by on a horse, that she wants to be a princess. Mig is then sent to work in the castle by the King's soldiers, who tell "Uncle" that no human being is allowed to own another. In the castle, she gains a lot of weight. Only her head stayed small. Mig's main job is to go down to the dungeons to deliver Gregory the jailer his meal and, while there, she meets Roscuro and confesses to him that her greatest wish is to become a princess. Gregory gives her a handkerchief, Despereaux in it, and returns to the castle. Roscuro convinces Mig that if she helps him kidnap Princess Pea, he'll make her a servant girl so Miggery Sow can become a princess.

Book IV: Recalled to the Light

Despereaux escapes the dungeons on a tray of Gregory's that Mig brings back to the kitchen, where he hears her conversation with Roscuro. However, Despereaux is soon discovered by Mig and Cook. Cook, as a mouse-hating woman, orders Mig to kill Despereaux. She explains to Mig that her philosophy with mice is "kill 'em, even if they're already dead." When Despereaux is attempting to flee, Mig chops off his tail with a knife so that she can tell Cook that she got a part of the "mercy". Despereaux spends the night in pain, sleeping on a sack of flour. He dreams of the castle's knights in shining armor, darkness, and light. However, when the knight removes the helmet, the shining armor is empty. Despereaux begins to doubt "happily ever after" and everything he has read and starts to weep. Meanwhile, Roscuro leads Mig to Princess Pea's room with a knife in one hand and a candle in the other to lead Princess Pea to the dungeon.

The next morning, the castle is in a panic over the missing princess. Guards are sent to search the dungeon, only to find Gregory dead from terror. He was lost in the dark mazes because Roscuro has chewed the rope which secures him to the dungeon entrance. Despereaux is seen by the mouse council, who mistook him for a ghost because he is covered in flour from sleeping on the flour sack. Despereaux forgives his father, upon the father's request, for sentencing him to the dungeon, before mocking the rest of the council. Despereaux goes on to see the King. Despereaux tells the King that he knows that Pea is in the dungeon, but the King refuses to believe him because Despereaux is related distantly to the rats.

Despereaux then goes to Hovis, the thread master. Hovis gives him an entire spool of red thread and a sewing needle to serve as a sword for his quest to the dungeons. On his way, he runs into Cook, who has grown so anxious from Pea's disappearance she has resorted to breaking the law and making soup. Instead of attacking Despereaux, she offers him some soup before seeing him off. Arriving at the dungeon, Despereaux loses the spool of thread when it leaves him at the top of the stairs. The spool of thread rolls to Botticelli Remorso, who smells soup, tears, flour, oil, and the blood of a mouse. Botticelli waits for Despereaux at the bottom of the dungeon stairs and when the small mouse arrives, Botticelli tricks Despereaux into thinking that he wants to help him save Princess Pea by leading him directly to her. Despereaux, knowing that there is nothing else he could do, trusts Botticelli Remorso and follows the rat to the princess. Other rats start following as well when they smell Despereaux and the soup he recently ate. Mig, meanwhile, learns that Roscuro tricked her into helping him kidnap Pea and that she will never be a princess. Roscuro plans for Pea to remain locked in the dungeons so that he can marvel over her brightly colored dress, but Despereaux arrives to save Pea, and Mig chops Roscuro's tail off with the knife to save the mouse after Roscuro blocked Despereaux's way to Pea. Despereaux threatens to kill Roscuro with the sewing needle, which causes Botticelli to howl with amused laughter at the thought of a mouse killing a rat. Roscuro, catching a whiff of the soup left on Despereaux's whiskers, realizes he does not truly want to hurt anyone and begins crying. Pea offers that if Roscuro lets her go, she will treat him with some soup. Roscuro agrees. Botticelli is so disgusted by the happiness of all that is happening that he returns to the darkness with the other rats.

Despereaux and Pea become close friends. Because even in this strange world, a mouse and princess can not marry. Roscuro is allowed access into the upstairs of the castle, and reunites Mig's father, a prisoner in the dungeons, with his daughter. Mig's father promises that he loves Mig and will never leave her. But before this, however, Roscuro, Mig, the King, Pea, and Despereaux all get together for soup, as Despereaux's friend Hovis, his parents, and his brother watch in amazement behind the scenes.

Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) has just spent two years with her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds). While hosting a mortal neighborhood Halloween party at their house, Marnie tries to impress a cute new boy, Kal (Daniel Kountz), by showing him Aggie's magically-hidden room with a spellbook in it . Soon Aggie notices unwelcome magical symptoms. She and Marnie travel to Halloweentown to investigate and to fix the problem before the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world, open only on Halloween, closes at midnight.

They discover that the whole town has been turned into a black-and-white world, and that the inhabitants have been turned into dreary, discolored, monotonous humans. The victims include Marnie's goblin friend Luke (Phillip Van Dyke). Aggie diagnoses this as the "Grey Spell". Aggie contacts her grandson Dylan (Joey Zimmerman) back home for a spell from her spell book. Dylan and Sophie (Emily Roeske) discover the book is missing. Marnie and Aggie learn that Kal is actually a warlock and the son of their enemy Kalabar (from the previous film). They learn that Kal stole Aggie's spell book to limit her ability to hinder his attempt to complete his father's revenge both on Halloweentown and on the mortal world. Aggie searches for a spare copy of her spell book at her house in Halloweentown, but it is missing and she despairs. During a conversation with Aggie, Marnie inadvertently reverts Luke back to his goblin form. Unable to explain the spell's reversal, the group soon believes that it is temporary.

The trio travel to the lair of the well-known junk-magnet of the universe, Gort (Blu Mankuma), who acquires lost items from both realms. He had been discolored by the Grey Spell and sold most of his junk. The group becomes trapped in Gort's house. Aggie loses her color as well and sorts through missing socks with Gort. Marnie uses time travel to go back to Gort's house before the Grey Spell happened. When Marnie and Luke arrive, they learn that Gort had sold the spare spell book to Kalabar about 50 years prior. By remembering what things Marnie had been hastefully saying back when Luke returned to his normal goblin form, they realize that the Grey Spell can be reverted by saying "Trapa", which is "Apart" spelled backwards.

Kal, having enspelled Halloweentown into a monochrome caricature of the mortal world, is now at work enspelling the mortal world into a monster movie caricature of Halloweentown. Sophie and Dylan realize that Alex (Peter Wingfield), believed to be Kal's father, is actually a golem intended to distract their mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) at a high-school Halloween party. Kal puts his spell into effect, turning the party guests into the monsters they are dressed as, resulting in chaos. Dylan and Sophie hide from the monster humans including their mother.

Marnie frees Aggie, but they are too late - the portal to the mortal world closes, trapping them in Halloweentown. Marnie refuses to accept they are locked in. She contacts her siblings and they develop a new spell that forces the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world to reopen permanently. Kal angrily confronts Marnie, who mocks him and demands the spell book. Kal produces slimy living-serpent vines of dark magic and uses them to take both spell books in an attempt to prove his own superiority, which fails when Marnie takes them from him. Kal is sent away by the vines and the family breaks his spells in the mortal world and in Halloweentown. Kal will return for his revenge.

Two years after the previous movie, Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) prepares to begin a new school year. She asks the Halloweentown Council to work toward openness between Halloweentown and the mortal world. She proposes bringing a group of Halloweentown students to her own high school in the mortal world. The council is initially apprehensive, mostly due to the legend of the Knights of the Iron Dagger: a fanatical order of knights who wanted to destroy all things magical. The Halloweentown High Council, however, agrees to accept the plan after Marnie mistakenly bets "all the Cromwell magic" that her plan will work. If she does not prove she is right by midnight on Halloween, then her entire family will lose their magical abilities. Marnie, regretting what she said to the council, wants to cancel the program she has made, but her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) opposes, saying that they have nothing to fear.

The Halloweentown students arrive and are magically given human appearances to disguise their true non-human natures. School begins with Marnie acting as a tour guide for the exchange group, claiming they are from Canada. Aggie substitute teaches so she can be available in case of need. Cody (Finn Wittrock), a new student, shows a romantic interest in Marnie.

While Aggie proves unable to teach any subject effectively, the Halloweentown students keep to themselves, hiding in the refuge that Aggie magically creates for them in a remote student locker. Marnie gradually encourages the students to join sports teams, school activities, and to make new friends.

Marnie's progress is interrupted by a warning that appears to be from the Knights of the Iron Dagger, then by a magical incident at the mall that results in the Halloweentown students assuming their natural appearances in public. This is followed by a break-in at the secret magical locker and the disappearance of Cassie (Eliana Reyes).

Meanwhile, Marnie's developing relationship with Cody parallels an unexpected romance beginning between Aggie and the school's principal Phil Flannigan (Clifton Davis). Aggie suspects Cody of being the cause of the trouble and tries to convince Marnie to halt their relationship, but Marnie in turn suspects Flannigan. They eventually discover that Flannigan is the Knight in question; he was told prior to the students' arrival that he was the last of the Order.

Edgar Dalloway (Michael Flynn), head of the Witches' Council and father of one of the students, is the real root of their problems. He wants to keep Halloweentown isolated from the mortal world, and used Flannigan to ensure the failure of Marnie's project. This, he hoped, would cause a negative reaction in Halloweentown and keep the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world closed.

The Halloweentown students use the school's Halloween carnival to improve mortal attitudes toward magical folk. Their haunted house depicts the ordinary lives of creatures that have typically been seen as monsters in the mortal world, including displays like the "Monster Tea Party" and ogres "picnicking in their natural setting", which winds up boring the carnival goers. Meanwhile, Marnie's mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) uses a Witch's Glass to hunt down Cassie.

At the school carnival, Dalloway launches magical attacks against the mortal students by bringing the inanimate monsters in the haunted house to life. The ensuing panic spirals beyond Marnie's and Aggie's ability to contain the monsters. Flannigan incites a mob to corner the Halloweentown students. Cody tames the crowd, the students reveal themselves, and the crowd accepts them for who they are. Flannigan also renounces being a knight and accepts Aggie.

Dalloway claims the Cromwell magic and explains that his son Ethan (Lucas Grabeel) helped with most of the things that happened, but Gwen has shown the evening's events to the Halloweentown High Council. They return the Cromwell magic, Gwen returns with the imprisoned student, and the Council imprisons Dalloway in another Witch's Glass taking his disagreement with them as a form of resignation and taking the families magic.

The portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world opens inside the haunted house, and crowds of children from Halloweentown cross over to enjoy the carnival together with children of the mortal world. Marnie flies off for a romantic broom ride with Cody. While flying over the carnival, they kiss.

The world has entered a Cold War-like setting in which nuclear holocaust appears imminent. In the hope of staving off an apocalyptic military confrontation between nations, an idealistic group of scientists working at United Labs plans to stage a fake alien invasion of Earth in an effort to unite all humanity against a perceived common enemy. The scientists have managed to study the planetary conditions on the planet Theta. They draw lots, and physicist Dr. Allen Leighton is chosen to undergo radical surgical procedures that will transform him into an inhabitant from the planet Theta. Leighton's death is faked, and the bizarre series of transplants and modifications to his body proceed. His wife, Yvette, persists in not believing he is dead; she even feels sympathetic pain as Allen suffers on the operating table. Complications arise when the effects of Leighton's transformation extend beyond his physical appearance and begin to affect his mind, a situation compounded by the scientist's strong emotional connection with his now-pregnant wife.

The scientists' plan is for Dr. Leighton, as the Thetan creature equipped with an energy weapon and spaceship, to land at the United Nations in an effort to create initial panic. This panic, in theory, will be resolved as the world unites to fight the invader. Leighton, now a perfect simulation of an inhabitant of the planet Theta, is launched into orbit as a weather satellite, but the mission goes awry when the spaceship comes down off course and lands in a wooded area near the United Labs facility. After disintegrating their station wagon with his laser pistol, Allen is severely wounded by three armed hunters as he emerges from the underbrush. With nowhere else to go, Allen stumbles back to the lab. Yvette, sensing trouble, hurries to the lab looking for her husband. She arrives as Allen, now hideously transformed, enters and collapses to the floor. Before dying of mortal wounds, Allen makes a sign in the air with his hand, one familiar to his wife, and she then realizes the horrifying truth that the alien is, in fact, her husband.

The film opens with a green-skinned man (Franne Schacht) wandering aimlessly through the desert with a mysterious laser cannon attached to his arm. Nearby, an alien spacecraft lands and two reptilian creatures carrying weapons emerge. After a brief firefight, the aliens disintegrate the man, then return to their spacecraft and fly away, leaving behind the laser cannon and a metallic pendant the man was wearing. Elsewhere, teenager Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) wakes up in his bed, seemingly disturbed. He goes outside to find his mother (Janet Dey) has been invited to a trip to Acapulco and, despite her son's protests, she leaves her son behind. A dejected Billy goes to visit his girlfriend Kathy (Cheryl Smith), but her grandfather Colonel Farley (Keenan Wynn), a disheveled military veteran, spouts wild conspiracy theories and paranoid rants at Billy until he goes away. It becomes clear Billy despises the town he lives in and everybody around him, and for good reason; he is soon harassed both by a teenage bully named Chuck Boran (Mike Bobenko) and his nerdy friend Froggy (Eddie Deezen), and by two police deputies (Dennis Burkley and Barry Cutler), who give him a speeding ticket.

Billy wanders into the desert alone and discovers the laser cannon and pendant. He starts playing with the cannon, making "pow, pow, pow" noises and pretending to shoot things. However, while wearing the pendant and using the cannon simultaneously, the weapon actually fires, and Billy starts firing randomly at things in the desert. Meanwhile, on the alien spacecraft, the two aliens converse (in an unsubtitled alien language) with their leader, who orders them to return to Earth and recover the cannon: it is implied that the aliens left the cannon and pendant behind under the presumption that no other human would be able to use them as the green-skinned man had. Meanwhile, Billy and Kathy attend a pool party with other teens, where Chuck makes an unwanted advance on Kathy, resulting in Billy fighting with Chuck and Froggy. That night, from a hidden vantage point, Billy fires at Chuck's car with the laser cannon, resulting in a huge explosion that Chuck and Froggy barely escape. A government official named Tony Craig (Gianni Russo) arrives to investigate both the explosion and the desert where Billy found the cannon. Tony informs the local sheriff (Ron Masak) that the town must be sealed off due to his investigation.

Meanwhile, Billy feels sick due to an unusual growth on his chest. At Kathy's urging, he visits Doctor Mellon (Roddy McDowall), who surgically removes a metallic disc from Billy's chest. He calls the police laboratory technician Mike London (Rick Walters) to arrange for the disc to be investigated. However, later that night, a green-skinned and seemingly crazed Billy opens fire on Mellon's car, killing him in an explosion. The next day, Tony investigates the wreckage and recovers unusual material, which he brings to Mike London. After some experiments, Mike concludes it is an alien material and cannot be destroyed. Later that night, Billy, once again appearing deranged and grotesque, attacks and kills the two police deputies who harassed him earlier. Elsewhere, Billy and Kathy lay together outside next to Billy's van. While he is sleeping, Kathy discovers his alien pendant and puts it on Billy's chest, which turns his skin green and his eyes and teeth hideously deformed. Billy attacks the horrified Kathy, but she escapes.

Billy goes on a rampage, shooting things at random with the laser cannon. A small airplane with law enforcement officials opens fire on Billy, but he destroys the plane. Next, he comes across Chuck and Froggy and kills them by destroying their new car with the cannon. Meanwhile, Tony Craig questions Colonel Farley and Kathy about Billy, while elsewhere the two aliens land on Earth and begin searching for Billy themselves. After killing a hippie (Michael Bryar) and stealing his van, Billy travels to a city block where he fires indiscriminately at his surroundings, screaming like an animal. Kathy and Tony arrive in their car and find Billy in an alley. Before they can speak to him, however, one of the aliens shoots him from atop one of the nearby buildings. Billy is killed, the laser cannon and the pendant are destroyed and the alien departs in the spacecraft. The film ends with Kathy crying over Billy's corpse as Tony looks on.

Young newlyweds Max and Bonnie Lamb, on their honeymoon at Walt Disney World in Orlando, are taken aback by news of a hurricane making landfall in South Florida. To Bonnie's surprise, Max is possessed by a fervent desire to visit the disaster scene after it has passed through. Once they arrive, Bonnie is appalled to see Max hopping through hurricane debris and gutted houses with his video camera, treating the devastation as a tourist attraction. She stalks away from him to regain her temper, and is not present when Max is snatched up by "Skink," an ex-governor of Florida now living wild on Key Largo, who attempts to teach him some manners and respect for nature.

At the same time, con artist Edie Marsh and her sometime partner, an ex-convict nicknamed "Snapper," travel to the hurricane zone to work a personal injury scam. However, the house they pick belongs to mobile home salesman Tony Torres. A bit sharper than the average hurricane victim, Tony quickly sees through them and takes them hostage with a shotgun. Instead of killing them, he invites them in on his own scam: he's expecting a large settlement from his insurance company, but needs his estranged wife Neria's signature to collect. If Edie poses as the wife, Tony can cut out his real wife, and Edie gets a slice of the take. Meanwhile, after searching fruitlessly for Max, Bonnie is befriended by Augustine Herrera, an independent young man who is searching for exotic animals loosed from his deceased uncle's wildlife farm by the hurricane.

Edie and Snapper's scam falls apart when Tony is murdered by Ira Jackson, a mob enforcer whose mother was killed in one of Tony's sub-standard trailer homes during the hurricane. After parting ways, each of them discovers a new angle to work: Edie seduces Fred Dove, the insurance adjuster sent to Tony's home, and convinces him to help her pose as Neria for the insurance payoff. Snapper partners with Avila, a corrupt building inspector, to run a phony roofing company and con desperate homeowners. Snapper scores a $7,000 cash "deposit" from the wife of construction mogul Gar Whitmark. Later, during a traffic stop, he ambushes and beats Trooper Brenda Rourke, the girlfriend of Skink's best friend Jim Tile, and steals her .357 revolver. Growing bored with the roofing scam, Snapper blackmails Edie and Fred into letting him in on their insurance scam by posing as the now-deceased Tony.

Ira next targets Avila, but is killed and eaten at the last second by an escaped African lion. Gar Whitmark traces the roofing scam back to Avila, and threatens to expose him unless Avila pays him back the money Snapper stole, plus the cost of replacing Gar's roof. Meanwhile, Skink hands Max over to Bonnie, who by this time has become attracted to Augustine while falling out of love with Max. When Augustine volunteers to help Skink in his new mission of tracking down Snapper, Bonnie impulsively decides to stay in Florida and go along. Max, preoccupied with a new crisis at his job, flies back to New York City without her.

The three track Snapper's car to Tony's house, where they find that another of Tony's disgruntled customers, Levon Stichler, has shown up looking to get even. Snapper, thinking Levon is an insurance agent, identifies himself as Tony, only to be attacked with a metal spike in return. The two quickly realize that both have made a mistake. Fearful that the scam will be exposed, Snapper quickly concocts a plan to drive Levon south and dump him at a hotel in the Florida Keys. As he and Edie are loading Levon into a stolen Jeep Cherokee, Skink intervenes, only to be taken hostage along with Bonnie. Augustine misses the abduction, but quickly deduces what happened. By hitting the redial button on the house phone, he learns of their hotel destination in the Keys and notifies Jim.

Jim catches up to the Jeep and begins to shadow it, but loses the tail when he gets cut off by an opening drawbridge. The sudden involvement of three more unwanted people into the scam has puts Snapper on edge. He and Edie argue during the drive, causing Snapper shooting a hole in the roof of the Jeep. Snapper forces them to stop at a liquor store, making the situation even worse. However, it delays him long enough for Augustine to reach the hotel ahead of him.

Upon reaching the hotel, Snapper checks Levon into a room and hires a pair of prostitutes to keep him "entertained." Unknown to Snapper, the two women blabbed their part in the plan to Avila earlier in the day, and he has also come to the hotel to demanding Snapper fix the fallout from the roofing scam. Snapper chases Avila away, forcing him to jump off a bridge into the ocean. Augustine uses this opportunity to conceal himself inside the Jeep with the rifle. When Snapper and the rest of the hostages attempt to leave, Jim arrives and is immediately shot by Snapper. Because he has a bulletproof vest, Jim survives.

Convinced he has killed Jim, Snapper transfers everyone into a carjacked Cadillac. Following them in the dumped Jeep, Augustine manages to steer alongside and shoot Snapper through the window with a tranquilizer dart, rendering him unconscious. Knowing that Jim's shooting will bring the police out in full force, the party abandons the vehicles and retreats into the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Around a campfire that night, Skink enacts revenge on Snapper before knocking him out with another tranquilizer dart. Edie, Bonnie and Augustine are led back to civilization by Skink while Snapper is left to fend for himself in the wild.

Epilogue

Max and Bonnie's marriage is annulled; a chance meeting between Edie and Max leads to her accompanying him back to New York, where they become engaged, Max restarts his advertising career, and Edie becomes active in organizing charity relief for victims of natural disasters; Bonnie and Augustine move to a house in Chokoloskee, on the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, where Bonnie becomes an avid outdoor photographer; Avila is picked up by a Coast Guard cutter, passes himself off as a Cuban refugee, and is repatriated to Florida, where he resumes his career as a corrupt building inspector under a false name; a few months later, he dies after being bitten by a rabid rabbit, while fumbling an attempt to sacrifice it for a santeria rite; Gar Whitmark escapes the wrath of his homeowner customers by declaring bankruptcy and reviving his construction companies under different names; after he is killed in a freak accident at one of his construction sites, his widow donates his entire estate to the Church of Scientology; Brenda Rourke recovers from her injuries, and eventually marries Jim, who gives her a replica of her mother's wedding band for Christmas; Snapper's skeleton is discovered in the Crocodile Lake Refuge, except for his skull, which joins Augustine's collection.

The player character, an unnamed resident of Azra's Crossing, Hammerfell, is tasked with defeating the Umbra'Keth—a powerful "Shadow of Conflict" created by the ongoing War of the Bendr'Mahk. To this end, the protagonist must gather the seven Star Teeth, ancient crystals infused with the magical power of the sky. Meanwhile, both the Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn and Shadowmage Pergan Asuul are independently searching for the Star Teeth in order to bind the Umbra'Keth to their will.

The film takes place in 12th-century England, where Count Thibault Malféte (Jean Reno) is about to marry Princess Rosalind, the daughter of the reigning King.

At the wedding banquet, an enemy known as the Earl of Warwick accidentally gives Thibault a potion which makes him hallucinate (and which was actually intended for Rosalind by a witch hired by the Earl), and under its influence, he kills his own bride believing she is a ferocious monster. While under sentence of death, he asks his servant, André Le Paté (Christian Clavier) to find a wizard (Malcolm McDowell) to help him. The wizard gives him a potion that will send him back to the moment before he killed Princess Rosalind. The wizard botches the spell, and instead, Thibault and Andre are sent into the 21st century.

They end up in a museum in Chicago where they are arrested by the police after causing much panic, mischief, and chaos. They are rescued by Julia Malféte (Christina Applegate), a museum employee who closely resembles Princess Rosalind. She thinks that Thibault is her distant French cousin who drowned while yachting a couple of years ago. However, Thibault soon finds out that Julia is descended from his family and realizes he must return to the 12th century to correct the past.

Julia introduces them to the modern American style of life where norms from medieval times no longer apply. Before they return to his time, Thibault decides to protect Julia from her money-hungry fiance, Hunter (Matt Ross). Meanwhile, Andre falls for a gardener, Angelique (Tara Reid) who presents him with the world of equal rights for all people.

The wizard realizes his mistake and decides to time travel into the future to help Thibault. After he finds him, he successfully prepares a potion to return to the past. André confronts Thibault, telling him he does not want to return to the 12th century, Julia convinces Thibault that he should set him free. Hunter tries to prevent Thibault from interfering with his plans but Julia finds out his real intentions and breaks up with him. Before he leaves, Thibault tells Julia that she will meet a new and better man to marry. Then, he and the wizard drink the potion in the museum and return to the past just before the murder of Princess Rosalind. Hunter finds and drinks the remainder of the potion which sends him to the 12th century where he is captured.

Julia decides to reclaim her ancestral castle, much to the firm's delight, and meets a man named Francois Le Combier, who knows a great deal about her family's history. In the last scene, André and Angelique are seen driving in a hot rod towards Las Vegas, and André wonders one thing, who would protect him from the Devil? Angelique simply replies "Hey, at least you got me, babe", to which André happily agrees.

Backstory

The history of Judson's world is revealed in the form of an oral history exam given to cadets at the Yukon War College, in addition to various footnotes and references in the text. In the mid twenty-first century, civil order began to break down in the United States and elsewhere in North America and Europe through the rise of many rival factions and gangs. One such group, the "New Agrarians", became the primary source of agricultural products as market conditions rendered investment in farming unprofitable. Derided by urban elites as hicks, they were called "Yukons" because of the remoteness of that Canadian territory, a name which they eventually adopted for themselves. Nonetheless, the Yukons developed a high degree of competence in biological and genetic sciences. At the same time the Timermen, their hidden technological elite, began developing means of rendering their enemies' electronic technology unusable through development of portable electromagnetic pulse generation technology. In the 2070s and 2080s, a gang known as the Yellowjackets, under the control of a lawyer named Bartholemew Iz, seized control of the United States and launched a campaign of biological warfare the goals of which are left unclear but which killed hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In 2081 war broke out between the Yellowjackets and the Yukons. The Timerman activated their electronic-inhibiting "Storm Machines" and in the ensuing chaos (known as the "Storm Times") took control of much of North America. Over the next several decades global civilization largely collapsed, leading to plagues, famine, and many local wars which killed additional hundreds of millions. The industrialized world had its population reduced to a fraction of what it once was. Muslim invaders seized continental Europe and much of Africa and Central Asia, while simultaneously China took over much of East Asia. The Yukons resettled Iceland, Greenland, Australia and the British Isles (after they were retaken from Muslim forces). The course of the next several centuries is left somewhat ambiguous, though numerous wars with foreign powers and nations have left the Yukons a hyper-militarized society.

Judson's world at the beginning of ''Fitzpatrick's War''

At the time the book begins in 2415, the Yukon Confederacy controls North America, Australasia, Britain, Iceland and Greenland. A Turkish empire controls the Muslim world, including Europe, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan; since it is based at Tashkent, "Turkish" here may be used in the generic sense. A totalitarian (and apparently still Communist) China rules virtually all of East Asia, including Siberia, Korea, and Japan. India, Ethiopia, the Philippines and a much-truncated Russia (called "Pan-Slavia" or the "Slavic Remnant") remain independent and allied with the Yukons, while Africa is divided among numerous feuding states variously supported by the Yukons, the Turks and the Chinese. Finally, Latin America is dominated by a collection of banana republics; among others, Judson lists a bandit-plagued Mexico, Brazil (since the Muslim conquest of Europe, the home of the Pope), Greater Colombia, and the Argentine Empire.

The Yukon Confederacy of Judson's book is a neo-feudal, clan based society. Its social mores are reminiscent of Victorian Age England (with the national flag being the Union Jack), with strong echoes of the Puritan settlers of New England. The economy of the Yukon Confederacy is almost entirely based on feudal agriculture, though there is some light industry devoted entirely to military production. The technology is steam-based, though far in advance of the technology of the Industrial Age (approximately equivalent to technology from the 1950s), with great advances in chemicals and biological engineering over modern-day science. The Confederacy is governed by provincial Lords, who are theoretically elected to serve in the Senate in Cumberland, their capital city, but in practice often pass their position to their children. The highest post is held by the Consul. The dominant and official religion is the Unified Yukon Church, a Protestant denomination; Catholic, Jewish and various Evangelical denominations exist as barely tolerated minorities.

Thanks to a series of laws regarding inheritance, the Yukon population has remained stable at about 30 million people for several centuries. Additionally, it is implied that the Yukon population is entirely white, and that the Yukons exterminated or deported all other ethnic groups that lived in the Confederacy. The evidence for this can be found in Doctor Murrey's discussions with Bruce (which see below), the racism of Judson's characters, and the fact that many American cities that had Spanish or Native American names are given new Anglo-Saxon or Latin names by the Yukons. For example, San Francisco was renamed "Grand Harbor", and Kansas City was rebuilt as "Centralia". Non-white characters exist only at the fringes of society, as merchant mariners or as bandits in the Southwest referred to as "Latin hordes". Most of the Yukon characters see foreigners, even the Yukons' Slavic, African and Indian allies, as little better than savages.

The story

While a student at the Yukon War College, Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, decorated veteran of the Mexican War of 2412, is selected by Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick (Fitzpatrick the Younger) to join his inner circle. Fitzpatrick, son of Consul Coronet Fitzpatrick, has assembled around him a group of men, each with unique talents or connections that will aid him when he (presumably) takes over his father's position. These men call themselves the ''basileis'', or the "kings of men". During his time as a student, Bruce also makes the acquaintance of Doctor Jonathan Nehemiah Murrey, ostensibly a professor of history, and an Irish Traveller girl named Charlotte Raft. Murrey is revealed to be a high-ranking Timerman chieftain.

Upon graduation Bruce is dispatched to India, where he works with a group of engineers constructing illegal airfields at the direction of Fitzpatrick the Younger. When the elder Fitzpatrick is killed under mysterious circumstances and his son is acclaimed the new Consul, it becomes clear that Isaac Fitzpatrick intends to use Bruce's work and the talents of the other basileis to conquer the world and create a universal, global society. Bruce is recalled to North America to take a bride from Fitzpatrick's mother's finishing school. To his surprise he is paired with Charlotte, whom Dr. Murrey has maneuvered into the position for reasons of his own. Despite the circumstances of their pairing they remain deeply in love for the rest of their lives.

Returning to India with Charlotte, Bruce begins preparing for war. Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick subdues the nations of the Western Hemisphere and much of Africa, forcing them to sign the "Four Points Agreement" surrendering much of their independence to the Yukon Confederacy. Finally Fitzpatrick demands the obeisance of the Turks and Chinese, and war on an unprecedented scale is declared and fought. Millions of Chinese soldiers are killed in an attack on Yukon forces in India while, to Bruce's horror, swarms of genetically engineered locusts are dropped on agricultural regions of China, causing a famine which kills hundreds of millions more. At the end of a few months the Yukons control most of the world. The defeated enemies and the Yukons' Indian and Slavic allies are all forced to sign the Four Points Agreement.

Fitzpatrick, beset on all sides by palace intrigues, becomes increasingly paranoid. When one of his generals, Field Marshal Hood, retires to a village in China to try and remedy some of the harm he has caused, Fitzpatrick has him assassinated. Shortly thereafter an attempted coup by some of Fitzpatrick's most trusted friends (and his mother) is put down, but the Consul himself is left at the brink of madness and is nursed back to a semblance of health only by the efforts of Bruce, who by this time has become disillusioned with the actions of his liege lord.

Finally, Bruce finds himself manipulated into assassinating Fitzpatrick by the devious Murrey and his Timermen comrades, who threaten his family with death. After Bruce succeeds (with help from Pularski, Fitzpatrick's bodyguard) in blowing up Fitzpatrick's court, Bruce flees with a few survivors for Australia, where he is met by Dr. Murrey. Murrey reveals the secret of the Timermen to Bruce. He explains that all societies experience a heroic age, an age of imperial might and an age of decline. The Timermen's actions, going back to the Storm Times centuries before, are all engineered to keep the Yukons in a perpetual heroic age and avoid what they view as the decline of civilization that occurred during the early and mid 21st century. To achieve this end, they will continually promote the rise of a Yukon empire and then bring it crashing down through internal discontent, until the time when the rest of the world had been reduced to Stone Age conditions. At which point they may allow a return to the electrical age.

Following the Consul's death, his capital at Samarkand is sacked. Pan-Slavic workers who had been brought in to settle and build the city are forced to fight their way home, in an episode reminiscent of the march of the Ten Thousand described by Xenophon.

Fitzpatrick's in-laws, the Shay family, seize power and usher in a financially and morally corrupt regime that is ultimately overthrown in a coup (in which Bruce himself participates). Bruce then retires to an estate in Astoria, a village in modern-day Oregon. Yukon society has now largely rejected the universalism of Fitzpatrick's vision in favor of parochial isolationism, fulfilling Murray and the Timermen's vision.

The book concludes with the historian Van Buren's endnotes condemning Bruce as a liar and promoting the official version of history that is so drastically at odds with Bruce's account.

Set in Detroit, ''Gridlock'd'' centers around heroin addicts Spoon (Tupac Shakur), Stretch (Tim Roth) and Cookie (Thandiwe Newton). They are in a band – in the spoken word genre – called Eight Mile Road, with Cookie on vocals, Spoon on bass guitar (plus secondary vocals) and Stretch on piano. Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their habit after Cookie overdoses on her first hit. Throughout a disastrous day, the two addicts dodge police and local criminals while struggling with an apathetic government bureaucracy that thwarts their entrance to a rehabilitation program.

Kyle-Lee Watson is a talented basketball player who is about to graduate from high school. While he waits to find out if he will receive a scholarship to Georgetown University, he finds himself in a difficult dilemma over a playground basketball tournament. He must decide whether to play for and follow his widely beloved basketball coach Mike Rollins and Birdie, a local drug dealer in the neighborhood. Thomas "Shep" Sheppard, a former standout player himself, now works as a high school security guard. Kyle feels resentment towards the security guard, because Kyle's own mother is falling in love with Shep.

Coincidentally, Kyle's coach also wants Shep to coach his team when he feels it is time for him to retire. It is later revealed to Kyle that Shep is Birdie's older brother. Kyle makes a decision to run with Birdie's team until he decided to come back to his old team, because of Birdie's wrongful actions against Flip and Kyle's friend Bugaloo. In the tournament, both Kyle's and Birdie's teams march to the finals, with Kyle's team playing solid team basketball, while Birdie's team plays a very rough & dirty style.

Before the finals, Birdie threatens Kyle, demanding Kyle to throw away the game, so that Birdie's team would win. Kyle is brutalized throughout the game, with Birdie's team having a solid lead. Shep, unable to watch any longer, replaces Kyle in the game - despite being aggressively attacked throughout, Shep helps the team come back. In the final seconds, he passes the ball to Kyle, who dunks the ball and Kyle's team wins the game.

After the loss, Birdie orders Motaw, his star player and gang member, to kill Kyle. Shep protects Kyle by jumping on him and Motaw shoots Shep. A security guard then fatally shoots Motaw twice. At a club, Bugaloo walks near Birdie and shoots Birdie, killing him, as revenge for previous humiliations. In the end, Kyle is revealed to have gotten the scholarship to Georgetown University. During a televised game, Kyle hits the game winner, while a recovered Shep watches with a smile.

The film is broken into four separate features: "The Library", "The Drowned", "The Cold" and "Whispers". "The Library" segment is the frame story, which begins and ends the movie.

The Library

In the frame story of the film, H. P. Lovecraft learns of a monastery where a copy of the ''Necronomicon'' is held. Having been a regular there for his research, he sets up an appointment, his cab driver told to wait outside. Taking offense when the head monk calls his work "fiction", Lovecraft insists that all his writings are true. Requesting to read the ''Alchemical Encyclopedia Vol. III'', Lovecraft steals a key from another monk and flees to the cellar, where the ''Necronomicon'' is being held. Unknown to him, a monk has seen him. Unlocking the vault where the book is held, the door closes behind Lovecraft unexpectedly, making him drop the key down a grating and into the water below. As that happens, one of the seals is opened.

Lovecraft sits to read and record what he is reading. It is not specified if he sees visions of the future through the book, or if the book contains future accounts. It is likely the stories will come to pass, and for the ''Necronomicon'' have already passed, alluding to the ''Necronomicon'''s timelessness, as all the stories take place well beyond the 1920s.

The Drowned

Edward De Lapoer is tracked down in Sweden after inheriting an old, abandoned family hotel. Left a sealed envelope from Jethro De Lapoer, he learns of his uncle's tragic death. Upon a boat trip return to New England, a crash on the shore killed Jethro's wife and son. Distraught, Jethro picked up a copy of the Holy Bible in front of several funeral mourners, tossed it into the fireplace and announced that any god who would take from him is not welcome in his home.

That night, an odd fishman arrives and tells him he is "not alone", then leaves behind an English translation of the ''Necronomicon''. Using the book, Jethro brings his family back to life. However, they are revived as unholy monsters with green glowing eyes and tentacles in their mouths. Feeling guilty, he chooses to commit suicide by casting himself off an upper floor balcony.

Edward, distraught over a car accident years before which killed his wife, Clara, finds the ''Necronomicon'' and performs the ritual to revive her. That night, Clara arrives and asks to be invited in. Edward apologizes for the accident. Clara begins to regurgitate tentacles from her mouth, and in a panic, Edward pushes her away. Clara angrily attacks, but Edward, with a sword taken from a nearby wall, cuts her. She turns into a tentacle leading underneath the floor. Drawn underground from the injury, the creature below destroys the main floor and rises, a gigantic monster with tentacles, one eye and a large mouth. Edward cuts a rope holding the chandelier, jumps to it and climbs to the ceiling. "Clara" again tries to restrain him, but Edward destroys a stained glass window, the sunlight driving her away.

Edward pushes the chandelier rope free from the pulley, the pointed bottom piercing the monster in the eye, presumably killing it. Now on the roof, Edward has avoided the same fate that Jethro had years before, and decides to live.

The Cold

Reporter Dale Porkel is suspicious of a string of strange murders in Boston over the past several decades. Confronting a woman at a local apartment building, he is invited in, only to find the entire place is very cold. The woman he has confronted claims to suffer a rare skin condition which has left her sensitive to heat and light. Demanding the truth or his story runs as-is, Dale is told the story of Emily Osterman's arrival to Boston twenty years before.

Emily had supposedly taken residence in the apartment building, and was told by Lena, the owner, not to disturb the other tenant, Dr. Richard Madden, a scientist. Her first night, she is attacked by her sexually abusive stepfather, Sam, who has tracked her down. Running away, the two struggle on the steps leading to the apartment next door. Dr. Madden opens his door, grabs Sam's arm and stabs his hand with a scalpel. He falls down the stairs and dies. Emily is bandaged up and given medication. That night, Emily is awakened by the sound of drilling and she sees blood dripping from her ceiling. Heading upstairs, she finds Dr. Madden and Lena mutilating Sam's corpse. She passes out, awakening later in her bed with a clean ceiling. Dr. Madden assures her that it was all a bad dream.

The next day while job hunting, Emily sees two cops with flyers asking for information about the murder of Sam. She confronts Dr. Madden, and he comes clean: though Sam was already dead from the fall, Dr. Madden claims he would have killed Sam regardless for what he had done to Emily. Dr. Madden reveals his copy of the ''Necronomicon'' to Emily and explains to her how he learned of its information on sustaining life. In the greenhouse, Dr. Madden proves this by injecting a wilted rose with a compound to revive it, claiming that as long as it is kept out of the sun, it will never die. The two have sex, with a distraught and angry Lena spying on them.

That night, Lena threatens to kill Emily if Emily will not kill her, as Lena is in love with Dr. Madden, a feeling that has never been returned. Emily flees, only to return months later. Upon arrival, Emily finds her boss from the diner in Dr. Madden's apartment, struggling to avoid death. Lena stabs the man in the back, killing him. Lena insists on killing Emily, but Dr. Madden will not allow it. The two struggle, destroying lab equipment in the process. The resulting fire injures Dr. Madden severely, and without his fresh injection of pure spinal fluid, he feels no pain as his body disintegrates before he dies. Lena shoots Emily with a shotgun in revenge. Emily announces her pregnancy, and Lena, feeling a loyalty to Dr. Madden, saves her.

Dale suspects the woman he is talking to is not Emily's daughter, but Emily herself, having contracted a disease from Dr. Madden during intercourse. Emily reveals he is right, and that she is still pregnant, hoping one day that her baby may be born. She also reveals that she has continued murdering for spinal fluid, and chooses to keep a supply stockpiled. Dale realizes his coffee has been drugged as an aged Lena approaches him, brandishing a syringe.

Whispers

During a pursuit of a suspect known as "the Butcher", two Philadelphia police officers, Paul and Sarah, are arguing over their failed relationship and the coming baby. The argument leads to a crash, flipping the cruiser upside down. Paul, having unbuckled his seat belt in the argument, is knocked out and dragged off by an unseen person. Sarah unbuckles herself, breaks the window and exits the vehicle. Unable to call for backup, she follows a blood trail alone.

Inside the old warehouse, Sarah follows as Paul is taken down a service elevator. Sarah trips on a rope and falls through to the floor, saved from impact by the rope around her ankle. The rope breaks a second after, and as she gets up, she finds a man in glasses, Harold Benedict. Insisting he is merely the landlord of the warehouse and the Butcher is a tenant, he offers to lead her to him. Downstairs, the two are shot at by Mrs. Benedict, a blind old woman. Sarah, sick of getting a run-around, takes the shotgun and orders the two to lead her to the Butcher. Mrs. Benedict indulges in gossip first, insisting she is not really Benedict's wife. She also claims the Butcher is from another dimension. While searching for the Butcher, Sarah makes her way to a cavern filled with bat-like creatures and other monstrosities, but the Benedicts pull the ladder from the hole, leaving Sarah trapped. As Sarah ventures through the cavern, she starts to become scared, even promising to keep her unborn child. She later sees Paul, but he has already been eaten by the bat-like creatures that inhabit the cavern. His brains are needed by the bats to reproduce. The bats then begin to corner her. She later wakes up on a table, where Mr. and Mrs. Benedict are seemingly trying to feed Sarah to the monster bats.

Sarah suddenly wakes up in a hospital. Her mother and a doctor (who resemble the Benedicts) rush into her room. Sarah was forced to have an abortion as a result of the car accident earlier, but her mother insists that she will be forgiven if she forgives herself. Sarah wants to see Paul, but Paul is brain dead and turns out to be in the very same state that he was found back in the caverns. Sarah screams in terror in spite of her mother's pleas to not scare the baby. Sarah does not understand what her mother is talking about, as she thought the baby had to be aborted. Her mother opens her blouse and reveals that the baby is inside the womb of the monster-bat creatures. Sarah is even more scared, especially after removing her bed sheets and finding out she has lost half of one of her arms. Suddenly, the hospital setting changes back into the cavern. Sarah is still on the table, about to become a meal for the monster bats. Harold wants to leave, but Sarah still has the keys.

The Library

With the conclusion of the third tale, Lovecraft is confronted by the head monk, who assures him that all will be fine if he opens the door. Lovecraft admits he dropped the key. Furious, the monk warns Lovecraft to replace the book, but the author is attacked by a monster in the water beneath him, and the last of the seals opens up. The head monk reveals himself to not be human at all, as he begins stretching his body through the bars to enter the room, and Lovecraft uses a sword in his cane to defeat the monster in the water.

Gathering his things and grabbing the book, Lovecraft begins to depart, being caught by one of the monks who warns him of the foolishness of his actions, telling him he will pay for his misdeeds. Lovecraft then escapes to the taxi and orders it to leave, and it leaves unpursued.

The film tells of Che Guevara (Omar Sharif), a young Argentine doctor who proves his mettle during the Cuban guerrilla war in the late 1950s. He gains the respect of his men and becomes the leader of a patrol.

Fidel Castro (Jack Palance) is impressed by Guevara's tactics and discipline and makes him his chief adviser. When Castro defeats Cuban dictator Batista after two years of fighting, Guevara directs a series of massive reprisals, yet, Guevara dreams of fomenting a worldwide revolution. After Castro backs down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guevara accuses Castro of being a Soviet tool and decides to leave Cuba.

Guevara lands in Bolivia, where he attempts to begin his dream of a worldwide peasant revolution, but the Bolivian peasants do not follow his lead and the Bolivian Army pursues him.

The Rising

The novel is presented as the memoir of one Ephraim Mackellar, steward of the Durrisdeer estate in Scotland. The novel opens in 1745, the year of the Jacobite rising. When Bonnie Prince Charlie raises the banner of the Stuarts, the Durie family—the Laird of Durrisdeer, his older son James Durie (the Master of Ballantrae) and his younger son Henry Durie—decide on a common strategy: one son will join the uprising while the other will join the loyalists. That way, whichever side wins, the family's noble status and estate will be preserved. Logically, the younger son should join the rebels, but the Master insists on being the rebel (a more exciting choice) and contemptuously accuses Henry of trying to usurp his place, comparing him to Jacob. The two sons agree to toss a coin to determine who goes. The Master wins and departs to join the Rising, while Henry remains in support of King George II.

The Rising fails and the Master is reported dead. Henry becomes the heir to the estate, though he does not assume his brother's title of Master. At the insistence of the Laird (their father) the Master's heartbroken fiancée marries Henry to repair the Durie fortunes. Some years pass, during which Henry is unfairly vilified by the townspeople for betraying the rising. He is treated with complete indifference by his family, since his wife and his father both spend their time mourning the fallen favourite. The mild-tempered Henry bears the injustice quietly, even sending money to support his brother's abandoned mistress, who abuses him foully, and her child, who she claims is his brother's bastard.

Colonel Burke

In April 1749, however, a messenger appears, one Colonel Francis Burke, an Irishman who had been out with the Prince. He bears letters from the Master, who is still alive and living in France. At this point the narrator, Mackellar, introduces a story within the story: it is the memoir of Colonel Burke, from which Mackellar extracts the sections that deal with the Master. From Burke's memoir it appears that the Master was attached to the Prince solely for the chance of money and high station, and was a quarrelsome hindrance, always favouring whatever he thought the Prince wanted to hear. He abandoned the Rising as soon as it looked sure to fail and, in company with Burke, took ship for France, refusing to wait in case they might be able to rescue the Prince. However, the ship was old and unseaworthy, and commanded by an incompetent captain. After seven days of being lost in bad weather, it was taken by pirates. The pirate captain, who called himself Teach (not the famous Edward Teach, called Blackbeard, who had died some thirty years previously, but an imitator), took both Burke and the Master aboard to join his pirate crew, but had the rest of the ship's company killed.

Burke and the Master sail with the pirates for some time. The Master eventually succeeds in overthrowing Teach and effectively becoming the new captain. He proves to be brutal and ruthless, seizing several ships and slaughtering all their crews to prevent their identifying him. Eventually he steers the ship to the coast of North Carolina, where he abandons it and its crew, to be taken by the Royal Navy, while he escapes with Burke and two confederates, carrying all the ship's treasure between them. In the course of their escape through the swamp the Master treacherously kills one of the confederates and leaves another to die. Burke and the Master obtain passage to Albany on a merchant ship, deserting it once it makes port. Then they strike out across land for Canada, where they hope to find sanctuary among the French, who supported the Rising. They take along a guide, an Indian trader named Chew, but he dies of a fever and the pair became hopelessly lost. For some days the Master navigates his way through the wilderness by tossing a coin, saying, "I can think of no better way to express my scorn of human reason." In the end they bury the treasure. Burke records that the Master blamed his younger brother for all his troubles:

"Have you ever a brother?" said he. "By the blessing of Heaven", said I, "not less than five." "I have the one", said he, with a strange voice; and then presently, "He shall pay me for all this", he added. And when I asked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife; and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried.

The Master in Exile

Henry Durie and Mackellar learn something of the Master's piratical ventures, but do not inform the Laird or Mrs Durie, both of whom continue to regard the Master as a kind of angel lost to them. Henry continues to support the Master's mistress and their illegitimate child, and also answers the Master's demands for money. The Master is in fact well-supported by a pension assigned by the French monarchy to Scotsmen who lost their estates due to the Rising, but he continues to demand money from his brother anyway, accusing him of stealing the inheritance:

"'My dear Jacob' – This is how he begins!" cries he – "'My dear Jacob, I once called you so, you may remember; and you have now done the business, and flung my heels as high as Criffel.' What do you think of that, Mackellar", says he, "from an only brother? I declare to God I liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and this is how he writes! But I will not sit down under the imputation" – walking to and fro – "I am as good as he; I am a better man than he, I call on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him what I have, and it is more than he expects. I have borne all this too long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I know you are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is that true, Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would have struck me at that. "Oh, you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and go barefoot, I shall stuff this bloodsucker. Let him ask all – all, and he shall have it! It is all his by rights. Ah!" he cried, "and I foresaw all this, and worse, when he would not let me go."

Colonel Burke Again

In July 1756 Mackellar receives a letter from Colonel Burke, who is in Champagne. Burke relates that the Master's court intrigues have backfired on him, and he has been imprisoned in the Bastille. He has since been released, but has lost his Scots Fund pension and the regiment he had been commanding, and is now destitute again. He plans an expedition to India, but it will require a good deal of money to send him on his way. Mackellar exults at this chance to be rid of the leech, but by an ill fate this letter has crossed with another letter, in which Henry has told the Master that the estate is at last exhausted.

The Master Returns

In November 1756 the Master returns to Durrisdeer, under the alias of "Mr Bally". He meets Henry on the road to the house, sneeringly comparing the two of them to Jacob and Esau, and ominously says that Henry has chosen his fate by not agreeing to the Master's plan to go to India. On his return he ingratiates himself with his father and with his brother's wife (who was once his own fiancée). Neither have seen him in eleven years and both are overjoyed at his return. With satanic gifts of deceit and manipulation, the Master turns the family against Henry, always putting him in the wrong and cruelly insulting him, while making it seem as though Henry is insulting the Master. To the family it seems that the Master is a long-suffering and kind-hearted hero and saint, while Henry is a cruel, unfeeling monster. In private the Master gloats to Henry over his success, taunting him by pointing out that their father does not love him, that Henry's daughter prefers the Master's company and that, despite the Master's falseness and crimes, he is everyone's favourite. He exults that he will destroy Henry's virtue:

"[Y]ou need not look such impotent malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your spider when you please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be wrought to the point of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests in this dreary hole. I ever loved experiment."

Henry suffers all this in stoical silence. Mackellar eventually discovers that the Master betrayed the Jacobites and sold himself out to the Hanoverian government by becoming a paid spy for King George, and that this is the real reason for his safe return. However, even when Henry confronts the Master with this, right in the middle of the Master's holding forth on the great risk he is running by returning to be with his family, the Laird and Mrs Durie remain blind to the Master's nature. Even when the Master demands that the Laird break the entail and sell off a large part of the estate at a disadvantageous price to finance the Master's expedition to India, the Laird remains besotted and rebukes Henry for lack of generosity when he objects.

Eventually the Master goads Henry one time too many. On the night of 27 February 1757 he tells Henry that Mrs Durie has never loved him and has always loved the Master instead. Henry strikes him in the mouth with his fist and the brothers resort to a duel with swords. Henry runs the Master through and he falls to the ground, seemingly dead. Mackellar takes Henry indoors and then rouses the house, but when he and Henry's wife return to the duelling ground the body is gone. By the tracks they can see that the body has been dragged away by smugglers ("free traders"), who carried it to a boat, but whether alive or dead they do not know.

The Master in India

The Master miraculously survives the sword wound and, with the money extorted from his father, goes to India to make his fortune. Back at the Durrisdeer estate the old Laird declines and dies, and Henry becomes Laird in his place. Mackellar, on his own authority, shows Mrs Durie all the correspondence between Henry and the Master, as well as papers that prove that the Master was a paid spy. Her eyes are opened and she becomes reconciled with Henry, though she also burns the papers, not to protect the Master, but to prevent a scandal for the family. She and Henry have a son, whom they name Alexander (The novel states the boy was born "17th July 1757; since the Master did not return to Durrisdeer until 7 November 1756, Alexander is probably Henry's son rather than the Master's). However, after the duel Henry gradually becomes mentally unstable. His personality changes, and he becomes careless about business and the estate. When Mackellar tells him that the Master is probably still alive he responds strangely:

"Ah!" says Mr Henry; and suddenly rising from his seat with more alacrity than he had yet discovered, set one finger on my breast, and cried at me in a kind of screaming whisper, "Mackellar" – these were his words – "nothing can kill that man. He is not mortal. He is bound upon my back to all eternity – to all eternity!" says he, and, sitting down again, fell upon a stubborn silence.

When Alexander is about eight years old Mackellar comes across Henry showing Alexander the duelling ground and telling him that this was where a man fought with the Devil.

A second excerpt from Colonel Burke's memoir details a brief encounter he had with the Master while they were both in India. Caught in a "mellay", Burke and his cipaye flee and climb into a garden, where Burke sees the Master sitting with an Indian servant named Secundra Dass. Burke requests help from the Master, but the Master does not acknowledge him, while Secundra Dass tells the two of them (in English) to leave and threatens them with a pistol. Burke leaves and the story within a story ends.

The Second Return

In the Spring of 1764 Mackellar comes downstairs one day to find the Master in the house, accompanied by Secundra Dass. The new Laird receives him coldly and Mackellar warns him that there will be no money forthcoming. The Master sneers and answers him: "[S]peech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money down and see my back." The Laird takes his wife and children and leaves Scotland for New York, where Mrs Durie has a family estate. Mackellar remains behind, and tells the Master that he may have room and board at Durrisdeer, but he will not be permitted to contact the family or given any money. The Master furiously answers:

"Inside of a week, without leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to. I will follow; and when I have run my quarry down, I will drive a wedge into that family that shall once more burst it into shivers. I shall see then whether my Lord Durrisdeer" (said with indescribable scorn and rage) "will choose to buy my absence; and you will all see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or revenge."

New York

Eventually the Master discovers where the Duries have gone and takes ship for New York. Mackellar follows, to get ahead of the Master and warn the Laird. The Master finds the family prepared against him and sets up shop in the town, pretending to work as a tailor, but really only working to poison the town against his brother. Henry, who has grown more unstable as the years have passed, takes pleasure in rubbing the Master's face in his failure. Eventually the Master makes his demand. The pirate treasure he buried years ago is still in the wilderness of New York: if Henry will give him the money to set out and retrieve it, he will leave Henry alone forever. Henry, however, refuses, on the basis of on his brother's record of failed promises and extortion. Mackellar remonstrates that it would be worth the money to be rid of the Master, but Henry will not be moved. Desperate, Mackellar goes to the Master and offers to pay for the expedition himself. The Master refuses and rants that he cares only about ruining his brother:

"Three times I have had my hand upon the highest station: and I am not yet three-and-forty. I know the world as few men know it when they come to die – Court and camp, the East and the West; I know where to go, I see a thousand openings. I am now at the height of my resources, sound of health, of inordinate ambition. Well, all this I resign; I care not if I die, and the world never hear of me; I care only for one thing, and that I will have."

A ship arrives from Britain, carrying news that, in return for his loyalty to the rebels the Master of Ballantrae is to be given the title of Lord (or Laird) of Durrisdeer, and young Alexander, Henry's son and the rightful heir to the estate and title, is to be disinherited. The news is obviously false, but the already unhinged Henry believes it to be true and is driven to full-blown madness. Unknown to Mackellar, Henry secretly arranges with a smuggler to gather a crew of riff-raff and present themselves to the Master as being willing to set out with him to find the buried treasure. Their real purpose, unknown to the Master, will be to murder him and steal the treasure.

In the Wilderness

The Master is at first deceived, but in the course of the expedition he discovers their plan. He tries to escape, but fails; he tries to set them against one another, but fails; and at last he announces that he has fallen ill. He wastes away and on his deathbed he tells them where the treasure is hidden. Secundra Dass wraps up his body and buries it, and the party sets out to find the treasure, but they fall foul of hostile Indians, and all but Secundra Dass and one man named Mountain are killed.

Mountain encounters the diplomat Sir William Johnson, who is on his way to negotiate with the hostile Indians. With him are Henry Durie and Mackellar. Mountain tells them about the Master's death and burial, and says that Secundra Dass has gone back to where it happened. Mountain thinks that Dass is after the treasure. Henry, however, is convinced that the Master is not really dead:

"He's not of this world", whispered my lord, "neither him nor the black de'il that serves him. I have struck my sword throughout his vitals", he cried; "I have felt the hilt dirl on his breastbone, and the hot blood spirt in my very face, time and again, time and again!" he repeated, with a gesture indescribable. "But he was never dead for that", said he, and sighed aloud. "Why should I think he was dead now? No, not till I see him rotting", says he.

The party finds Dass digging up the Master's body. Caught in the act, he tells them that the Master faked his illness, and Dass showed him how to swallow his tongue and fake death. They unearth the Master's body and he opens his eyes briefly. Henry faints, falls to the ground and dies. The Master's resurrection is only momentary, as he too dies almost immediately. Mackellar buries the two of them under the same stone, with the inscription:

J. D.,
HEIR TO A SCOTTISH TITLE,
A MASTER OF THE ARTS AND GRACES,
ADMIRED IN EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICA,
IN WAR AND PEACE,
IN THE TENTS OF SAVAGE HUNTERS AND THE
CITADELS OF KINGS, AFTER SO MUCH
ACQUIRED, ACCOMPLISHED, AND
ENDURED, LIES HERE FORGOTTEN.
* * *
H. D.,
HIS BROTHER,
AFTER A LIFE OF UNMERITED DISTRESS,
BRAVELY SUPPORTED,
DIED ALMOST IN THE SAME HOUR,
AND SLEEPS IN THE SAME GRAVE
WITH HIS FRATERNAL ENEMY.
* * *
THE PIETY OF HIS WIFE AND ONE OLD
SERVANT RAISED THIS STONE
TO BOTH.

Set "ten years from now", Freddy Krueger has returned and killed nearly every child and teenager in the town of Springwood, Ohio. The only surviving teenager, John Doe, is confronted by Freddy in a dream. John wakes up just outside the Springwood city limits but, due to a head injury, does not remember who he is or why he is there.

At a shelter for troubled youth, three of the residents—Spencer, an affluent stoner who is resisting his dad's attempts to get him to conform; Carlos, a troubled kid who was physically abused by his mother to the point of becoming deaf in one ear; and Tracy, a tough girl who was sexually abused by her father—plot to run away to California. The police find John and take him to the shelter, where he becomes a patient of Dr. Maggie Burroughs. Maggie notices a newspaper clipping from Springwood in John's pocket. To attempt to cure John's amnesia, she plans a road trip to Springwood. In an attempt to run away, Tracy, Carlos, and Spencer stow away in the van, but they are discovered when John has a hallucination and almost wrecks the van just outside Springwood.

Tracy, Spencer, and Carlos attempt to leave Springwood but not before stopping to rest at the abandoned 1428 Elm Street. John and Maggie visit the Springwood orphanage and discover that Freddy had a child. John believes he is that child, because Freddy allowed him to live. Back on Elm Street, Carlos and Spencer fall asleep and are killed by Freddy. Tracy is almost killed, but is awakened by Maggie. John, who went into the dream world with Tracy to try to help Spencer, is still asleep. Maggie and Tracy take John back to the shelter. On their way back, Krueger attacks John in his dream. Before killing John, Krueger reveals that his child is a girl; as John dies, he tells this to Maggie. Tracy and Maggie return to the shelter, but they find that no one remembers John, Spencer, or Carlos except for Doc, who has learned to control his dreams. Maggie finds her adoption papers and realizes that she is Freddy's daughter. Her birth name was Katherine Krueger, but her name was changed to Maggie Burroughs when her father was arrested and subsequently murdered.

Doc discovers that Freddy's power comes from dream demons who continually revive him, and that Freddy can be killed if he is pulled into the real world. Maggie decides that she will be the one to enter Freddy's mind and pull him into the real world. Once in the dream world, she puts on a pair of 3D glasses and enters Freddy's mind. In his mind, she learns that Freddy was teased as a child, was abused by his foster father, inflicted self-abuse as a teenager, and murdered his wife. Freddy was given the power to become immortal by fiery demons. Maggie struggles to pull Freddy into the real world but eventually succeeds.

Maggie and Freddy end up in hand-to-hand combat against one another; she uses several weapons confiscated from patients at the shelter. Enraged by the knowledge of what he has done, Maggie tears off Freddy's clawed glove and stabs him through the stomach with it, embedding the glove's claws into a steel support beam and leaving Freddy suspended above the ground. Tracy tosses Maggie a pipe bomb which she throws into Freddy's chest. The three dream demons, unable to revive him in the real world, fly out of Freddy after the pipe bomb kills him. Tracy, Doc and Maggie rejoice as the latter triumphantly declares "Freddy’s dead."

Shepard and Kaidan are sent to the human colony of Eden Prime to recover an unearthed Prothean beacon. They repel an attack by the geth, rescuing Ashley in the process. Saren Arterius, a rogue turian Spectre, activates the beacon before escaping. Shepard reaches the beacon and receives a vision of war and death. The ''SSV Normandy'' and its crew are summoned by Ambassador Donnel Udina to the Citadel Station, but Shepard is unable to convince the Citadel Council of Saren's treason without solid evidence. Shepard rescues Tali, who possesses a recording of a conversation between Saren and asari Matriarch Benezia. The two discuss their victory while also mentioning an artifact called the "Conduit" and the return of the Reapers, a highly advanced machine race of synthetic-organic starships believed to eradicate organic civilizations every 50,000 years. The Council revokes Saren's Spectre status and makes Shepard the first human Spectre. Shepard is given command of the ''Normandy'' by Anderson, and begins to follow leads provided by him and Udina in pursuit of Saren.

On the planet Therum, Shepard rescues Benezia's daughter Liara T'Soni, who joins Shepard's squad; she provides Shepard with better understanding of the vision from the beacon. On the colony of Feros, Shepard acquires the ability to comprehend and interpret the images seen in the vision from a former subordinate of Benezia, and learns that Saren's flagship, Sovereign, possesses unique mind-control capabilities. On the world of Noveria, Shepard tracks down and defeats Benezia, who reveals that she and Saren are being indoctrinated by Sovereign. Meanwhile, the Council informs Shepard that a salarian infiltration unit has uncovered Saren's main base on Virmire. Upon arrival, Shepard learns that Saren has discovered a cure for the krogan genetic disease, the Genophage, and plans to breed an army of krogan warriors. Wrex confronts Shepard over whether to destroy it, which results in him either standing down or being executed. Shepard then assists the salarians in destroying the base by planting a bomb in it. Inside, Shepard is confronted by Sovereign, who reveals itself to be a Reaper.

Sovereign reveals that the Reapers remain outside the galaxy waiting for organic life to develop and discover the Mass Relays, before harvesting them when they reach their peak of advancement. Afterwards, Shepard must choose between saving Ashley or Kaidan, who have both been pinned down. Shepard also encounters Saren, who claims that his allegiance to Sovereign will save organic life forms by demonstrating their usefulness to the Reapers. On the ''Normandy'', Liara pinpoints the Conduit's location: a Prothean world known as Ilos. There, Shepard learns from a Prothean virtual intelligence (VI) named Vigil that the Citadel is actually an enormous Mass Relay that the Reapers use to invade the galaxy. During the last extinction cycle, a few Protheans survived on Ilos via cryopreservation and then re-entered the Citadel via the Conduit, a reverse-engineered miniature Mass Relay disguised aboard the station as a statue. The Protheans sabotaged the Citadel to prevent the Reapers from remotely activating it, which Saren plans to undo in order to trigger the Reaper invasion.

After fighting through geth forces at the Conduit, Shepard confronts Saren at the Citadel. Saren is either killed by Shepard or commits suicide depending on Shepard's actions. The Destiny Ascension, the Citadel's flagship with the Council on board, then requests assistance; Shepard must either risk heavy human casualties to save them or sacrifice the Destiny Ascension to allow Alliance reinforcements to concentrate on Sovereign. Sovereign then reanimates Saren's corpse to attack Shepard, while fighting off Citadel forces. Eventually, Saren's corpse is destroyed, incapacitating Sovereign and allowing it to be dispatched by the Alliance. For prevailing, humanity is either invited to join the Council if it was saved, or becomes its new leader if it was left to perish. Regardless, Shepard can nominate either Anderson or Udina to this new leadership position before leaving the proceedings, vowing to end the Reaper threat.

Emily Reed travels to New York City to interview with a law firm, which offers her a job if she flies to Rio de Janeiro the following morning. Emily agrees and is introduced to Claudia Dennis, one of the firm's top executives. They arrive in Rio to finalize the purchase of a hotel, but Claudia must fly to Buenos Aires to meet the owner. Claudia instructs Emily to cover her date that night. The date is a wealthy man named James Wheeler. They have dinner accompanied by James' bodyguards.

James intrigues Emily; he is quiet and asks personal questions without being demanding or rude. After dinner, they attend a street carnival; Emily leaves after a masked man who looks like James tries seducing her. The next morning, Emily wakes to find James watching her. He gives her a bouquet of orchids and denies making advances to her the previous evening. As an apology, he offers to show her the city. They attend a party with a married couple they noticed in the restaurant. Navy sailors at the party make advances on the wife; James fights them and he, Emily, and the couple leave in his limousine. The married couple is having problems because of the wife's infidelity. She wants to reconcile with her husband. James encourages the couple to have sex in the limo. Emily finds their actions disturbing. Emily and James visit the hotel that her firm wants to buy, and she tells James that she fears he would disappear if she touched him. When Emily hugs James, he pulls away, telling her he does not like being touched.

That night, Emily dresses up for the carnival festivities and is propositioned by a man in a mask, who offers her his room key. James encourages her to accept. She realizes James is incapable of acting upon his own emotions and tries experiencing passion through others. Emily agrees to the stranger's proposal and has sex with him.

Claudia returns to Rio with the hotel's owner and arranges a meeting at the airport. Emily is humiliated when she discovers that Jerome, the owner's attorney, is the stranger she slept with; Jerome uses their encounter to intimidate Emily to get a better deal. Claudia discovers the truth and uses the information to threaten Jerome; if he does not complete the deal, she will tell his wife about the affair. After the meeting, Claudia asks Emily about James. She tells Emily that James was an only child who stuttered, and is a self-made man. Emily says she is obsessed with James, but that he would never touch her. Claudia's assistants tell her a man bought the deed to the hotel before the deal was finalized; both women realize it was James, who confirms it. Claudia proceeds with the hotel's sale, hoping to circumvent James' actions.

Claudia arranges a party to commemorate the sale of the hotel. The next morning, she invites a young surfer to her room, and asks Emily to translate what the Portuguese surfer says. Claudia, Emily and the surfer are about to have sex when James interrupts. Emily accuses James of setting people up to disappoint him and then throwing them aside. He responds that he never sets anybody up; they disappoint him of their own accord. A package is later delivered to Emily's room; James has signed over the hotel's deed, saving the deal. Emily finds James and tells him she loves him, but leaves when he does not respond.

That night, Emily returns to her room, where James is waiting for her. He tells Emily that after he had accumulated wealth, women became attracted to him and he started playing games to keep things interesting. The games became a way of life and he cannot stop playing them. Emily encourages James to reach out to her, offering him her love if he makes an effort to touch her. At first he resists, but reaches out and holds her when he thinks she will leave him. The two embrace and have sex. They later ride away on a motorcycle together.

Setting

The story of ''Lufia & the Fortress of Doom'' begins, in accordance with an ancient prophecy of the ''Lufia'' world, with a massive floating island with a large castle located on it emerging into the sky one dark day. Dubbed the "Fortress of Doom", this castle served as the base of operations for a group of all-powerful beings known as the Sinistrals, who planned to use their strength to bring the world to its knees.

In response, the people sent four of their bravest warriors: Maxim, Selan ("Serena" in Estopolis Denki), Artea ("Arty" in Estopolis Denki), and Guy, to infiltrate the dark fortress and destroy the Sinistrals before they could do any harm. The game begins with the player controlling these characters as they prepare to engage the Sinistrals, and eventually defeat them. However, after the battle, the fortress begins to collapse, with Maxim and Selan becoming trapped on the other side of a deep chasm that forms when the Sinistral throne room splits apart. Unable to teleport them to safety, Artea and Guy leave the falling island alone, and their trapped allies apparently perish when it crashes into the earth below.

Peace reigns for ninety years after the heroes' encounter with the Sinistrals, and the actual game is set nine years after that. The story is told from the perspective of a red-haired boy the player is in charge of naming, and along the way he gets caught up in a struggle to save the world once again from the newly emerged Sinistral army.

Story

Sancaka is an astraphobic son of an Indonesian factory worker, who with his fellows stage a protest on income inequality, which results in some of Sancaka's father's fellow workers going to the factory's boss to discuss the situation. Days later, they still haven't been seen in the neighbourhood; it is revealed that they have been kidnapped. As the angry workers clash with security guards, Sancaka's father is stabbed by an unknown man and dies. Sancaka's anger releases lightning blasts from his body; he then faints. A year later, Sancaka's mother leaves for another city to find a job, never returning. Thus, he becomes homeless in Jakarta, and meets a fellow homeless boy, Awang, who teaches him self-defense. They plan to freighthop and travel to a safe haven in Tenggara, but only Awang is able to jump onto the train. Now an adult, Sancaka works as a guard and mechanic in a newspaper printing factory.

Most of Indonesia's corrupt legislature is controlled by crime boss Pengkor, who commands an army of orphans, raised as assassins. Pengkor was once left to die by his abusive uncle in an orphanage; he later rallied the others to help him kill the adults as revenge. Pengkor plots to poison rice supplies with a drug that makes the fetuses of pregnant women immoral. Many people then demand that the legislative release an untested antidote, formulated by an unknown pharmaceutical company, to the public. The debate splits the legislative into two factions: one is led by legislator Ridwan Bahri and his colleagues, who create a bill to distribute it, and the other is controlled by Pengkor and his allies, who oppose it.

One day, Sancaka helps his neighbour Wulan fend off harassing thugs. In a second fight, Sancaka is struck by lightning, awakening his superpowers. Wulan begs Sancaka to help defend a vulnerable local market. Sancaka is unready – thinking of what Awang taught him: to look out for himself before caring about the plight of others – which allows the thugs to burn down the market. With the help of Wulan, her little brother Teddy, and Sancaka's fellow guard Agung, Sancaka realizes his powers and creates a homemade costume to harness them. With that, Sancaka starts fighting the thugs, including violinist Adi Sulaiman, part of Pengkor's nationwide network of orphan agents.

The legislature passes the antidote bill, but Ridwan soon discovers that the "poison" is non-lethal; it is the antidote that is poisonous, with the pharmaceutical company revealed to be owned by Pengkor's shell company. Ridwan asks Sancaka to stop the distribution, causing Pengkor and the team to attack Sancaka, seizing Agung, Wulan, and Teddy. Sancaka unleashes his powers, defeating most of the attackers, but Agung dies. Ridwan arrives and shoots Pengkor. Sancaka catches up with the distribution convoy and tries to stop them; thanks to the help of a mysterious woman (later revealed to be the superhero Sri Asih in a mid-credits scene), he succeeds, and uses his powers to break all the antidote bottles.

At a museum, Pengkor's partner Ghazul breaks open one of the walls to reveal an ancient tomb buried inside. Using Sancaka's blood, which he secretly and unwillingly extracted, he breaks the seal of a container containing an old head; he then combines the body and the head, resurrecting Ki Wilawuk, a powerful medieval warrior, and tells him of Sancaka's arrival, calling him "Gundala" ("Thunder" in ancient Javanese). Ki Wilawuk orders Ghazul to gather his army, "for a great war is coming."

''Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister'' tells the story of Iris, the plain younger daughter of Margarethe Fisher, as she takes care of her mentally challenged older sister Ruth and her beautiful stepsister Clara. Having fled from the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England to Haarlem, the Netherlands, upon her father's death, Iris is slightly at odds with the world and often contemplates the value of beauty and ugliness. While caring for her sisters and keeping the peace between Clara and Margarethe, Iris develops a painter's eye and spends time studying under a local painter known as The Master, and his apprentice, Caspar.

Margrethe makes Iris and Ruth go to the ball in the hopes of making the prince fall in love with Iris. Iris secretly helps Clara get to the ball and the prince immediately falls in love with her. While at the ball, Ruth does the unthinkable out of jealousy and love of Clara and Master, burning down the Master's magnum opus, a painting of Clara. That night, the fairy tale of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage is spun, and the next morning her prince comes to collect her.

At the end of the tale, the characters' eventual fates are revealed: Iris marries Caspar and paints at his side, sometimes under his name; Caspar "dutifully" cares for Ruth; and Clara eventually dies in New Amsterdam from a complaint of the heart.

The story follows the adventures of a teenage girl Julia (Helga Anders) who leaves Belgrade to spend a holiday on a stud farm run by her Uncle Dimitri (Helmuth Schneider), where with the help of head groom Hugo (Franz Muxeneder), white Lipizzaner horses are raised.

In the first episode, stallion Boris is stolen by Romani people who dye his white coat brown so that no one will recognise him. Julia and Hugo set off to find Boris and upon his recovery an affinity is formed between girl and horse.

Venetia Aldridge is a brilliant criminal lawyer who is set to take over as the Head of Chambers in Pawlet Court, London. She successfully defends Garry Ashe against the charge of the murder of his aunt but is unprepared when her daughter flaunts her emotional involvement with him. Venetia is murdered in her office soon after her trial. Adam Dalgliesh investigates what appears to be an inside job. Things are not as simple as they seem as all the suspects appear to have unbreakable alibis. A second murder occurs later in the narrative and there is a tantalising ending when one of the "murderers" appears to confess with the knowledge that the case could never come to trial because of a lack of evidence.

At Fallbrook Central School, the annual student-elected Teacher of the Year award ceremony is held. Every year for the last 43 years, Norman Warner, fondly called ''Stormin' Norman'', has won the award. During the ceremony, he collapses and dies, saying "Take your shots" and "It takes less than death to kill a man", greatly confusing his son, Matt Warner. The burden of carrying the legacy falls to Matt, who has always lived in the shadow of his father.

Determined to keep the family tradition of being Teacher of the Year alive, Matt focuses all his attention and efforts in winning the coveted title. But the new history teacher, Michael D'Angelo becomes the new student favorite, telling Matt's son to "Fall with a thunk for a woman" when he accidentally trips while watching Chase Witherspoon. He is called, even by fellow and senior teachers, "Mr. D". Young and funny, with unconventional methods of teaching and an uncanny ability to connect with his students, Mr. D. quickly wins the hearts not only of the students but also the teachers, especially the young art teacher, Ms. Davies. Now that Mr. D. is the most popular teacher on campus, Matt feels that he has no chances of winning against Mr. D.

Now obsessed with discrediting Mr. D, Matt soon forgets what it means to be a teacher. Desperate to find a flaw in "Mr Perfect", Matt follows Mr. D around town and discovers a secret the alarmingly perfect teacher is hiding: Mr. D has been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and does not have long to live. Shocked by the startling discovery into realizing his own pettiness, Matt slowly changes his ways of teaching and in the process wins the hearts of his students. When Mr. D stops coming to teach because of his worsening illness, the students become depressed by the situation. Matt steps in to cheer up the student's spirits and leads the basketball team to a victory, with a special guest appearance with 30 seconds left in the game by Mr. D. Chase Witherspoon, being a cheerleader, accidentally falls, and Matt's son retells her of Mr. D's quote "Fall with a thunk", and the two share a kiss, though it was quickly interrupted by the referee.

The film concludes after three years have passed and Matt's own son is now in high school, and Matt is teaching a brand new year of pupils in his life science class. He has won the Teacher of the Year for the last two years, teaching similarly to Mr. D, who won the award in the school year of 2003. The art teacher, Ms. Davies, inherited Mr. D's car and even put a Hawaiian girl on the car. The film ends with a close-up of a photo in Matt's classroom of himself, Mr. D, and the basketball team with "Michael D'Angelo 1967-2003" inscribed on the bottom of the frame.

Edward, a scientist doing research in an attempt to read and record people's thoughts, has a relationship with his artist girlfriend Britt. The extensive time he puts into his research leaves him little time for his relationship with Britt. Just as Edward is about to give up on his research, he is contacted by the mysterious Everett Longstreet who offers Edward both a place to do his research and unlimited funding. As Edward gets closer to making a breakthrough with his research he becomes suspicious of Everett and his ulterior motives as he realizes that he is getting closer to not only unlocking the mind but also the secrets of eternal death.

When two men are killed after meeting up with an unknown prostitute, Sergeant Peckham is sent from vice squad to homicide to investigate. She has her boyfriend, police psychologist David Stratton, assist her in profiling the murderer. Soon they both become involved with Felicity, an amnesiac who keeps having a recurring nightmare where she kills her lovers. They both soon start to suspect that Felicity is connected to the murders they are investigating.

New Orleans journalist Donna Stiles (April Bogenschutz) is in her home one night, preparing to take a shower, when a man sneaks into her home and kills her.

Donna's father, mayor David Stiles (Charles Napier), calls on Donna's former fiancee, cop-turned-bounty hunter Mace (David Keith), to stop chasing bail-jumpers and bring in the killer. Mitch McCallum (Robert Hays), who once dated Donna, with disastrous results, and is now accused of the murder, insists that he is innocent.

Mace has an uneasy relationship with the regular police force, especially Detective Atkins (Leo Rossi). Mace tackles his mission wholeheartedly until Mitch is nearly killed by a bomb planted in his home. Mace and Mitch are ambushed and pursued; they barely escape, accompanied by Sarah (Pamela Anderson), a hooker who witnessed the attacks and must go into hiding with Mace and Mitch.

Mace threatens Bernie (Bernard Hocke), a bail bondsman, with a baseball bat to find out who posted Mitch's bond and wanted him killed out on the street. After Mace leaves Bernie's office, Atkins uses the same bat to beat Bernie to death, setting Mace up to be blamed for Bernie's death.

Later, Mitch saves Mace from a gunman in his hotel room. Mace figures out that Mitch has been framed by Deputy Mayor Bob Jenkins (Stacy Keach), who had Donna killed so he could steal a disc from her computer, fill it with false accusations of incest, then use the disc to blackmail Mayor Stiles into refusing to run for office again, because Jenkins is tired of playing second fiddle to Mayor Stiles. Atkins has been working for Jenkins.

Jenkins admits to Mayor Stiles that Jenkins is the mastermind behind Donna's murder as Atkins pursues Mace, Mitch and Sarah across the bayou, finally cornering them in a clip joint, where Mace uses a giant dart to kill Atkins. Jenkins takes Stiles hostage and demands safe passage out of the city.

Jenkins shoots Mayor Stiles in the shoulder, and a helicopter arrives for Jenkins, who releases Mayor Stiles and gets on the helicopter. Disguising himself as Jenkins's pilot, Mace parachutes to safety just before the helicopter slams into a skyscraper, causing an explosion that kills Jenkins.

Donald applies for a job as the Sheriff of Bullet Valley and his nephews plan on helping him, despite how dangerous he tells them it is. They investigate the mysterious cattle theft from the Diamond Brand Ranch and find out that the thief is none other than Blacksnake McSquirt. It's a fight to the finish when Donald finally defeats Blacksnake.

Donald Duck and his nephews have rented a boat in order to collect seaweed in the West Indies for money. When they get back on land in order to wait out the low tide so they can collect seaweed inside a grotto, the four hear that "tonight is the night". It turns out that the night is the night the ghost of the grotto kidnaps a little boy. With the ducks luck, Dewey is the one to be kidnapped. Now the ducks are faced with the task of saving Dewey and not only have to face the kidnapper, but an octopus guarding a giant ship. The ducks manage to get rid of the octopus by using a ton of pepper, while collecting a ton of seaweed in the process. Later, Donald uses a mouse named Montmorency to disarm the kidnapper. He is revealed to be the latest guardian of the treasure of Sir Francis Drake while Dewey was expected to succeed him. The story ends with the guardian being allowed to keep the treasure and spend it as he sees fit, which to him, is on fancy clothing and hamburgers.

Worried about earthquakes damaging his money bin, Scrooge McDuck is determined to find out what causes them. Upon a suggestion by Donald, Scrooge has a shaft dug beneath his money bin to search for faults which might get cracked open by a tremor, but the miners are suddenly frightened away by voices coming from a gigantic cave. The next day, Scrooge, Donald, and his three grandnephews find strangely round, colorful rocks scattered around the mineshaft. They prepare to descend, but all of a sudden their minecarts are sabotaged, stranding them deep beneath the ground.

In the caverns below Duckburg, Scrooge and his nephews soon discover that the smooth "rocks" are really subterranean beings calling themselves ''Terries'' and ''Fermies'' who look like bowling balls with arms and a head, but no legs, and move around by rolling on the ground. The Terries and Fermies can hear radio broadcasts through certain magnetic rocks, which allowed them to learn English - with a southern accent - from listening to country music radio stations.

Terries cause earthquakes by rolling in massive groups of thousands against the giant pillars that support the land on the surface of the Earth, while Fermies cause earthquakes by gathering together in massive numbers and lifting up pieces of the Earth's crust. They treat this as a sports competition: Whichever group causes the biggest earthquake (as revealed by intercepted radio transmissions) wins the contest and gets the prize, a piece of Ancient Greek pottery that fell down a crevice in Ancient Roman times in the year zero (i.e., the year 1 BCE translated into astronomical year numbering, which includes a year zero). However, now the Terries and Fermies have assembled for a large-scale bout which would result in Duckburg getting destroyed.

In an attempt to stop the earthquakes, Scrooge steals the trophy, but is forced to discard his top hat during the subsequent escape. The Terries and Fermies pursue in an attempt to stop them, before they can tell the upper world of their existence and thus stall their competition. When that fails, they trigger a series of powerful tremors in order to shake the Ducks back down the shaft. This accidentally causes Scrooge's money bin to dislodge, slide across the shaft, and crack open, spilling all his money into the underground. However, since they think of money as worthless garbage ("We all know what the above-grounders think of money--they try to give it away on their radio quiz shows!"), the Terries and Fermies unite for a massive clean-up. Proclaiming Scrooge's hat as their new trophy, they push the money back into the money bin and then seal the shaft to prevent more money from getting dumped on them.

The story ends with a professor visiting Scrooge to assure him that there will be no more quakes. But when Scrooge asks him what triggered the tremors, and the professor answers that it was "gas that builds up in fissures as the Earth shrinks", Scrooge slyly winks at his nephews with the words (in Southern accent) "He shore ain't ''been around'', has he, podners?"

The plot involves treasure hunters who track down a lost fortune in Nazi gold in the desert, only to discover that the treasure is still guarded by the Afrika Korps soldiers transporting it, who have become zombies.

Carrie Wink (Anna Nicole Smith) is a beautiful and voluptuous helicopter pilot employed by Heliscort, a company that offers heli-taxi transport to high level clients. She is married to Gordon Wink (Richard Steinmetz), a detective with the LAPD, with whom we see some flashbacks of their relationship.

Fairfax (Charles M. Huber), a ruthless South African criminal mastermind prone to quoting Shakespeare, is intent on collecting a series of four interlocking electronic devices or circuits that can somehow "shift the balance of power in the world." Through deception and violence he has managed to acquire three of the devices.

Carrie, unbeknownst to her, has shuttled two of Fairfax’s goons to the site of one of their exchanges. The location of the fourth device, tucked away in the Zitex building, an 86-floor skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, is the scene where most of the drama unfolds as Fairfax sets his sights on securing the last device.

Carrie is again called to pick up a pair of VIPs, who this time turn out to be Fairfax himself and his French assistant Jacques (Jonathan Fuller). She takes them to the Zitex building, where Fairfax has his band of terrorists take over the entire security system and liquidate the security guards as well appropriate an entire floor. Somehow there seems to be very few people in the 86-floor building.

He meets up with Cranston (Eugene Robert Glazer), the possessor of the fourth device. As with the previous three deliverers of the devices, Fairfax plans on killing him. Cranston is mortally wounded in a shootout. Before entering the building, Cranston had suspected trouble, so his companion went in unseen. Before he dies, Cranston escapes with the suitcase holding the device and meets up with Carrie, who helps him up to the roof. He gives her the suitcase and admonishes her to keep it away from Fairfax at all costs.

Carrie is hotly pursued over the roof by a muscular goon. With no way out but over the top, she jumps into a window washer's rig. She attaches herself to a steel winch cable and drops many floors down the side of the building at the speed of gravity until she is brought to a halt by the end of the cable. Now, suspended and dangerously vulnerable to the gunman on the roof, who is shooting repetitively at her, she avoids being shot by constantly swinging around. Carrie finally crashes through a window just as the gunman destroys the winch with machine-gun fire, causing the cable to break free.

Carrie hides the suitcase in a trash trolley. She finds a young boy playing on his toy bike and protects him (the boy's mother has been shot previously; she was blonde and was mistaken for Carrie earlier). Carrie meets up with a small but comically gung-ho security guard and asks for his gun. Now armed, she proceeds back to the floor where she knows that hostages have been taken.

Carrie helps confuse the terrorist operating the surveillance cameras by lighting fires in the waste paper bins, causing the fire system to alert the LA fire brigade as well as disabling some monitors. Fairfax and his gunmen capture her and offer the freedom of the hostages for the location of the suitcase. Carrie witnesses a male hostage killed in cold blood by the female terrorist, after he attempts to exchange his own freedom for the $100,000 he has stolen from the building's computer accounts. Carrie reveals the location of the suitcase and is taken into a room by a guard with an obvious sexual intent.

Carrie's LAPD officer husband, Gordon (Richard Steinmetz), has been investigating the strange goings-on around town. He heads for Zitex (not knowing his wife is also there) and coincidentally stumbles upon his wife's mobile phone. Fearing for his wife’s safety, Gordon leads Fairfax’s men on a chase around the building. The Guard attempts to rape Carrie, who stabs him in the leg with a letter opener and shooting him dead.

Now she comes up behind Natasha the terrorist (Deirdre Imershein) and ruthlessly shoots her in the back, freeing the hostages. A previous flashback of Carrie shooting a handgun with her husband shows her to be an expert shot. This flashback also takes the liberty of showing her second sex scene; the first shows her naked in the shower and then in bed with her husband. Her other physical skills—in combat—are still to be revealed.

Gordon is being physically beaten up by a terrorist who is expert in hand-to-hand combat but is rescued by his wife. Fairfax finally finds the device, kills his right-hand man Jacques and heads for the roof, hoping to coerce Carrie at gunpoint into flying him out. He has not bargained on Gordon also being there (Gordon also has the young boy in tow). Gordon is shot in the shoulder. Carrie knocks the gun from his hand and engages Fairfax with swift kicks and punches which sends Fairfax falling to his death from the 86-story skyscraper to the street down below.

The young boy is reunited with his blonde mother, who has not been killed after all, as an injured Carrie and her husband enter an ambulance.

Anna Nicole Smith plays Vickie Lynn, an ex-CIA agent going by the pseudonym "Collette" who is attempting to track down the leader of an organization of trained assassins to exact revenge for the murder of her husband. Joey Travolta is Frank DaVinci, an ex Vietnam War veteran who is also after the same man for his own reasons. In light of this, they agree to work together to track him down with the help of Lynn's boyfriend, assassin China Smith, played by Michael Nouri.

In the opening scenes, Vickie's husband is killed in a car bombing, which forces her to go into hiding. Meanwhile, Da Vinci's wedding is interrupted when a large group of masked gunmen attack the ceremony resulting in a massive shootout where Da Vinci is wounded, but his young bride Lupe (played by Rebecca Ferratti) is killed, along with several civilians, as well as several of Da Vinci's bodyguards, and all of the attacking gunmen are killed as well. In the hospital, another attempt is made on Da Vinci's life when a female assassin, named Maryann, attempts to kill him in his hospital bed by injecting a syringe into his I.V. drip, but he survives by pulling out the I.V. drip in time. After this, Da Vinci goes into hiding at his retreat house in Las Vegas.

Six months later, Da Vinci recovers enough when, by chance, he runs into Vickie and they agree to help each other find the person responsible for the losses of their loved ones. The perpetrator is revealed to be corrupt and ruthless CIA officer Arthur Jameson (played by Jack Bannon). Knowing that he and Lynn (still going by the name "Collette") can't face Jameson alone, he enlists the help of his war colleagues (Branscombe Richmond and Gino Dente) and two ex-mobster brothers named Philly (John Aprea), and Joey Bambino (David Proval) to find the location of Jameson's hideout.

The plot of ''Scars of the War'' revolves around USN soldier Walter Feng. When Huffman Island is deemed ready for colonization by the United Nations in 2065, Feng becomes one of the island's first immigrants. Living in Freedom City, Walter befriends two other children - Randy O'Neill and Glen Duval. The three boys experience first-hand the realities of war during the outbreak of the 1st Huffman Conflict in 2070; Walter and Glen are literally scarred by shell casings during a battle in Freedom City. The three boys were separated at the end of the war when the USN forcefully repatriates Walter and Randy, and Glen is forcefully repatriated by the OCU. The three reunites during a peacekeeping operation as soldiers for their respective armies during the Huffman Crisis in 2086. Upon seeing Glen pilot a wanzer, Walter and Randy sign up for the USN Army's wanzer training program. As tensions between the OCU and USN elevate to a new high from the Larcus Incident, the two men qualify as wanzer pilots.

However, on the same day they qualify, Walter and Randy are sent off to fight in the 2nd Huffman Conflict. During the invasion of Freedom City, they encounter Glen in the suburbs of city and defeat him. Feng and O'Neill visit Duval before he is shipped off to a POW camp. A year later, the three face off again on the battlefield - this time, Glen easily defeats his friends. However, instead of showing mercy, Glen kills Randy inside his cockpit block. A ceasefire between the OCU and the USN is declared shortly after he escapes. Traumatized by the experience, Walter cleans up Randy's quarters in an attempt to move on with life. Seeing an application form for the ''Strike Wyverns'' assault unit, Feng signs the form and undergoes intensive training. He passes the test and joins the unit, where he meets his old friend Edward Collins and new commanding officer Lynn Wenright (who happens to be his childhood sweetheart).

Over the next few years, Walter participates in numerous military operations and begins to take an interest in the conflicts he gets involved with. From Zaftra's struggles involving natural resources to pro-independence movements in the OCU, Feng gets drawn into a global war between nationalism and globalization that has been on-going for decades. At the heart of this conflict is the ''Grimnir'' - a terrorist organization aimed at destabilizing the supranational unions and return to a world governed by Westphalian nation-states.

Two cyclists riding through a canyon are followed by a mysterious matte black car down the road. At a bridge, the car proceeds to crush one cyclist against the wall and ram the other from behind, catapulting him off the bridge. A hitchhiker, hoping to get a ride, encounters the car and insults it after it purposely tries to run him down. It halts to a stop, reverses backwards, and runs him over several times before driving off. The local sheriff's office, called to a series of hit and runs, gets a lead on the car. It appears to be heavily customized and has no license plates, as pointed out by Amos Clemens (R. G. Armstrong) after he saw it run over the hitchhiker.

That night, in an apparent bid to kill Amos, the car instead runs over Sheriff Everett Peck (John Marley), leaving Chief Deputy Wade Parent (James Brolin) in charge. During the resulting investigation, an eyewitness to the accident states there was no driver, furthering Wade's confusion. Wade asks his girlfriend, Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd), a teacher at the local school, to cancel the upcoming marching band rehearsals for their safety. Lauren and her friend, the wife of Wade's deputy Luke Johnson (Ronny Cox), ask him to let them rehearse. Luke unwittingly agrees.

The car enters the town and attacks the school marching band as it rehearses at the local showground. It chases the group of teachers and students into a cemetery. Curiously enough, the vehicle will not enter onto the consecrated ground. Lauren taunts the driver, which no one among the townsfolk have yet seen. Seemingly angered, the car destroys a brick gate post and leaves. The police go on a high-speed chase along highways throughout the desert before the car turns on them, destroying several squad cars and killing five of Wade's deputies. None of Wade's bullets put a dent on the car's windshield or tires, much to his surprise. After trying unsuccessfully to get inside the vehicle when it stops (the car has no door handles), Wade is knocked out when the door opens by itself. The car escapes. At the hospital, Wade is consoled by his remaining deputies and Lauren. He later offers to get her some spare clean clothes.

That evening, Lauren is at her home, talking to Wade over the phone, when the enraged car drives straight through her house, killing her. Luke explains for a grief-stricken Wade killing his girlfriend was an act of revenge for Lauren's insults and notes it apparently did not enter the cemetery because "the ground is hallowed," a biblical reference. Wade concocts a plan to destroy the car in a controlled explosion within canyons that lie outside of town. After discovering it waiting in his own garage, they are forced to carry out his plans with great haste. Wade is pursued by the car into a mountainous canyon area where his remaining deputies have set a trap.

In a final confrontation, Wade and Luke stand at the edge of a cliff and bait the car into running straight at them. They jump aside as it goes over the cliff into the dynamite, causing an explosion. A monstrous, demonic visage appears inside the flames, to everyone's shock. Wade refuses to believe what the group saw in the flames despite Luke's insistence.

The film concludes with the car prowling the streets of downtown Los Angeles, apparently having survived the crash.

Kiichi Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune) is an elderly foundry owner who is convinced he and his loved ones will all be killed in an imminent nuclear war if they stay in Japan, so he resolves to move them to perceived safety in Brazil. He does not care that no one else wants to go or that it might make things awkward that he wants to bring his three illegitimate children and two surviving mistresses along with his wife and the four children they have together, saying that nothing is more important than their continued survival.

Kiichi's three oldest children convince his wife to try to have him ruled incompetent in order to keep him from wasting their inheritance on his plan, and they bring him before a three-man arbitration panel that includes Dr. Harada (Takashi Shimura). Harada, a dentist who volunteers with the family court, sympathizes with Kiichi's concerns and points out that the fear of nuclear weapons is present in every citizen of Japan. He wonders aloud whether it may be wrong to rule someone incompetent simply for being more worried than the average citizen, but the panel eventually decides that Kiichi's irrational behavior justifies removing his ability to make the financial decisions for his family by himself.

After this, Kiichi tries find a way to move forward with the move anyway, but his efforts fail, and his mental state begins to deteriorate more rapidly once he no longer feels as though he is doing anything to save himself and his family from the nuclear holocaust he is sure is coming. Growing increasingly desperate, he decides that his family will be willing to go with him to South America if they no longer have jobs or a source of income tying them to Japan, and he burns down the foundry. When this is discovered, his distress reaches a breaking point after some of his employees point out that his actions indicate he is unconcerned about their lives and his son-in-law argues that there are already more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet and nowhere is really safe.

Harada goes to visit Kiichi at the psychiatric facility to which he has been sent. While waiting to be shown to his room, Harada talks with a psychologist, who remarks that he has found Kiichi's case particularly troubling personally, since it has made him wonder whether it may be more insane to ignore the nuclear threat than it is to take it too seriously. Harada discovers that Kiichi believes he has escaped to another planet and that he has become severely withdrawn from his surroundings. During their visit, however, Kiichi becomes agitated when he sees the Sun through his window and thinks it is the Earth burning.

The game doesn't follow the already established storyline of the animated series, but has a similar premise. Millions of years ago, Mini-Cons - miniature Transformers who can grant Cybertronians special powers if merged with them - fled Cybertron and crash-landed on Earth, where they went into stasis. In the present, the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, led by the Megatron, are engaged in a deadly war for control of Cybertron. The game's opening sequence shows Megatron launching a final assault on the Autobot Headquarters on Cybertron, alongside his ''Decepticlones'', a large army of Decepticon drones. The Decepticlones soon overpower the Autobot resistance, as Megatron and Optimus engage in a one-on-one fight. Before the winner can be decided, a Mini-Con distress beacon activates on Earth. Well-aware of what this means, Megatron and his Decepticlone forces abandon the battle and head to Earth to find the Mini-Cons, believing their powers will guarantee the Decepticons' victory. Meanwhile, Optimus, Red Alert, and Hot Shot return to their headquarters, from where they operate a Space Bridge to travel to various locations across the planet and retrieve the Mini-Cons before the Decepticons can.

They first travel to the Amazon, where they retrieve several Mini-Cons and fight Decepticlone patrols. Eventually, the Autobots encounter Cyclonus at some ancient ruins, who dispatches several Decepticlone Heavy Units to attack them. After destroying them and chasing Cyclonus away, the Autobots find the Mini-Cons Sparkplug, Jolt, and Longarm, who send out a call to the other Mini-Cons on Earth and join the Autobots in the search for their "brothers". The Autobots next go to Antarctica, making their way past icy canyons, an open glacial area, and a crashed human plane in order to reach a research facility, where the Decepticons have already found a Mini-Con. They defeat the Decepticlones guards and Starscream, before learning that Cyclonus is still at the Amazon, meaning that there are still Mini-Cons left there. The Autobots depart with the Mini-Con, unaware that Starscream is still online.

Back at the Amazon, the Autobots fight their way through the jungle and then an ancient pyramid, ultimately reaching the Decepticon base, where they defeat Cyclonus, causing him to crash and explode. Afterwards, the Autobots spot several Decepticon Dropships heading to the Atlantic Ocean and follow them. There, they find a massive warship, and fight their way across multiple small islands, ultimately finding the Mini-Con Slipstream, who grants them the ability to glide. They use this to board the ship and make their way to its control room, learning it is headed to Alaska. The ship then transforms into robot mode revealing itself to be Tidal Wave, but the Autobots defeat him, sending him plunging into the ocean.

The Autobots travel to Alaska, believing it to be the location of Megatron's base on Earth, and make their way through the snowy mountains and a cave system, before Starscream attempts to crash a ship on purpose to stop them with the Autobots barely escaping. Fighting their way through the crashed ship, the Autobots confront Starscream on the bridge, but the scuffle causes the ship to fall off a cliff and into a valley down below. After making their way out of the ship, the Autobots defeat Starscream, who is then knocked out by Optimus. With Red Alert hacking into his warp transponder, they learn that Megatron's base is actually located on a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, so the Autobots head there next. They fight their way to the island's center, which is an active volcano, and eventually confront Megatron, just as the volcano erupts. Optimus attempts to save Megatron, but the latter refuses his help and allows himself to fall into the lava. Escaping from the volcano, the Autobots believe they won, unaware that the planet-sized Transformer Unicron has arrived on Cybertron.

As Unicron begins destroying Cybertron, Optimus, Red Alert and Hot Shot return home alongside all the rescued Mini-Cons, whose combined powers give the three Autobots the means to stop Unicron. Equipped with jetpacks, they fly into Unicron and destroy his core, causing him to explode. Afterwards, the Autobots and the Mini-Cons celebrate their victory as Cybertron is finally at peace.

The Earth is being swept by a toad plague. Enter, the lone Samurai, Max Hell, the Earth's last hope to save the planet from the mad clutches of Mickey O'Malley.

"Shaw stars as Max Hell in this no-budget mess that doesn’t really have much to do with earlier Frogtown movies. He uses a samurai sword and seems irresistible to women. The plot involves some renegade scientist about to detonate a bomb that’ll turn everyone into toads."

"Jackson and Shaw codirected 1996's Toad Warrior, which taps one of their other obsessions: amphibian ninjas. We're in an alternate universe set during the Third Toad Resistance, in which Joe Estevez is the president, who lives in a tent with dirt-covered babes. Shaw fights ninjas in a car park. Old Ed Wood player Conrad Brooks wears a beekeeper's getup and sleeps while a purple alligator talks to him."

This film follows the lead character, Max Hell, played by Scott Shaw, who goes on a mission to rescue Dr. Trixi T from the clutches of the evil Mickey O'Malley, played by Joe Estevez. According to Donald G. Jackson, ''Max Hell Frog Warrior'' is not so much a sequel as it is a standalone film inspired by the original concept for ''Hell Comes to Frogtown''.

The story describes Augie March's growth from childhood to a fairly stable maturity. Augie, with his brother Simon and the mentally abnormal George have no father and are brought up by their mother, who is losing her eyesight, and a tyrannical, grandmother-like boarder, in very humble circumstances in the rough parts of Chicago. Augie drifts from one situation to another in a free-wheeling manner — jobs, women, homes, education and lifestyle.

Augie March's path seems to be partly self-made and partly comes around through chance. In lifestyle he ranges from near adoption by a wealthy couple who spoil him, to a struggle for existence stealing books and helping out friends in desperate straits. His most unusual adventure is his flight to Mexico with the wild and irrepressible Thea who tries to catch lizards with an eagle. Thea attempts to convince Augie to join her in this seemingly impossible task.

His jobs include general assistance to the slightly corrupt Einhorn, helping in a dog training parlor, working for his brother at a coal-tip, and working for the Congress of Industrial Organizations until finally he joins the merchant navy in the war.

Augie attracts and gets involved with a string of different women. Firstly a casual acquaintance as a youth, he gets engaged to a wealthy cousin of his brother's wife. However, through a scandal not of his fault, he is discarded. After a casual affair with Sophie, a Greek hotel maid, he is swept off by Thea, whom he had met when living with the rich Renlings and who forecast their relationship even though he loved her sister. After the fiasco in Mexico, where he suffered a terrible accident on a horse, he and Thea began drifting apart; he spending his time playing cards and she hunting for snakes and lizards in the mountains. Their inevitable split came the night he agreed to drive another woman, Stella, to another town to escape her troubled boyfriend. After the break-up, Augie returned to Chicago and picked back up with Sophie until joining the merchant navy and heading to New York. There he met up with Stella again and married her.

All through the book, Augie is encouraged into education, but never quite seems to make it; he reads a great deal for himself and develops a philosophy of life. Something or somebody always tends to crop up, turning his path before Augie seriously considers returning to education.

During the war, his ship is sunk and he suffers a difficult episode in a lifeboat with a man who turns out to be a lunatic. After rescue, he returns to Stella and the book ends with them living a slightly dubious existence in France, he involved in some fairly shady business deals and she attempting to pursue a career in acting.

This exploitation film belongs to the social guidance genre of quasi-documentary narratives, which exhort young adults to follow particular moral and social prescriptions related to sexuality and drug use.

The film centers on Paul Lorenz, a "concerned citizen" alarmed at the spread of venereal diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea. However, at a New York City burlesque show, several protagonists are more intent on engagement in sexual pleasure, regardless of the subsequent costs. They include Paul's own son Tom, burlesque dancer Sheila Wayne (who has syphilis), and two secretaries, lesbian Peggy and Betty, whom she is trying to seduce. However, one figure is not amongst them—Millicent Hamilton, a reformed former burlesque dancer. Millicent won a beauty contest in her hometown, which led her to New York, but a "casting couch" sexual encounter led her to contract syphilis. Millicent is told by her physician, Dr. Hamilton, that her condition can be cured, but only after slow, and painstaking treatment, and she should reject quack pseudo-cures. Millicent consents to this, eager to return to her home town and marry her boyfriend Wendell, but will she heed the doctor's warnings? And what will the consequences be if she does not?

Wild parties, lesbianism, and premarital sex are portrayed or heavily implied in various scenes. The promotion of the film for "educational" purposes allowed it to portray taboo subjects that were otherwise forbidden by the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, especially after those restrictions were strictly imposed on Hollywood productions after July 1934.

After the TV show ''Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'' begins showing, metrosexuality becomes extremely popular among the males, who all begin acting effeminately. At the school bus stop, instead of their usual winter clothing, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny wear unmasculine clothing. Kyle, who declines to conform, is beaten up by Craig, Token, Jason, and Tweak at school. Cartman, Kenny, and even Stan abandon Kyle. Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave, the town's gay couple, are initially excited but quickly turn against the fad when they realize that metrosexuals are straight men imitating gay culture and lifestyle, which Garrison believes insults actual gays. The women of the town initially enjoy their husbands' improved hygiene and willingness to communicate, but soon tire of the men's increasing self-absorption. When the wives confront the men and boys about this, Randy accuses them of being "metrophobic" and the other males concur, consequently becoming even more feminine.

Hoping to end the fad, Kyle, Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Slave go to New York to kill the Fab Five, the hosts of "Queer Eye". Their mission fails but the Fab Five decide against pressing charges. Mr. Garrison then tries to talk the nonchalant gay stars out of selling out gay culture for mere ratings, which they ignore. Mr. Garrison demands to know how gays could betray their own people, slowly realizing that they are not gay at all. The five suddenly gravely turn to the others and their human bodies burst open, revealing themselves as an ancient race of "Crab People".

Captured by these Crab People (who chant "Crab People" repeatedly), the gay couple and Kyle fail to stop the crabs from executing their plans of ruling the earth by destroying the human race (through changing men into metrosexuals) and the Crab People force them to become Crab People instead; however, the wives attack and kill the ''Queer Eye'' guys. They explain that masculinity really makes males attractive, even if said males are gross. The ''Queer Eye'' producers are about to press charges on the women until they discover that the Fab Five were not human, noting that the Crab People tried this before with ''The Jeffersons''. They decide instead to "bring back the Latin fad" — which the citizens of South Park slavishly adopt.

At school, Stan, Kenny, and Cartman accept Kyle again, but when he complains that they previously forsook him, the others call him "gay" and go and play football. He initially walks away in the opposite direction, but then, he stops, turns around, and reluctantly goes to play with them.

In the seventeenth century, pirate captain Ras Mohammed (Peter Boyle), accompanied by his incompetent Irish cook Dick Scratcher (Peter Sellers) and three crewmen, buries three chests of treasure on an unnamed island. Scratcher then kills the captain and three crewmen. He returns to the pirate ship and proclaims himself the new captain, as only he knows the location of the treasure. He soon discovers his predecessor's treasure map was drawn in disappearing ink. Fourteen years later, the pirate ship reaches Ireland, although Scratcher believes they are on a Greek island. The crew behaves gluttonously, with the exception of the debonair and cerebral Pierre Rodriquez (Anthony Franciosa).

They abduct an Irish boy, Jeremiah (Richard Willis), whom Scratcher believes can see ghosts and will therefore be able to contact Ras Mohammed's ghost for directions to the treasure. After seeing off the British Navy by posing as Portuguese fishermen suffering the "red plague", the pirates sail to Algiers, where Jeremiah is taken prisoner. The pirates encounter Scratcher's old friend Billy Bombay (Spike Milligan) and later release Jeremiah.

After threats of mutiny by a pirate named Abdullah (Thomas Baptiste), the pirates end up back at the island of buried treasure. They dig up Billy Bombay's treasure chest of silver cannonballs and fire them at Billy Bombay and his six brothers, leaving only Billy alive. Separately, Pierre, Jeremiah and Abdullah discover Ras Mohammed's treasure. The film ends with Scratcher buried up to his neck in sand, while Billy Bombay is tied to a tree, and the two shout insults at each other.

Mr. Topaze (Peter Sellers) is an unassuming school teacher in an unassuming small French town who is honest to a fault. He is sacked when he refuses to give a passing grade to a bad student, the grandson of a wealthy Baroness (Martita Hunt). Castel Benac (Herbert Lom), a government official who runs a crooked financial business on the side, is persuaded by his mistress, Suzy (Nadia Gray), a musical comedy actress, to hire Mr. Topaze as the front man for his business. Gradually, Topaze becomes a rapacious financier who sacrifices his honesty for success and, in a final stroke of business bravado, fires Benac and acquires Suzy in the deal. An old friend and colleague, Tamise (Michael Gough) questions him and tells Topaze that what he now says and practices indicates there are no more honest men.

Robert Danvers is a vain, womanizing and wealthy host of a high-profile television cooking show. He meets Marion, a no-nonsense 19-year-old American hippie who has just broken up with her British rock musician boyfriend Jimmy. After a halting start, they begin an affair, and she accompanies him on a trip to a wine-tasting festival in France, where she embarrasses him by getting extremely drunk, but they enjoy their time together on the coast in the South of France. However, when they return to London, Marion makes up with Jimmy and turns down a desperate proposal of marriage from Danvers. Throughout the film, Danvers' favourite line with women is: "My God, but you're lovely"—which, in the final scene after Marion has gone back to Jimmy and Danvers has made a date with another woman, he says to his own reflection.

Telling her fiancé Tom that she must spend a week with her sick grandmother, Janet instead goes to the flat of Hoffman, a recently divorced executive whom she hardly knows from the firm where she works. Her visit is not voluntary; Hoffman claims to have evidence that could send Tom to jail and has blackmailed her into spending the week with him. Although he desires Janet, Hoffman is still bitter about women and, without pressuring her physically, bullies her psychologically. Young and inexperienced, she eventually begins to fight back and even initiates some sexual provocation, insulting Hoffman when he does not respond.

Hoffman and Janet are interrupted when Tom comes looking for his missing fiancée after receiving an anonymous phone call from Hoffman, and Janet leaves with Tom. Discussing the situation, Tom and his mother ask Janet to return to Hoffman and to continue treating him well in order to keep Tom out of jail. Dismayed that Tom and his mother are more concerned for themselves than for her, Janet returns to Hoffman and negotiates the terms of his invitation to become his permanent companion.

A woman (Daniela Doria) is in an abandoned house looking for her boyfriend. After she discovers his body stabbed with scissors, she is stabbed in the head with a French knife, and her body is dragged through a cellar door by an unknown assailant.

In New York City, Bob Boyle (Giovanni Frezza) and his parents, Norman and Lucy Boyle (Paolo Malco and Catriona MacColl, respectively), are moving into the same house. Norman's ex-colleague, Dr. Peterson, who murdered his mistress before committing suicide, was the previous owner. The Boyles are to stay there while Norman researches old houses. As his mother packs, Bob looks at a house's photograph and notices a girl in it. In New Whitby, Boston, Bob waits in his parents' car while they collect the house keys. The girl from the photograph appears across the street. The girl, Mae Freudstien (Silvia Collatina), whom only Bob can see, warns him to stay away. In the real estate office, Mrs. Laura Gittleson (Dagmar Lassander) is annoyed when her colleague hands the couple "the Freudstein keys." She insists it is called "Oak Mansion" and promises to find the Boyles a babysitter.

Oak Mansion is in a poor state of repair. The cellar door is locked and nailed shut. A woman arrives and introduces herself as Ann, the babysitter (Ania Pieroni). That night, Norman hears noises and finds Ann unblocking the cellar door. The next day, Norman goes to the library to peruse Peterson's materials. The chief librarian, Mr. Wheatley (Carlo De Mejo), appears to recognize him, but Norman claims he is mistaken. The assistant librarian, Daniel Douglas (Giampaolo Saccarola), then informs Norman that Peterson conducted private research at the house. He studied records of area disappearances and other demographic data.

Mae shows Bob a tombstone on the grounds marked "Mary Freudstein" and says she is not really buried there. Indoors, Lucy finds the tombstone of "Jacob Tess Freudstein" while sweeping the hallway. When Norman returns, he reassures her that some older houses have indoor tombs because of the hard wintry ground. Norman opens the cellar door and walks down the stairs, only to be attacked by a bat, which won't let go until he stabs it repeatedly. Spooked, the family drives down to the real estate office and demands to be re-housed but are told it will be a few more days before they can move. While the Boyles are at the hospital to treat Norman's injuries from the bat, Mrs. Gittleson arrives at the house to tell them of a new property. Letting herself in, she stands over the Freudstein tombstone, which cracks apart, pinning her ankle. A figure emerges, stabs her to death with a fireplace poker, and drags her into the cellar.

Lucy finds Ann cleaning a bloodstain on the kitchen floor the next morning. Ann eludes Lucy's questions about the stain. Over coffee, Norman tells Lucy that he has discovered that Freudstein was a Victorian surgeon who conducted illegal experiments. Norman must travel to New York to research Freudstein. On the way, Norman visits the library and finds an audio cassette of Peterson's, which documents Peterson's increasing madness and reveals what he discovered about Freudstein. Norman destroys the cassette by dropping it into a furnace pipe.

Ann goes to the cellar looking for Bob at the house and hears childlike sobbing sounds. Freudstein decapitates her after slashing her throat. Bob sees Ann's head and exits screaming. Lucy returns to find Bob crying in his room but refuses to believe Bob's account about Ann. That evening, Bob returns to the cellar looking for Ann but gets locked in. Lucy hears Bob's cries and tries to open the cellar door. Norman returns and hacks the door with a hatchet when she cannot open it. The rotting right hand of Dr. Freudstein (Giovanni De Nava) appears and restrains Bob against the door as the hatchet chops through it. One of Norman's axe blows breaks through the door, severs the ghoul's seemingly ordinary left hand, and he staggers back down the stairs.

Norman and Lucy finally get into the cellar, which contains several mutilated bodies (including Ann, Mrs. Gittleson, and the couple from the beginning), surgical equipment, and a slab. Freudstein is a living corpse with rotting flesh. Norman tells Lucy that the 150-year-old Freudstein lives by using his victims' parts to regenerate blood cells. Norman attacks Freudstein, but the ghoul twists the hatchet away. Grabbing a knife from the slab, Norman stabs Freudstein, causing rotten flesh and maggots to ooze out of his old lab coat. Freudstein grabs Norman and rips open his throat. Lucy and Bob climb a ladder leading to the underside of the cracked tombstone. Lucy strains to shift the stone, but Freudstein grabs her and drags her down the stairs, killing her by ramming her head into the concrete floor. As Freudstein advances up the ladder, Bob strains to escape. As Freudstein grabs Bob's leg, he is suddenly pulled upwards by Mae. With Mae is her mother, Mary Freudstein (Teresa Rossi Passante), who tells them it's time to leave. Mrs. Freudstein leads Mae and Bob down the wintry grove into an apparent ghost world.

Granger (Dominic Purcell), a DJ at commercial radio station Rock FM is fired from his job, so he and his long-time friends Robert and the blind Zelda (Nadine Garner) decide to start their own independent radio station. However, they are completely unprepared for the number of kids who show up wanting to be DJs — many of whom are quite lazy. They hire a staff from the group of volunteers, and have a launch party. In subsequent episodes, we find out more about each of the staff as different episodes focus on different characters.

''Mega Man Soccer'' is set after ''Mega Man 4''. A televised soccer game is interrupted when an explosion occurs on the field. As the smoke clears, all the players are suddenly replaced with several of Dr. Wily's Robot Masters. Having seen the events occur onscreen, the inventor Dr. Light sends his greatest creation, the hero Mega Man, along with some of his own Robot Masters to stop them. The game has no ending, which is actually unused and inaccessible. The game's unused ending seemingly depicts Mega Man's death.

The player takes the role of Haplo and starts in the Nexus with Lord Xar. Lord Xar tasks Haplo to visit the four worlds, Arianus, Pryan, Abarrach and Chelestra and retrieve the seal pieces of these worlds. Xar plans to undo the Sundering with the Reformation, the act of recreating the Earth again and he needs the seal pieces to do so. To travel to the other worlds, Haplo is given a ship with a magical steering stone. If the symbol of a world is magically engraved on it, the ship can travel to that world through the Death Gate. Xar gives Haplo the symbol of Arianus, the realm of air, and Haplo sets sail.

'''Arianus'''

Haplo arrives on the lower realm of Arianus, inhabited by dwarves. A dwarf called Limbeck studies a machine called the Kicksey-winsey. Glowing figures try to get the Kicksey-winsey to work. According to the dwarves they are gods. Haplo manages to get aboard the ship of the gods and finds out they are elves. He finds human slaves that operate the ship. One of them is the cousin of the human king, King Stephen. Haplo brings a message to King Stephen and returns to the elven ship. He manages to break the glowing spell of the elves. The dwarves expel the elves and the elven ship leaves. Haplo manages to lure it into a human ambush and the slaves are rescued. On his search for the seal piece, Haplo goes to Skurvash, a smuggler's den. He manages to catch the attention of Hugh the Hand and infiltrates the Brotherhood. In their tower he finds an artifact of Sartan origin as well as a manual to the Kicksey-winsey and the book of Pryan. He returns to the Kicksey-winsey, fixes it and uses it to dig a tunnel to a secret chamber. Inside he finds crystal coffins with Sartan. All are dead. Haplo manages to find the seal piece of Arianus in the chamber. He returns to the Nexus and hands Xar the seal piece. Xar then sends Haplo to Pryan, the realm of Fire. Haplo transfers Pryan's symbol from the book onto the steering stone and ventures through the Death Gate.

'''Pryan'''

Haplo lands near a huge citadel but can't enter. In the forest he encounters giant creatures called . Being stuck he sets sail to a city he had seen. He encounters elves. He meets a group of elven and human children, including the elven prince. They take him to one of their secret meetings with a wizard called Zifnab. Haplo follows Zifnab. He meets Zifnab and his dragon. Zifnab seems to be a crazy wizard but Haplo learns that Zifnab is a Sartan. Zifnab senses that Haplo is very important even though he is a Patryn. He tells Haplo that the Citadel is supposed to generate power for the other realms and that the are supposed to operate it. Inside the Citadel is the seal piece of Pryan. But the Citadel is closed and can only be opened by the mensch with three specific objects, a golden staff, a golden sword and a golden hammer. The golden sword is carried by the human leader and is currently in hands of the human princess. The golden staff had been given to the elves but one king tossed it into a giant crevice known as the 'Maw'. The golden hammer is in possession of the dwarves. Haplo needs the humans, elves and dwarves to use their golden items to open the citadel. But he also needs to distract the who seem to worship a crystal fragment and have forgotten about their tasks for the citadel. Zifnab also tells Haplo of the Wave, the balance of the universe and that his dragon was created by the Wave trying to restore the balance, in response to something very evil that happened a long time ago. He gives Haplo a stone that will glow when he will encounter this evil and tells Haplo to crush the stone when that happens. Haplo retrieves the golden staff and convinces the human princess and the elven prince to accompany him to the Citadel. In the forest they free a dwarven girl from the . The girls tells him that the hammer is stashed in the vault and that the vault is only opened when the dwarves go to war. With help from the princess and the prince, Haplo manages to steal the crystal fragment which enrages the . Haplo tosses it into the dwarven tunnels and the start attacking it. The dwarven girl obtains the hammer and the mensch open the Citadel and the take their place. Zifnab allows Haplo to take the seal piece even though he knows that Lord Xar wants to conquer the realms and rid it of the Sartan. Haplo returns to the Nexus and delivers the seal piece to Xar who sends Haplo to Abarrach, the realm of Earth. On the crystal fragment, Haplo finds the symbol of Abarrach and transfers it to his steering stone.

'''Abarrach'''

Haplo arrives in a deserted city populated by undead Sartan. He manages to find the journal of Balthazar, a royal necromancer and learns the location of the palace of the dynasty of Abarrach. Haplo visits this dynast, Kleitus the XIV. Kleitus senses that Haplo is a Patryn and poisons him. Haplo is thrown into a dungeon where he meets Edmund, a Sartan prince, who is poisoned as well. By possessing the dog of Kleitus, Haplo manages to get the antidote and the keys to their chains and they escape. Edmund takes Haplo to his people and he meets Balthazar in the refugee caves. Balthazar tells him that the mensch perished a long time ago and the Sartan are slowly being extinct by what they call 'The Plague'. Haplo finds a secret tunnel and has a vision of the time of Kleitus I. He also finds a book which condemns necromancy. For every resurrected dead Sartan, one dies an untimely death. The practice of necromancy is the source of the Plague and responsible for killing the Sartan on Arianus. Haplo also learns that Kleitus I has sabotaged the Colossus, which channels the energy of Abarrach and used a part of it to make him a powerful scepter that can kill anyone instantly. Haplo manages to return to the palace, find and fix the Colossus and Kleitus XIV is killed by Edmund. Edmund realized that Haplo is a Patryn, but sees him as a friend since Haplo helped him and his people. He gives Haplo an amulet out of gratitude. The amulet contains the symbols of the five realms, Arianus, Pryan, Abarrach, Chelestra and the Nexus. Haplo retrieves the seal piece of Arianus from the secret room of the Colossus and returns to the Nexus. Xar hastily sends Haplo to Chelestra, the realm of Water. Haplo transfers the symbol of Chelestra from the amulet to the steering stone and heads off.

'''Chelestra'''

Haplo arrives near a Sartan city that is warded by a powerful shield spell. He also finds a cave and his stone glows faintly. Unspeakable terror prohibits from entering. He neutralizes the ward of the Sartan city and is attacked by Sang-Drax, who appears a black winged dragon with red eyes. Sang-Drax tosses the stone away, being afraid of it. Haplo is terrified and nearly can't move. Just before Sang-Drax burns his body, he transfers his soul to the dog, that has been following him since Abarrach and escapes into the city. Haplo's body is restored with his soul by Samah, the Sartan that lead the council that destroyed the world. Sang-Drax enters the now unshielded city and steals the final seal piece and changes his form to Haplo and leaves. Samah tells him that Sang-Drax will try to make Xar proceed with the Reformation. The Reformation will result in the death of the mensch, Sartan and Patryns, and have catastrophic consequences. Samah tells Haplo that the Interconnection must be done. The realms will align and function according to the old Sartan plan. Pryan will generate power for all realms, Abarrach will supply raw materials for the Kicksey-winsey, the Kicksey-winsey will use the raw materials to make tools and materials for all worlds and Chelestra will supply water to the worlds. All this is done through the Death Gate. They give Haplo a Sartan ship without a steering stone. Haplo manages to find a substitute and transfers the symbols from the amulet on to it. He retrieves the stone and returns to the Nexus.

'''The Nexus & the Labyrinth'''

Haplo finds Xar and the Nexus seal piece gone. He follows them through the Labyrinth, encountering a Patryn village that is under attack. He manages to find a cave. He encounters Sang-Drax again. He drinks nullifying water, which nullifies his magical abilities. That makes him immune to all kinds of magic, including Sang-Drax's aura of terror but also prohibits Haplo from casting magic. He breaks Zifnab's stone and Zifnab and his dragon appear. The dragon fights Sang-Drax and both are injured. Zifnab, Haplo and the dragon follow Sang-Drax to the Vortex, the place where the Sundering had been initiated. Haplo finds Xar and Sang-Drax and convinces Xar to start the Interconnection. Sang-drax kills Xar before he can do so. Haplo figures out how to start the Interconnection himself and does so. Sang-Drax is defeated and the realms are properly aligned.

Characters

Haplo: Haplo is the main character and controlled by the player. He is a Patryn and is commanded by his Lord Xar to find the four seal pieces of the realms Arianus, Pryan, Abarrach and Chelestra. Unlike the book, Haplo has no dog as a companion until he reaches Abarrach, where he finds the dog of Kleitus. In the book Haplo had a dog as a companion from the beginning. Also Haplo isn't nearly as powerful as in the books, probably due to gameplay reasons. He can be easily killed by some mensch if you make the wrong choices. Lord Xar: Xar is the most powerful Patryn, the first Patryn to escape the Labyrinth and Lord of the Nexus. He is intended to take revenge on the Sartan. He wants to five seal pieces of the five realms to bring about the Reformation which is supposed to restore the Earth to its former form and undo the Sundering. He intends to rule all the mensch. Like the character from the books he is dedicated and determined to destroy the Sartan. In the game, he is far more easily convinced not to proceed with the Reformation though. Zifnab: Just as in the book, Zifnab appears as a crazy wizard. Zifnab is important, explaining a lot about the workings of the Citadels and giving Haplo the stone to combat true evil. He later returns with his dragon to fight Sang-Drax and save Haplo so that Haplo can bring about the Interconnection. The game makes no connection however between Zifnab and the Labyrinth and the books found in the Nexus. His dragon also seems to be the only one of its kind. Sang-Drax: Sang-Drax is portrayed as a winged dragon, rather than a serpent. Unlike the books he is also the only one of his kind and his origins are never really explained. In the books the serpents are the embodiment of Evil, which were given form by the Sundering. In the game Zifnab simply states that at one point something very evil was created and that his dragon was created in response.

On Earth, Flesh is being filmed for an erotic science-fiction film. After a mishap occurs on set, the director fires the whole crew and Flesh is kidnapped by a trio of space cheerleaders on his way out. Dale, Flesh's fiancé, and Doctor Flexi Jerkoff take off in a spaceship to rescue him. The cheerleaders take Flesh to their planet and introduce him to their leader, Robunda Hooters. She tells him that the planet's men have been infected by Evil Presence's “Impotence Radiation”. Flesh is believed to possess “The Virile Force”, so he alone can stop the ray. Evil Presence and Master Bator, Presence's equally-deviant assistant, hear of Flesh's arrival. Presence plans to kidnap him, steal his penis, and become the only virile man in the universe.

Meanwhile, Dale and Jerkoff feel the effects of the radiation. Their ship's power reduces and lands on the cheerleaders' planer, where Dale and Jerkoff continue searching for Flesh. They spot a college, “Cosmic High”, explore the campus and find Flesh seduced by the cheerleaders into a prolonged orgy. Dale is devastated to discover Flesh supposedly cheating on he. Evil Presence and his crew invade and kidnap Dale. Flesh and Jerkoff hop on a rocket and race to her rescue.

The cheerleaders start chasing Flesh across the galaxy, but Jerkoff distracts them. Flesh manages to keep the ship running, but its power soon drains. It crash-lands on a strange planet surrounded by “Mammary Mountains”, giant lactating breast-shaped hills, overdosed with silicon, which once belonged to an intergalactic tribe of Amazons. Jerkoff insists that he and Flesh stay for a while, as he becomes obsessed by the breast-like relics, but Flesh insists that they rescue Dale. They are then shocked to learn that the hills have lured them to a gay alien. As Flesh and Jerkoff flee from him, the cheerleaders land on the planet and spot Flesh and Jerkoff hiding in a cave. The alien pokes his genitalia into the cave and ejaculates inside.

Flesh and Jerkoff slide down the cave and enter the “G-Spot”, a milk bar run by voluptuous lactating women, who turn their customers into overgrown babies. Bazonga Bomber, a waitress, serves Jerkoff and Flesh. Though Flesh wisely passes, Jerkoff fails to resist the temptation and gets turned into a baby. The cheerleaders catch up with Flesh and Jerkoff at the bar. Robunda and Flesh make amends and Bazonga points to the exit of the bar. Jerkoff, Flesh and Robunda go through a tunnel and notice an unpleasant smell. They soon find its source: a tribe of sentient excrements, known as “The Turd People”, who insist the three should join their clan. The Turd People are about to reincarnate the trio into Turds, but Jerkoff repels them with laxative chewing gum. One of the Turds, Bazonga's long-lost father, informs the trio of Dale's whereabouts and helps them escape on a rocket he built.

Flesh, Jerkoff and Robunda arrive at Evil Presence's palace. Presence and Bator detain them and are about to operate on Flesh, when Robunda's cheerleaders appear. One cheerleader almost kills Bater, but Flesh spares his life. Flesh then reluctantly accepts Robunda's idea of having sexual intercourse with Queen Frigid, in a bid to stop the ray. Presence becomes horrified to witness this actually happening and starts a fight with Flesh. He turns out to be Emperor Wang, Flesh's old arch-enemy. Bator and Frigid, now sick of Wang's evil ways, help Flesh in stopping the ray. Wang forces Flesh into a pit, but falls in with him. They land in a spider's web, and a drider emerges. As the drider catches Wang, Flesh frees himself and lands on the bottom of the chasm. He retrieves a jewelled chest from a Jewish sentinel, makes his way out and presents it to Frigid. He releases an oversized condom out of the chest, which Bator applies to the phallic ray-gun.

With the ray stopped and the universe's virility restored, the group celebrates. Frigid reunites with Homer, her ex-husband, whilst Flesh and Dale reconcile. Robunda no longer feels the urge of pursuing Flesh and finds satisfaction in Jerkoff. The heroes state their need to get home, when Frigid and Homer invite them to their remarriage, so both parties exchange farewells. Wang roams the palace grounds in humiliation, as the heroes return to Earth.

Agent 11 is a crime-fighting bullmastiff used by the FBI; he partners with his master, Murdoch, in Seattle. As they go after the Mafia boss, Sonny Talia, Agent 11 attacks him and rips off one of his testicles. Sonny is taken to the hospital to have it surgically replaced. As payback, he sends his two bodyguards, Gino and Arliss, to kill Agent 11. For protection, Agent 11 is sent to a training facility in Alaska.

After Agent 11 escapes, he meets Gordon Smith, who works as a mailman. Gordon dislikes dogs and has volunteered to take care of James McGuire, the young son of his neighbor, Stephanie. Gino and Arliss have continued their search for Agent 11, whom James names "Spot." Agent 11 does not want to catch balls or Frisbees because Murdoch told him not to play when he was a puppy, but he eventually starts to do so with Gordon and James like a normal dog. Later, Gino and Arliss try to kill him while he is with Gordon and James at a pet store, but he outsmarts them.

When the FBI finds out that Spot is living with Gordon, they take him back. He escapes and finds Gordon and James again. Sonny returns and attempts to kill him, but is outsmarted, captured, and imprisoned.

The FBI agents try to take Spot back, but in the end they decide to let him choose with whom he wants to live. He chooses Gordon and James, although he gives Murdoch a goodbye lick. Stephanie returns and is very upset with Gordon for what had happened, but James convinces her that Gordon is a good guy, and they end up together.

One of the film's last scenes is of Sonny in prison, his testicles having been replaced by metal balls (the other one having also been ripped off by Spot) that constantly clack together. One inmate calls him "Music Man", and he threatens, in a higher voice, "I'm gonna catch you in the yard. We're gonna settle this man to man!"

Long ago, a young Plains warrior is tested for initiation by being the target of three different weapons.

Centuries later, Ernest P. Worrell works as a maintenance man at Kamp Kikakee but hopes to become a counselor. He quickly becomes a valuable addition to the staff, skilled at Plains Indian Sign Language, used by Kikakee's owner, Chief St. Cloud.

A small group of juvenile delinquents, the Second Chancers, come to Kikakee. Head Counselor Tipton assigns Kikakee's most experienced counselor, Ross Stennis, to be the boys' counselor. Stennis is unhappy with this assignment, and he treats the boys harshly. He ultimately goes too far by intentionally causing "Moose" Jones, the smallest boy in the group, to nearly drown in the lake while swimming. After Moose is rescued by Ernest, the boys retaliate against Stennis's cruelty by toppling his lifeguard perch into the lake, breaking Stennis' leg in the process. Since Stennis is no longer able to perform his duties as a counselor, and because Kikakee is already shorthanded, Tipton offers Stennis' position to Ernest. The trouble does not stop, as Pennington and his friends, other campers who harass Ernest, also target the new arrivals.

The Second Chancers initially give Ernest trouble, but they start to show some respect during a campfire session when Nurse St. Cloud, the Chief's granddaughter, translates her grandfather's description of the warrior initiation ritual for his tribe. The initiate must hold still while a knife, a stone hatchet, and an arrow are thrown or shot at him. The courage of the young warrior apparently alters the course of each weapon to prevent it from striking him. The Second Chancers later build a tepee only to see it get burned. They fight Pennington and his friends, because they were responsible for the fire. Tipton is poised to expel the Second Chancers, but Ernest convinces him otherwise.

Meanwhile, a mining corporation run by Sherman Krader wants to mine the petrocite at Kikakee, but Chief St. Cloud refuses to sell. Upon realizing that the Chief does not even understand English, Krader manipulates Ernest into obtaining the Chief's signature under false pretenses. Ernest, thinking that he is helping the Chief sign an anti-pollution petition, instead unknowingly convinces the Chief to sign the land away. Tipton sadly announces that the camp must close. Nurse St. Cloud confronts Ernest, who stammers that he will fix the situation.

Ernest and the Second Chancers storm onto the construction site and demand to see the boss. Krader is not present, but the foreman, Bronk is. Ernest tries to fight him, but Bronk brutally beats him up. The Second Chancers give up on Ernest and storm away. Later, Nurse St. Cloud overhears the kids demeaning Ernest's effort, so she reveals to them that Ernest is the only person who has defended them. They resolve to find him and apologize. They then form a plan to stop Krader and his construction crew.

Krader is prepared to demolish Kikakee, and while the regular staff and campers are sent home, Ernest and the Second Chancers openly attack the construction site to stall for time. They are joined by Chief St. Cloud, chefs Jake and Eddie, along with Pennington and Brooks, putting aside their rivalry. The group improvises some explosive weapons. Chief St. Cloud arrives to bless the fighters, although Nurse St. Cloud begs them not to go through with it. The assault quickly cripples the construction site's equipment. However, Bronk escapes in a bulldozer and destroys several camp buildings. The group stops him with Ernest's motorized maintenance cart filled with explosives, Ernest then knocks out Bronk.

Krader arrives on the scene with his lawyer, and then targets Ernest with his hunting rifle. Echoing Kikakee's ancient testimonial pow wow, Ernest faces down Krader and apparently passes the test as Krader takes three shots at him, missing every time. Ernest then plugs Krader's rifle with his finger and laughs in his face, signaling Krader's defeat. As Krader retreats, Nurse St. Cloud returns with a restraining order against the demolition.

Kamp Kikakee is once again operational, with all the campers and a full staff on site, plus, the last chance kids get to stay at camp. Nurse St. Cloud thanks Ernest for all he has done and reveals that Krader was ultimately arrested for fraud. Ernest is now a full-fledged counselor and also continues to perform his regular duties. As Ernest tries to rebuild the Kamp Kikakee sign, he ultimately falls and then the sign falls on him.

The only story arc of the series is called “Phoenix Agenda” and is set in 2060. The 20th century backstory is interwoven throughout the four books out of sequence via flashbacks.

In December 1959, the Carson family meets with famous explorer Mike Worley in South America to investigate an ancient, giant spaceship that had crashed in the Amazon jungle in the distant past. The ship's systems trap the four and expose them a mutagenic substance intended to give the ship's crew powers as warriors on whatever planet they visit. The substance would later be nicknamed, "Gunk." They escape after brief exposure to the Gunk, but it gives each of them superpowers which they use to fight for good as the original Danger Unlimited. The members include Miss Mirage (Connie Carson), who can project illusions. Her brother Thermal (Calvin Carson) can fly and project heat and cold. Their father, Doc Danger (Dr. Robert Carson), is a brilliant scientist who had his intellect augmented even more, continuing his mutation over the years with an increasingly enlarged cranium and atrophied limbs until he became nothing more than an enormous head by 1985, supported by a flying platform with robotic manipulator arms. And Hunk (Worley), who gains rough, stone-like, superhard skin and superstrength. Connie was immediately attracted to Mike and they would eventually marry. In 1985, the team engages in a final battle with Umbra, their nemesis. During Umbra's attack on the team's headquarters, Thermal is seriously injured and Doc Danger places him into a biological stasis chamber before turning to battle Umbra alone. Nobody knows what happened after that, but Doc Danger shuts down all systems and seals the headquarters in a force field with a time lock set to disengage in 75 years. The team was missing and presumed dead.

In 2060, the time lock releases the force field and the new Earth government moved in to demolish the headquarters. A sudden energy signature inside draws a military team to investigate. When they try to cut into the containment pod, Calvin's latent powers allow him to absorb the energy and burst free from the containment pod, after which he loses consciousness. A sample of Gunk was also stored inside the pod and explodes over Corporal Teresa LaFayette, a fan of Danger Unlimited. Both Calvin and Teresa are comatose for the next two weeks, Teresa as a giant, spiky, rocky humanoid. When they awake, Calvin has amnesia and no longer seems to have his powers after that first and only outburst. Teresa has reverted to human form. Professor Davis Palmenter, who was studying what happened to Teresa, realizes it was Gunk at work again and smashes the sample vial of it with his hand. He is split into three identical but independent clones who think in unison. Captain Brewster, Teresa's commanding officer and also a freedom sympathizer, explains to Calvin that an alien race called the Xlerii invaded Earth in 2010. All superhumans mysteriously vanished in 2011 during the ensuing Alien War. The ship that the Carsons investigated in 1959 was a Xlerii advance scout. After defeating the bulk of Earth's military forces, the Xlerii offered Earth a deal for peace and prosperity but in reality are taking over, altering the global environment to fit their needs. The Earth is now perpetually dark and shrouded by clouds, with almost constant rain. Discussion of the superhumans and their disappearance is forbidden under Xlerii rule.

Brewster gives Calvin a mnemonic stimulator to help him recall memories of his past life with Danger Unlimited.

As Teresa is introduced to Calvin, a Xlerii enforcer in battle armor attacks them in his hospital room. Teresa transforms and defeats the enforcer. The Xlerii try to excuse the attack as an automated response to Calvin's reappearance. They claim to have no role in the disappearance of Earth's superhumans and thus had never seen the need to remove them from their database as enemy combatants. Brewster is suspicious and arranges a police vehicle for Teresa and Calvin to leave the hospital. They're discovered and pursued but manage to escape.

Teresa and Calvin flee to her supercentenarian great-great-grandmother's house in Louisiana. The three Palmenter clones arrive, sent by Captain Brewster, and convinces them to become a new Danger Unlimited, with additional encouragement from Teresa's ancestor, who remembers the time before the Xlerii arrived and there was still sunlight in the sky. Teresa takes on the name "Belabet," based on her great-great-grandmother's Creole exclamation of "La belle et la bete" (Beauty and the Beast) upon seeing her transform. The Palmenters call themselves "Caucus." They plan to pursue two main missions: to drive the Xlerii from Earth and to find out what happened to all of the superheroes. Calvin would continue to try to regain his memories and discover the fate of his Danger Unlimited teammates.

The game's setting begins in Tamriel on the 389th year of the Third Era, when Emperor Uriel Septim VII summons his advisor and Imperial Battlemage Jagar Tharn over concerns of betrayal from within the court. It transpires that his concerns were justified when Tharn is revealed to be the traitor, magically trapping the Emperor and his general, Talin Warhaft, in another dimension.

When Tharn proceeds to magically disguise himself as Emperor in order to usurp the throne, his conspiracy is witnessed by mage apprentice Ria Silmane, whom he murders before she can warn the Elder Council. Tharn then summons demon minions to replace the Emperor's Guard and in his disguise he sends the player character, a court official and subordinate of General Warhaft, to die in the Imperial dungeons.

Following her death, Ria uses her magic to take an incorporeal form, holding herself together long enough to inform the imprisoned player of Tharn's betrayal and instructs them throughout their escape from the infamous dungeons. Past that point, she lacks the power to manifest physically and appears to the player during dreams. She creates a key to allow the player to escape the dungeons and teleports them to a different province through a mystical Shift Gate.

The player is informed that the only way to stop Tharn is to get hold of the Staff of Chaos which holds his lifeforce. This staff has been split by Tharn into many fragments throughout the continent of Tamriel. Each time one is found, Ria appears to the player the next time they rest, in order to provide the general location of the next fragment. At the end of the quest in 3E 399 (a decade after the start of the game), the player finds the final piece and reassembles the staff. This, however, does not release the Emperor as all of the staff's power has been drained into the Jewel of Fire, an oversight by Ria. The player travels to the Imperial City to confront Tharn's minions, the player finds the Jewel of Fire and touches it with the Staff of Chaos, this destroys both the jewel and the staff as well as releasing the Emperor. The jewel also turned out to be where Tharn has stored his lifeforce and the destruction of the jewel resulted in his death. As a token of respect and gratitude, Uriel Septim grants the player the title of Eternal Champion, and Ria Silmane finally enters the afterlife.

''Daggerfall'' is set in the Iliac Bay, between the provinces of High Rock and Hammerfell. The player is sent here at the personal request of the Emperor. He wants the player to do two things: First, the player must free the ghost of King Lysandus from his earthly shackles; Second, the player must discover what happened to a letter from the Emperor to the former queen of Daggerfall. The letter reveals that Lysandus's mother, Nulfaga, knows the location of the Mantella, the key to resurrecting the first Numidium, a powerful brass golem. The emperor wants his spy to force Nulfaga into revealing the location of the Mantella so that the Blades can finish the reconstruction of the Numidium. Through a series of mishaps and confusions the letter fell into the hands of an orc by the name of Gortworg. Not knowing what the Mantella is, Gortworg consults Mannimarco, the King of Worms (the leader of the Necromancers). During this time the Underking, who originally destroyed the first Numidium because of its misuse by Tiber Septim, is recuperating deep within a tomb of High Rock after expending so much energy destroying it the first time. In order for the player to give the Mantella to anyone, the player must kill King Lysandus's murderer and put his ghost to rest. After accomplishing this, the player must steal the totem of Tiber Septim from King Gothryd of Daggerfall, and free the Mantella from its prison in Aetherius. Following this the player has six choices of how to deal with the Mantella.

''Daggerfall'' has several endings: * If the player gives the Mantella to the Underking, he absorbs its power, passes into eternal rest, and creates a large "magicka free" area around himself. * If Gortworg is victorious, he uses the Numidium to destroy the Imperial forces and the "Bay Kings", the rulers of the several provinces of the Iliac Bay. The Underking arrives shortly thereafter to destroy the first Numidium once and for all, losing his own life in the process. Gortworg then succeeds in creating Orsinium, a kingdom of Orcs. * If the Blades are victorious, they succeed in recreating the first Numidium and use it to defeat the Bay Kings and the Orcs as well as unite all the provinces of Tamriel under the empire once again. * If any of the Bay Kings win, that king will use the first Numidium to defeat all the other kings just before the Underking destroys him and itself. * If Mannimarco receives the Mantella, he uses it to make himself a god. * One more ending, as described in the strategy guide ''The Daggerfall Chronicles'' and elsewhere, was planned by Bethesda, but is not achievable in-game: if the player activates the Mantella while in possession of the totem (the controlling device of the Numidium), the Numidium will slay the player, go out of control, and be destroyed by Imperial forces.

In Cold War Vienna, Milena Flaherty, a young American woman in her 20s, is rushed to the emergency room after apparently overdosing in a suicide attempt. With her is Alex Linden, an American psychoanalyst who lives in the city working as a university teacher. While doctors and nurses fight to save Milena's life, an investigator, Netusil, begins investigating the incident. Through fragmented flashbacks, the narrative depicts the story of Alex and Milena's romance.

After meeting her at a party, Alex is enchanted by Milena, a sophisticated but free-spirited military brat. The two begin a whirlwind affair, but shortly into the relationship, Milena is revealed to suffer from severe depression and is married to a much older man, Stefan, whom she occasionally visits across the border in Bratislava. Though Alex initially enjoys Milena's free-spirited lifestyle, he soon becomes embittered by it, as it includes impulsive promiscuity and heavy drinking. Alex begins stalking Milena, and eventually confronts her about her marriage to Stefan. She insists that the marriage is simply platonic, and that she and Stefan are no longer in love. Despite this, Alex begins researching into Stefan's past, and inquires with local government agencies about how Milena can proceed with a divorce, which she refuses.

Alex's jealousy of Milena only continues to grow, and he begins to resent her. After one argument, Milena forcefully impels Alex to have sex with her to sate him, and is disgusted with herself after. In one incident, when the couple vacation in Morocco, their vehicle breaks down, and they hitch a ride from two Moroccan men. Alex is left in the bed of the truck, while Milena sits between the two men, flirting with them during the drive, which Alex keenly observes. Upon arriving in Ouarzazate, Alex suggests that he and Milena return to the United States where he can take a teaching position in New York City, but she insists that they live "in the moment."

Milena begins to question her and Alex's romance when she finds evidence that he has been treating her as a case study. Later, Alex confronts her about a photograph in her apartment that he has obsessed over, which shows her at a lake with another man. She tells him the photo is of her and her brother, taken in California years prior, but Alex does not believe her. The following morning, Alex confronts a drunken Milena outside her apartment, telling her he cannot bear the thought of her with another man. When she defiantly renounces him, he slaps her. Later, Milena invites him back to her apartment, only to taunt him in kabuki makeup, mockingly presenting herself as the "new Milena." When he storms out, Milena screams at him from her window, hurling objects at him onto the street below. The following night, Milena leaves Alex a drunken voice message suggesting she wants to die.

In the present, as doctors attempt to revive the dying Melina, Netusil pieces together the chain of events, culminating in an interview with Alex, who presents himself simply as Milena's friend. Uncovering timeline inconsistencies in Alex's story, Netusil determines what actually occurred: Alex, after finding Milena overdosing on poison in her apartment, looked on as she slowly collapsed, and subsequently raped her once she lost consciousness. Though Netusil has physical evidence suggesting Milena was raped, he is unable to elicit a confession from Alex. Stefan arrives, and reveals Milena has survived the overdose following a life-saving tracheotomy. Alex departs without repercussion, but, before he leaves, Stefan comments that he must love Milena more than his own dignity.

Some time later, in New York, Alex sees Milena passing by in front of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel as he enters a taxi. He calls out to her, and she briefly turns toward him, revealing her tracheotomy scar, before impassively walking away.

''Veniss Underground'' alludes in several places to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Like Orpheus, Shadrach descends into the underworld to retrieve his love, Nicola, but here from a cyborg hell, where genetic engineering and DNA splicing create fantastic and horrific creatures. Parallels also exist with Dante's ''Inferno''. Throughout the novel the idea of heaven and hell come into play. Nick looks into the chaotic world in which he tries to find purpose through what is called living art. Nick journeys into the underworld and makes a deal with the "devil", also known as Quin. As the story progresses, the reader takes on the second person perspective of Nicola and is introduced to a meerkat whom Nicola names Salvador. Salvador (an assassin meerkat sent by Quin) attacks Nicola but she incapacitates him. Nick arrives at Nicola's door and chokes her till she is near death and sent to an organ bank in the underworld. Shadrach comes into play in the third person point of view and takes the initiative of finding his lost love Nicola in the underworld. He finds Salvador injured at Nicola's apartment and cuts off the meerkat's head and attaches it to a plate and renames him John the Baptist. After, with the help of Dr. Fergusen, he finds a partially mutilated Nicola in an organ bank under a pile of miscellaneous body parts guarded by a naked troll. He carries Nicola through the tunnels back to his childhood home and finds a creation of Quin named Candle. Candle leads Nick to the Psyche witch named Rafter. After Rafter decides to try to salvage Nicola, Shadrach takes the action of venturing deeper into the underworld to kill Quin. He finds Nick, now transformed into a piece of living art, being attacked by some in the garbage re-cycling facility. Nick takes Shadrach lower and tells him how to get to Quin by jumping off a moving train with a parachute. Nick pushes Shadrach out of the train only to be shot by Shadrach as he falls. Shadrach manages to open his chute yet he hits the ground hard. Later, he wakes by a beach and an ocean and kicks over a skull where he finds another creation of Quin's called the Gollux. The Gollux tells him the truth while John the Baptist lies, the Gollux leads Shadrach to a ray-like creature named the saylber which Shadrach rides across the ocean and into Quin's world which is actually a very large minnow named the leviathan. He kills Quin and the remote and the whole place explodes. Shadrach climbs up the cliffs back to the subway level. Shadrach retrieves Nicola and takes her to the surface where they are both on a bridge staring at the city which is called Veniss.

Setting

Lizzie moves to the south of the United States. She is on a train when four white men harass her. Two black men defend her, and a fight ensues. In the fight, Thomas kills the black man that was with The Negro. He is arrested. He is a nephew of the rich Senator Clarke. The Negro escapes, and the other white men spread the rumour that he had raped Lizzie, so that Thomas shooting the other black man would become acceptable.

The first act

Scene I

The Negro knocks at Lizzie's door. He says that the Whites are chasing him. He asks her to testify for him that he did not harm her in front of the judge, because the Whites want to charge him in court. She refuses to go to the police, but agrees that if they force her to testify, she will tell the truth, but when he tries to hide in her house, she sends him away.

Scene II

Fred, Lizzie's client from last night, comes out of the bathroom. He is the senator's son. During the scene, he directs the conversation towards the incident on the train. He tries in many different ways to get Lizzie to go to the police and testify against The Negro, but Lizzie says no to everything and refuses to falsely testify that the black man raped her, when in reality, she was being harassed by white men on the train and the black men defended her. At the end of the scene, the voice of a police officer is heard. The police officer enters Lizzie's house with his colleague.

Scene III

Scene III features John and James, the two policemen who were previously only heard speaking from offstage. They know and like Fred, and are also racists. They also try to convince Lizzie to testify against The Negro. When the three men present Lizzie with a document that would prove the rape allegations with Lizzie's signature, she again says no.

Scene IV

In scene IV, the senator himself goes to Lizzie's house. He is a good speaker, and he knows how to talk to voters. He gains Lizzie's trust during the scene, and at the end he gives her a choice. Either The Negro, who "hangs around, robs and sings" or Thomas, "an officer, Harvard student and good American". While she is still reluctant, the senator takes Lizzie's hand and forces her to sign. Lizzie immediately realizes her mistake and tries to call the senator back. However, the senator has already disappeared and does not listen to Lizzie.

The second act

The second act takes place 12 hours later, also at Lizzie's house. During this time The Negro has jumped through one of her windows and is hiding behind a curtain.

Scene I

On the same evening, the senator visits Lizzie. He gives her a $100 reward for her testimony. As for The Negro, he is wanted by a white lynchmob, who are searching for him in every house.

Scene II

The Negro comes out of hiding and asks Lizzie, who is shocked to see him, to help hide him. Lizzie gives him a revolver, but he states that he doesn't want to use it on the mob, so the revolver is relatively useless to him. There are then noises from the street, as the mob is coming closer. The Negro hides in the bathroom when there is a knock at the door.

Scene III

Scene III is very short. Lizzie explains to the men knocking on the door that she has not hidden The Negro, because she was raped by him. The men believe it and leave.

Scene IV

In scene IV, The Negro comes out of hiding again. They talk briefly about the differences between black and white people, during which Lizzie also sees similarities between her and The Negro. Then there is another knock on the door and The Negro hides for the third time.

Scene V

Lizzie opens the door and Fred comes in. During the conversation, Fred hears a noise from the bathroom. Lizzie tries to convince him that it is her next client, but Fred doesn't believe her and goes to check. He finds The Negro, who immediately runs away from him and out into the street. Lizzie runs after him and shouts that he is innocent, but two shots are fired. She is very angry and about to kill Fred, however, Fred, just like his father, is a very good speaker and manages to convince her not to.

Act I

In New York in 1959, theatre producer Max Bialystock opens ''Funny Boy'', a musical version of ''Hamlet'' ("Opening Night"). Reviews are overwhelmingly negative, and the show closes after one performance. Max, who was once called the King of Broadway, tells a crowd of down-and-outs of his past achievements and vows to return to form ("King of Broadway").

The next day, Leo Bloom, a mousy accountant, comes to Max's office to audit his books. When one of Max's little old lady "investors" arrives, Max tells Leo to wait in the bathroom until she leaves. She plays a sex game with Max, who eventually persuades her to give him a check to be invested in his next play, to be called "Cash". Leo reveals his lifelong dream to be a Broadway producer. After recovering from a panic attack caused by Max touching his blue blanket, Leo tells Max that he has found an accounting error in his books: Max raised $100,000 for ''Funny Boy'', but the play only cost $98,000. Max begs Leo to cook the books to hide the discrepancy; Leo reluctantly agrees. After some calculations, he realizes that "under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than he could with a hit". Inspired, Max proposes a scheme to find the worst musical ever written, hire the worst director and actors in New York, raise two million dollars of investment from "old ladies", produce the work on Broadway, close it as a huge failure, and escape to Rio with the money. However, Leo refuses to help Max with his scheme ("We Can Do It").

When he arrives at work six minutes late, Leo's horrid boss, Mr. Marks, reminds him that he is a nobody. While he and his miserable co-workers toil over accounts, Leo daydreams of becoming a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer"). He realizes that his job is terrible, quits, and returns to Max ("We Can Do It" (reprise)). The next day, they search for the worst play ever written, and Max discovers a sure-fire flop that would offend people of all races, creeds and religions: ''Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden'', written by ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind, which Max describes as "a love letter to Hitler". They go to the playwright's home in Greenwich Village to get the rights to the play, where Franz is on the roof of his tenement with his pigeons reminiscing about the grand old days ("In Old Bavaria"). The producers get him to sign their contract by joining him in singing Adolf Hitler's favorite tune ("Der Guten Tag Hop Clop") and reciting the Siegfried Oath, under penalty of death, promising never to dishonor "the spirit and the memory of Adolf Elizabeth Hitler".

Next, they go to the townhouse of the flamboyantly gay Roger De Bris, the worst director in New York. At first, Roger and his "common law-assistant" Carmen Ghia decline the offer to direct because of the serious subject matter. After much persuading and invoking the possibility of a Tony Award, Roger relents and tells them that the second act must be rewritten so the Germans win World War II ("Keep It Gay"). Max and Leo return to the office to meet a Swedish bombshell named Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson, who wants to audition for their next play ("When You've Got It, Flaunt It"). The producers are impressed, mostly by her sex-appeal, and hire her to be their "secretary-slash-receptionist". Max leaves to raise two million dollars to produce ''Springtime for Hitler'' by calling on all the little old ladies of New York ("Along Came Bialy"), and succeeds at raising the money ("Act I Finale").

Act II

Leo and Ulla are left alone in Max's office ('redecorated' by Ulla), and they start to fall in love ("That Face"). Max walks in and sees the tempting form of Ulla's covered behind ("That Face" (reprise)).

At the auditions for the title role, Hitler, one terrible actor after another is rejected by Roger in summary fashion. Finally, a frustrated Franz performs his own jazzy rendition of "Haben Sie Gehört Das Deutsche Band?", at the end of which Max approves Franz's audition. Opening night arrives, and after Leo curses the production by wishing everyone "good luck" ("You Never Say 'Good Luck' on Opening Night"), Franz literally breaks his leg falling down the stairs. Roger is the only one who knows the part of Hitler, and he rushes to the dressing room to get ready. The curtain rises, and Max and Leo watch the theatrical disaster unfold ("Springtime for Hitler"). Unfortunately, Roger's performance is so campy and outrageous that the audience mistakes it for satire, and the show becomes a surprise smash.

Back at the office, Max and Leo are horrified as they read positive critical reviews for ''Springtime'' ("Where Did We Go Right?"). Roger and Carmen come to congratulate them, only to find them fighting over the accounting books. Franz bursts in, waving a pistol, outraged by Roger's portrayal of his beloved Führer; fearful for his life, Max finally admits to Leo, "We're in too deep." Max suggests that Franz shoot the actors (not the producers) as a way to close the show. The police are summoned by the commotion and arrest Franz, who breaks his other leg while trying to escape. They also arrest Max and take the books. As Leo hides, Ulla finds him and persuades him to take the two million dollars and run off to Rio with her.

In jail awaiting trial, Max receives a postcard from Leo (who is now in Rio with Ulla) and, feeling betrayed, recounts the whole show ("Betrayed"). At his trial, Max is found "incredibly guilty", but the now-married Leo and Ulla arrive in the nick of time. Leo turns in the stolen money and tells the judge that Max is a good man who has never hurt anyone despite his swindling, and the only man he has ever called a friend ("'Til Him"). Touched by their friendship, the judge decides not to separate the partners, sending them both (plus Franz) to Sing Sing prison for five years. In prison, they write a new musical entitled "''Prisoners of Love''", and they are pardoned by the governor for "having, through song and dance, brought joy and laughter into the hearts of every murderer, rapist, and sex maniac in Sing Sing." Soon after taking ''Prisoners of Love'' to Broadway (starring Roger and Ulla), Leo and Max become the kings of Broadway and walk off into the sunset ("Leo & Max"). Everyone comes back for one last song, telling the audience that it's time for them to leave ("Goodbye").

Around the turn of the century, American mining engineer Ben Harris is working on the Cornish coast in England when he finds a body washed up on the beach.

Ben makes inquiries at the nearby hotel. While talking to the hotelier's daughter, fellow American Jill Tregellis, and an eccentric artist, Harold Tufnell-Jones, a mysterious intruder appears but disappears.

Later that night Jill is kidnapped by gill men. Ben, Harold and Harold's chicken follow the trail through a secret door into the caves under the house where they are sucked into a pool.

They emerge in a cavernous city on the ocean floor. The city was built by a race of ancients who survive only as a breed of gill men. The city is now inhabited by a group of smugglers led by the cruel and tyrannical Captain who hid down there in 1803 and due to the strange mixture of oxygen have not aged in over a century. However, the volcano that powers the city has become unstable. The Captain now imprisons them until Ben can come up with a means of maintaining it.

Dan, one of the Captain's men who wishes to leave, offers to help the two escape, provided they use their influence to secure him a full pardon for his past crimes of smuggling. The Captain finds out and reveals that because of the gas they've breathed for so long, exposure to sunlight would cause them to age rapidly and die. Dan is then sent to the surface as a means of execution while Ben and Harold are granted an audience with Jill. Whereupon they meet Rev. Jonathan Ives, who had vanished several decades ago from the surface.

The Captain is shown to be under the delusion that Jill is his deceased wife Beatrice, who he believes has returned to him.

Realising that Ben and Harold are untrustworthy, the Captain decides to allow the Gill Men to sacrifice the two as a means to appease the volcano's wrath. While they await this, Jill and Ives free them and Ives instructs them all on how to escape the city. The three make it to the airlock and trek across the ocean floor to a cave, containing a tunnel that leads to the surface.

The Captain and his men pursue them there, but frequent volcanic eruptions cause rockfalls that bury him and his men. Ben and his friends decide to return to the sea and attempt to reach shore on foot. The Captain meanwhile digs himself free and follows the tunnel to the surface, where the sunlight does indeed age him to death.

Ben and the rest make it to shore and watch as the volcano erupts, finally destroying the city.

A wealthy classical pianist, Ellen, is accused of already being married when she attempts to take her wedding vows; the wedding guests are shocked. They temporarily call off the wedding and the couple tries to investigate why someone would accuse her of already being married.

With the help of a lawyer and the district attorney, the couple tracks down and questions the justice of the peace that signed her wedding papers. Even he recognizes her as the woman he married. Frustrated, the couple next visits the man to whom Ellen is accused of being married. In a back room a gunshot fires and Ellen is accused of killing the man. She breaks down after a lengthy trial, is eventually found not guilty due to insanity, and is sent to a mental institution. Meanwhile, her fiance David, still believing her innocence, begins to find clues that may help free her.

The Pursuit Force has been organised to destroy the threat posed by gangs responsible for many vehicle-related crime sprees across Capital State and to eliminate their leaders:

'''Capelli Family''': One of the two gangs that are initially available at the start of the game, the Capellis are Capital State's most powerful Mafia family headed up by Don Capelli, and are said to be the state's oldest gang. The other significant member of the Capelli Family is their best sniper Stefano De Tomaso, also known as "Deadeye". '''Warlords''': The second of the two gangs available at the start of the game, the Warlords are a group of mercenaries and rogue soldiers who feel that they were betrayed by the military. They focus primarily on hijacking military hardware and are led by "The General", with the other significant member of the gang being Lieutenant Davies. '''Convicts''': The Convicts are a group of psychotic prison escapees who have broken out of prison to cause as much chaos as they can around Capital State and are about to flee the city so they can wreak havoc on a much larger scale. Their leader is a gigantic criminal known only as "Hard Balls", while the other significant member of the Convicts is an insane pyromaniac named Billy Wilde. '''Vixens''': The Vixens are an all-female group of professional thieves with a high-tech arsenal whose crimes are based around high-profile heists and grand thefts, from priceless artefacts to luxury speed boats. The major members of the Vixens are their leader "Whiplash" and her second-in-command and lover "The Fox". *'''Killer 66''': The Killer 66 are Capital State's Yakuza branch, and the most powerful of all five gangs in the game, focusing primarily on vehicle smuggling and illegal drug trade. They are led by "Monster" Toshima; the other significant member of the gang being his second-in-command Sudeko Arakawa.

''St.Swithin's Day'' tells the story of an alienated British teenager in the 1980s and in particular, Margaret Thatcher's time as British Prime Minister (her time as Prime Minister lasted for 11 years, including the entire 1980s).

We first meet the lead character, a teenager (who is not given a name in the story) shoplifting a copy of ''Catcher in the Rye'' from a London bookshop. He says, "I hate the rain. Everything bad happens in the rain." His reason for stealing the book is not clear beyond him saying they can find it in his pocket "when this is all over".

During the course of the story we find out that the teenager is from an unnamed northern British town or city, stealing his housemates' unemployment benefits to come to London to assassinate Margaret Thatcher while she makes a public appearance at a technical college. We see he has a gun to shoot her and she is due to appear on July 15, which is Saint Swithin's Day, hence the title of the comic.

Much of the strip is made up of the teenager preparing himself to assassinate Thatcher and exploring his own teenage angst. The final chapter starts with the teenager waiting for Thatcher after writing "neurotic boy outsider" on his forehead.

It is raining on the day and the teenager manages to get near to Thatcher and starts to pull out what the reader thinks is the previously seen gun. However we see it is actually his hand and as he points his hand at Thatcher he says "bang" shortly before her bodyguards leap upon him and begin beating him.

While being beaten the teenager thinks, "it was worth it just to see her ''scared''". The last scenes are of the teenager traveling on a train on a sunny day and his final lines are "I don't care if it rains. I really don't care at all."

Long ago, in an age where darkness still roams the Earth, a mysterious castle stands among the "five mountains" that are called the 'Devil's Hand' . There, according to the legend, the beautiful "Sleeping Princess" is lying within the confines of the castle walls guarded by the blackest and most sinister master of the underworld.

Years later, eleven-year-old Goku arrives at Kame House to seek training with Master Roshi, and to learn more martial arts skills. He finds Roshi watching the exercise program featuring the girls (which the Turtle Hermit likes) and gets his attention. But while discussing their training plans over lunch, Goku and Roshi noticed a little monk approaching the island on a rowboat. After jumping off his boat and landing on Roshi's island, the monk identify himself as Krillin and also beg Roshi to train him. When Roshi refused, Krillin succeeded to make him change his mind by giving him porno magazines as a bribe. Krillin also meets Goku, who could not tell the difference of how men shaved their heads and made themselves balded. After telling the boys the origin of the Sleeping Princess who is apparently held captive in the Devil's Hand by an evil count named Lucifer, Roshi sends them on a quest far to the west to retrieve her with one rule: whoever brings back the Sleeping Princess will become Master Roshi's student. Meanwhile, a mean blonde-haired girl named Launch also discovered the information of the Sleeping Princess and planned to take her. The boys continued on their way to the Devil's Hand as Krillin uses all the standard tricks to prevent Goku from catching up, but he outsmarts them without giving up. A little later, Bulma, Oolong, Yamcha, and Puar — who are on summer vacation — also meet Roshi and ask where Goku is. Roshi says that he and Krillin have gone far to the Devil's Hand (pretending it as an amusement park or a tourist attraction), so the gang fly in Bulma's Capsule jet to the castle. At sunset, Goku and Krillin finally approached the Devil's Hand itself and went inside. Unknown to the boys, Launch also entered, willing to steal the Sleeping Princess away for herself.

When the gang near the castle as night falls in, the jet is attacked by ogres, causing it to crash down, and Bulma is taken to the Devil's Hand. After waking up in a bedroom, Bulma meets Lucifer himself and his butler Igor who seemingly treat her as a guest and show her to the ogre convention of the Sleeping Princess. Lucifer then revealed his true dark nature to Bulma and have her tied to a chair she sat on with vines, intending Igor to drain her of her blood through a giant syringe in order to awake the Sleeping Princess. Hearing Bulma's screams for help, Yamcha, Oolong and Puar went to the Sleeping Princess' convention, and (in disguise as ogres through Oolong and Puar's shape-shifting) wait for their opportunity to rescue their friend. Goku and Krillin ran into and fight the ogres and monsters, including a giant devil called Ghastel who is then eaten by a swamp monster while attacking them, until they drop in straight onto the bedchamber of the Sleeping Princess which they only find as a giant jewel, disrupting the convention. Then Launch arrives on her motorcycle, takes the Sleeping Princess and drives away. As Goku and Krillin chase Launch without noticing Bulma and the others, Oolong's shape-shifting wears out after five minutes, making Puar change back to herself after she sees in shock that Oolong is back to his normal self. Their disguise ruined, Yamcha, Oolong and Puar are then captured. As Launch blast her way through the ogres by firing her machine gun at them, her hair tickles her nose and she sneezes. Changed into a nice blue-haired version of herself, Launch fell off her motorcycle and landed on the ground, confused of what she is doing. Goku recovered the Sleeping Princess, but Lucifer appeared with the ogres, holding Krillin. After being given a warning which would lead to Krillin's death as a consequence, Goku forcibly returns the Sleeping Princess to Lucifer and demands his friend's release. But instead, Goku gets a beating from the ogres after a pink little devil paralyzed him by biting his tail, the source of his weakness, much to Krillin's despair over him.

Later, Lucifer uses the light of the full moon to power up the Sleeping Princess, successfully awakening her. Outside the Devil's Hand, the gang including a battered and bruised Goku is encased in a giant wall of rock. But Goku looked at the moon and transformed into a Great Ape, smashing the wall and releasing the gang. The rampaging Goku then chases the gang, picking up Launch and attempting to devour her. Yamcha and Krillin grabbed hold of Goku's tail, weakening the Great Ape and allowing Puar to shape-shift into a pair of scissors and cut it off. Goku returns to his normal but naked self, but he did not remember anything of what he had done in his monstrous form. He also panics when he finds his tail gone, but quickly forgets about it. Back inside the castle, Lucifer inserted the Sleeping Princess in a laser cannon and prepared it to destroy the rising sun despite Bulma's pleas. Suddenly, Goku (wearing Oolong's overall pants), Krillin and Yamcha came to the rescue. While the boys fight Lucifer, Yamcha kills Igor and frees Bulma. Just as Lucifer activates the laser cannon, Goku uses the Kamehameha wave to damage it, causing the castle to collapse in the process. While the gang made a run for it, the falling cannon kills Lucifer by blasting him, the Sleeping Princess disappeared and the Devil's Hand is half-destroyed. After the sun is up with no harm, the gang is saved and Krillin acts contrite, although he does not actually apologize to Goku for his behavior. The gang then posed for peace as the unseen camera photographed them and the Devil's Hand. The two boys return to Kame House with Launch, and Roshi is very pleased. Thinking the boys have passed the test on Launch as if she were a Sleeping Princess, he takes them both on as students while he brought Launch with him to his house. At one moment, Goku and Krillin were happy with their time for training, but it then began wrong when Launch changes into her bad self with a sneeze and drives Roshi out of his house. She fires at Roshi, Goku, Krillin and Turtle until a passing fly makes her sneeze again, turning her back to her good self. Launch apologized for her actions as the surprised group then walked back from her a little bit.

Another retelling of the Dragon Ball story. This time, young Goku and young Krillin are training with Master Roshi for a World Martial Arts Tournament to be held in the country of Mifan. The Emperor of Mifan, Chiaotzu, is trying to find his lost "Ran Ran." "Minister" Master Shen has Emperor Pilaf work on a Dragon Radar, takes it from him, and is using it to locate the Dragon Balls. Shen and Mercenary Tao claim that they will use the wish from Shenron to locate Ran Ran, but are actually planning, with Tien's help, to kill Chiaotzu and take over the country. General Blue announces that Ran Ran is being held in Shen's room, and is killed by Tao for it. Bora and Upa have located the final Dragon Ball and they take it to Mifan to use it to demand that Mifan's soldiers be forced to leave the land near Korin Tower.

Bora is tricked into entering the Tournament (the winner of the Tournament will be granted one wish by Chiaotzu), and is then killed by Tao. Bulma, Oolong, Launch and Puar are looking for the other six Dragon Balls, so Bulma can wish for a boyfriend. However, when the Dragon Balls are located, they are accidentally dropped to the bottom of the moat surrounding Chiaotzu castle. Tien realizes that he likes Chiaotzu too much, and does not kill his friend; instead, he blows away Shen. Then he gives Chiaotzu back Ran Ran (actually a porcelain doll, not a real girl) telling him he had hidden her because of Shen and Tao. The story of Blue and Goku entering Penguin village is included, but this time it is Tao and Goku that meet Arale and Goku kills Tao with Arale's help. Goku throws the final ball into the moat, and summons Shenron, whom Upa asks to resurrect Bora.

Goku is a monkey-tailed boy with superhuman strength and skilled in martial arts, living all alone on Mount Paozu. One day, after he catches a fish to eat, a girl in a car (Bulma) almost hits him. He mistakes the car for a monster and throws it onto its side, but gets shot by Bulma in return. He imagines she is some kind of demon, but she manages to convince him she is human, even though she does not have a tail. Remembering his dead grandpa’s advice to be nice to girls, he invites her into his house, and there she goes straight for his only keepsake. When they go in the house, Goku shows Bulma an orange glowing ball that he believes is his grandpa. All of a sudden, Bulma comes to life and asks if she can have the ball. When Goku protests, she brings about two more "grandpas", and explains to him the legend of the Dragon Balls and the Eternal Dragon. She offers to let him feel her up to get him to come along, but when that does not work, she tells him it will help him get stronger. He agrees, thus starting off a life changing journey.

Later, in the forest, they are forced to stop because of a bull/ox in the road, who demands the girl. Goku ends up fighting the creature, which turns into a robot, and then a bat. Unfortunately, by then, his five minutes are up, and he turns back into Oolong, the pig. There is no time for apologies though, because Yamcha attacks. He demands all the capsules and money they have, but not before Puar recognizes Oolong and yells at him for his perverted antics at Shapeshifting School. Yamcha fights Goku, and appears to have the upper hand, until Bulma wakes up. This puts him into a state of shock and he is forced to retreat with the help of Puar.

Bulma, Oolong, and Goku are driving northward towards the next Dragon Ball, only to discover a huge metal tower in the distance (Yamcha and Puar, who have been following them, stay in a cave nearby to keep warm). Soldiers come out and "welcome" them to Muscle Tower, and Goku takes all of them head on. Entering the tower he runs into Major Metallitron. He brushes him off quickly though, and discovers (to his shock) that Metallitron was a robot. General White of the Red Ribbon Army gives orders, and the remaining forces rush toward Goku, but he plows through them all, up into White's room. White then activates the tower's deadliest creation—Android 8. The android nearly strangles Goku, though refusing to kill him when ordered. As a result, White threatens to detonate the android, but Goku intervenes and saves him. The two make quick friends, with Android 8 explaining that he doesn't believe in fighting or killing. Goku complains that his name is weird, so he nicknames him "Eighter" for short. This ends in a snowball fight between the two while the tied-up forces (including White) look on.

Some time later, while driving in Oolong's house-wagon, they almost run over (and then almost fall off a cliff because of) a Turtle. He explains that he is quite lost, and needs help getting back to the sea. After they bring him there, he says he has a reward which he will bring back with him the next day. So, Oolong, Goku, and Bulma spend the night on the beach. Goku wakes up early in the morning and tries to sleep in Bulma's lap, but freaks out when he removes her panties and discovers her lack of the male genitalia. That morning, Turtle comes back bearing his "reward"—Master Roshi, the Turtle Hermit. He first tries to summon the Immortal Phoenix for them, but when that fails (it apparently died), he calls forth the Nimbus Cloud. Goku is the only one of the bunch who can ride it, so it becomes his.

While Goku's off on the Nimbus, Bulma discovers that the old man has a Dragon Ball. He offers to let go of it only if she shows him her underwear. She agrees, not knowing she does not have any on, and both Roshi and Oolong are pleasantly surprised. She is horrified after she goes in to change and finds her underwear still inside. There is no time for an explanation though, because General Blue of the Red Ribbon Army attacks with a fleet of battleships. When the situation seems just about hopeless, Roshi decides to use his legendary ''Kamehameha'' wave. He decimates the entire fleet with it, but Blue then orders his army of submarines to attack. Goku however, manages to learn the ''Kamehameha'' himself and destroys a good deal of the subs with it. But just as their situation is looking up, Goku is knocked out by a missile, and Bulma, Yamcha, Oolong, Puar, and Roshi are all captured by Blue's soldiers. The five are carted off to prison near Red Ribbon Headquarters. The next morning, Goku awakens to the beeping of the Dragon Radar. Finding himself alone, he sets out in search of the other six Dragon Balls (Blue, having missed the one on Goku's person, is executed for his failure). Goku fights through legions upon legions of Red Ribbon soldiers, while in the meantime, the others try to make their escape from the prison.

Eventually, they make it out, to discover Goku (carrying a pile of tanks) there to greet them. As Goku fights his way into Red Ribbon HQ, Commander Red and Officer Black retreat with their six Dragon Balls to their last refuge. But when Black hears about Red's true wish—to become taller, Black shoots him and swears to make the Black Ribbon Army ruler of the world. He brings out the Army's greatest weapon, a giant robot. The robot's beam weapon destroys a huge swath of territory in its path, and nearly kills Goku, until he manages to knock it on its stomach and detonate the cannon. Black and his robot are not out yet though, and Goku is eventually knocked out. Luckily, Android 8 shows up. He puts everything he has into keeping the robot from killing the boy, but it is clear that he is no match. Parts start to fly off of him, and he lands in a crumpled heap, next to Goku.

Goku comes to, only to see the android die. Saddened and enraged by Android 8's sacrifice, a new world of power suddenly awakens within Goku, as the ground shakes with his tortured screams. Black makes the mistake of egging him on, and Goku finishes him off with a gigantic ''Kamehameha''. After the dust settles, the Eternal Dragon Shenron is summoned forth, but Bulma and Yamcha realize they do not need their wishes anymore. Goku then offers his own wish instead: to revive Android 8 and remove the bomb inside of him.

Joe is awakened in his den, when a pack of predators are attacking him. Using his great strength, and weapons made from sculpted ice, he kills the animals and, exultant, bays at the moon above him. A vital component shorts out, and "Joe" reverts to being a human, Ed Anglesey, wearing a special headset on a space station orbiting Jupiter. Anglesey furiously repairs the equipment to restore the connection.

It transpires that such equipment failures are happening more and more often. All technical attempts at repair have failed, and instead a psionics expert, Cornelius, is brought to the station to determine if Anglesey himself is the problem.

Anglesey uses a wheelchair. He is bad-tempered, dislikes all his colleagues, and is disliked in return. He is allowed to stay on the station only because of his ability to establish a telepathic connection with and thereby control Joe, a creature designed to survive the hostile conditions on the Jovian surface. Cornelius conjectures that something in Anglesey's mind rejects or fears Jupiter, and the resulting feedback keeps destroying the delicate equipment.

Eventually Cornelius is allowed to share a session with Anglesey during an important part of the mission. A set of autonomous female Jovians, similar to Joe but lacking a human controller such as Anglesey, has been launched from the satellite and will soon land on Jupiter. Joe, still controlled by Anglesey, is to be the leader, and father, of a new race that will live on the planet. During this session, Cornelius becomes aware of a third mind – that of Joe himself. Anglesey's mind has been steadily transforming itself into Joe and shrinking in the process. Cornelius was looking at the problem from the wrong end – it was not Anglesey's fear of going to Jupiter and becoming sublimated into Joe's stronger character which was causing the blowouts, but his fear of leaving Jupiter and the freedom Joe's whole and healthy, though non-human, body allows him. Anglesey's existence is poor and constricted compared to Joe's, and the environment has shaped a personality that no longer wants to be human.

Seeing himself from Cornelius's perspective, Joe becomes fully self-aware. He ejects Cornelius from the loop and shuts down what is left of Anglesey.

Cornelius revives on the station next to the hollow shell of Anglesey's body. Far from being dismayed, Cornelius realizes that this is the way of the future. From now on people with diseased bodies and even the aged can be recruited for the Jovian program if they have the necessary talents. Eventually they will leave their bodies behind and become Jovians in the flesh, functioning as the priesthood of the new race.

Claire Cooper is a suburban housewife and mother in rural Massachusetts who illustrates children's stories. Her husband, Paul, is an airline pilot, and is frequently away from home due to work, leaving Claire to care for their daughter, Rebecca. Claire begins experiencing bizarre, vague dreams involving an underwater city and the murder of a young girl. Shortly after, Rebecca goes missing during an outdoor school play, and is later found dead at the bottom of a lake. Claire is devastated and takes a while to recover.

Believing her dreams are premonitory, Claire attempts to involve herself in the police investigation, but is met with resistance. Her dreams and visions increase, and she believes she is witnessing the movements of her daughter's killer, a serial killer named Vivian Thompson. She uncovers that the underwater city she has experienced in her dreams is a former town, Northfield, that was flooded when a reservoir was formed.

The visions drive Claire to the brink of insanity, and she seeks help from a psychologist, Dr. Silverman, who diagnoses her as psychotic. She is subsequently committed to a psychiatric institution after slitting her wrists, but remains plagued by visions, including one of Vivian murdering Paul. When she experiences another vision of Vivian kidnapping another girl, Claire manages to escape from the institution, hoping to stop him from claiming another victim. She steals the vehicle of a security guard, and tracks Vivian to an abandoned fruit factory situated along the lake.

Upon arriving at the factory, she is met by Vivian and the young girl, Ruby. The childlike Vivian, who was severely abused as a boy by his mother, kidnaps little girls to be his "playmates"; when they resist, he becomes enraged and kills them. He is holding Claire hostage at the factory, and wants her and Ruby to stay with him as his "new family". Police manage to track Claire to the factory, where they have a face-off with Vivian, holding a gun to Claire's head. While a SWAT team attempts to snipe Vivian from a helicopter, he chases Claire along a bridge crossing a tributary waterfall, knocking both her and himself over the guardrail. Claire and Vivian plunge below the falls. In the water, Claire has a vision of being reunited with her daughter before drowning.

Later, Vivian, who survived the fall, is committed to the same psychiatric institute where Claire had been incarcerated. While lying in his bed, he has horrific visions of Claire's spirit haunting him and the phrase "Sweet dreams, Vivian" being scrawled in blood on the ceiling. The phrase emerges across the walls of his cell, and he screams in horror.

''The Named'' opens with a prologue in which two children, Sera and Ethan, are running to witness a rare flower bloom. Ethan, at age four, recognizes his older sister's love for all things strange and otherworldly, and loves being included in her wonder. The moment of wonder is ruined by the appearance of a monster, Marduke, who murders 10-year-old Sera. Ethan's scream marks the transition from the prologue to the first chapter, where 16-year-old Ethan laments the recurring nightmare he has about the death of his sister twelve years before.

Ethan's life changed drastically after the death of his sister; his parents, Laura and Shaun, are mere shells of themselves. Laura suffers from severe depression while Shaun exists in a state of perpetual numbness. His only solace is his position in The Guardians of Time, a group of soldiers organized by the immortal Lorian, whose sole purpose is to defeat the goddess Lathenia and her Order of Chaos. The Order's soldiers exist to alter the course of history in order to benefit their goddess; the more chaos created in the past increases her strength in the present. Ethan and his friend and mentor Arkarian spent the majority of the twelve years since Sera's death in training and going on missions to the past to stop the Order from derailing history. Ethan and Arkarian are not only members of the Guard, but also Named by an ancient prophecy that predicts the final battle between the Guard and the Order.

After years of devotion to the Guard, Ethan is rewarded with an apprentice. Should he train her well, he could be awarded the Guard's highest honor; the power of flight. His only concern is that is would-be apprentice is Isabel Beckett, the kid sister to his former best friend Matt. Isabel spent her childhood chasing after Ethan, Matt, and their friends, wishing to be included in their adventures while harboring a not-so-secret crush on Ethan. He remembers her as a pest, and knows that Matt, who believes Ethan is after his girlfriend, will make training difficult. After overcoming multiple difficulties, including accidentally showing one of his powers to his history teacher, Ethan and Isabel reconnect and form a strong friendship. They succeed on several missions, revealing other members of the Named along the way. Isabel's crush on Ethan grows and then dwindles as she gets closer with Arkarian, and her passion for the cause and her skills makes her a powerful member of the Named. With the prophecy slowly being fulfilled, more identities of the Order are made known. Ethan and Isabel learn that Marduke, the monster of Ethan's nightmares, is actually a member of the Order, who holds a vendetta against Shaun, a former member of the Named. In an effort to speed up the prophecy, Marduke challenges Shaun to a battle, where the members of the Named face off against Marduke and his best soldiers.

In a battle between the Named and Marduke, it is revealed that Matt's girlfriend Rochelle is also a member of the Order, and was planted by Marduke to break up Matt and Ethan's friendship. In a moment of compassion, Isabel frees her from the battle, with a promise that Arkarian will protect her from the Order. Ethan successfully defeats Marduke, and the battle ends.

The novel's protagonist is Harry M. Evans, the lone survivor of the disastrous first crewed expedition to the planet Venus. Evans provides details of the doomed expedition as a novel in progress, and he proves to be a remarkably unreliable narrator,Pringle 1990, p. 36. constantly changing the particulars of his story as it progresses. It quickly becomes apparent to the reader that he may be completely insane, as a feeling of deep (and comical) paranoia underlies Evans's descriptions of the absurd conversations that ensue with the Venusian inhabitants. There is some indication that Evans could very well have murdered his fellow crewmember. The novel ends with a publishing house offering to purchase the rights to Evans's outlandish tale.

Backstory

Raised together within the Oboro Clan, Hotsuma and Moritsune were seldom apart during their youth. Being the younger of the two, Hotsuma looked up to Moritsune, and considered his older brother to be a superior warrior. Eventually, the Oboro Clan commandment was revealed to the two boys after they discovered Akujiki, the evil soul-stealing sword that would be used in the ritual to decide the clan's leader. The commandment deems that the next clan leader must be determined by a duel to the death between the eldest clan heirs—in this case, Moritsune and Hotsuma. Aware of their destiny, the brothers trained incessantly, instructed by their foster parent, Kobushi (previous leader of the Oboro Clan). 10 years passed as the brothers refined their techniques and honed their senses, preparing for the longtime duel and training their skills. The duel occurred beneath a full moon, with only Hotsuma's childhood friend, Ageha, and Kobushi as the witnesses and after a long exhausting fight, Hotsuma won and finally slew his brother, though he felt a great deal of guilt from it.

Four years after, a massive earthquake struck Tokyo, and a mysterious Golden Palace appeared in the center of the destroyed city. With the appearance of the palace came the return of the powerful sorcerer Hiruko, who was thought to have been defeated and sealed by the Oboro Clan long ago. He summoned hellspawn to wreak havoc upon the city, and all but destroyed the Oboro Clan. The city's residents became paralyzed with fear. With the Oboro Clan ravaged and Tokyo on the verge of collapse, Hotsuma placed himself at the heart of the chaos, determined to reach the mysterious Golden Palace and avenge the death of his clan. Along the way, Hotsuma is also forced to battle the slain Oboro ninja who had been reanimated to serve Hiruko.

Story

The game starts when Hotsuma arrives in Tokyo in a helicopter, and while in position to the Golden Palace, suddenly two hellspawns arrive and crash into the helicopter, and Hotsuma jumps from it. After running through the city alleyways and streets, defeating several tanks and ninjas, he encounters the helicopter, now possessed. Ageha arrives manages to distract it back into the air. Ageha is mad with Hotsuma exacting his revenge, but he tells her that he does not need her help, and then leaves her and goes through the city roofs, where he encounters mysterious ninja named Aomizuchi, whom he fights, and Akujiki awakens by tasting his blood. Aomizuchi escapes when the helicopter arrives again, and Hotsuma escapes the fire.

Hotsuma reaches the temples of the Oboro Clan, where Akujiki starts to eat his soul while trying to get rid of the sword. Ageha encounters him and tells him the story about the Akujiki; Akujiki is an evil sword which was longtime hidden during the Oboro Clan rule, and killed many fighters by consuming their souls. Akujiki needs to be fed, or it will eventually consume Hotsuma as well. She explains him that he will need to feed the sword by killing the possessed fighters, whose souls have been darkened, to still Akujiki and prevent it from consuming Hotsuma.

Hotsuma continues through the Oboro Clan's temple, where he encounters several dogs and encountering a twin siblings and his young students, Shirogane and Akagane, who are slowly being possessed and beg Hotsuma to kill them. He destroys them in a battle, and takes their souls. After a struggle with another wave of ninjas, he eventually reaches the main shrine of Oboro Clan. There, Ageha is trying to help Kobushi, who is injured from fighting. Helicopter arrives again, and Hotsuma slices the rocket that was fired on them. He eventually manages to destroy it, but Kobushi dies in Ageha's hands. Hotsuma continues, leaving the temple.

Midway into his journey, Hotsuma encounters a young shrine maiden named Kagari who believes that she is intended to be sacrificed by Hiruko to release a statue called Yatsurao. She asks Hotsuma to kill her, but feeling guilty over killing his brother and the similarity of the situation where the girl wants him to kill her, he is unable to do it. This leads to her capture by Hiruko's minions. Hotsuma confronts and destroys Yatsurao, but in doing so, allows Hiruko to absorb its power and restore his youth, which had apparently been his plan with Yatsurao the whole time. Hiruko returns to his palace with Hotsuma continuing his pursuit.

Eventually, Ageha meets him and reveals that she released Hiruko. She also reveals that the death match between him and Moritsune was not really to decide the Oboro's leader, but to provide a soul to keep Akujiki sated. Ageha secretly worked with Hiruko to get him to resurrect Moritsune, not knowing that the revived Moritsune would become one of Hiruko's henchmen with no memory of his past. Moritsune is actually Aomizuchi, the fourth hellspawn lord. Moritsune kills Ageha, then fights Hotsuma. Hotsuma defeats him again.

After the battle, Hotsuma breaks to Hiruko's Golden Palace, where Hiruko reveals that he had all along intended for Hotsuma to kill all of the hellspawn and the undead Oboro so that their souls would fuse inside Akujiki. He could then take the sword and use it to rule the world. Hotsuma vows to kill Hiruko and destroy Akujiki, as he blames the evil sword for everything that happened. Hotsuma fights and kills Hiruko after an intense battle, absorbing the sorcerer's soul into Akujiki. He thinks of his brother as the palace crumbles around him. As the military celebrates the collapse of the Golden Palace, Kagari looks on with sadness in her eyes.

When Katie Gregerstitch, from Minden, Louisiana, visits her boyfriend Billy, an aspiring model, in New York City, she catches him in bed with another woman. Thus, Billy breaks up with Katie, who then leaves to stay with her cousin Haley. She convinces Katie to start an independent life of her own, instead of sitting around doing nothing. One day, when Haley has to go to an audition, Katie takes over her job as a messenger and eventually has to deliver a shipment to a large building construction company.

The deputy director of that company, Debra, preys on the job of Richard and has come up with a plan to frame Richard for sabotage, in order to take over the company. To help herself with that, she makes sure that Richard’s secretary gets dismissed and that the naive Katie takes her place. Katie meanwhile meets Ben, who works as a postman in the building, and befriends him.

After losing a contract, by Debra’s doing, Katie gets fired, but by using her charms, she manages to get a second chance from Richard. When she manages to get the interest of a group of Norwegian investors, Richard shares an important confidential project with her. Debra manages to get the confidential information out of Katie and thereby make sure that the Board of Directors fires Richard.

Meanwhile, Katie has discovered that Ben is actually Richard’s son. Together with him, she devises a ruse to outsmart Debra. When Debra proposes the project to the investors, she sends out Haley and some friends, who pose as the investors. At the same time, she presents her own proposal to the real investors, who satisfyingly take it. When Debra discovers the deception, she flies into a rage and thus gets fired.

Angel has a difficult time adjusting to the new situation at the hotel where Wesley has taken over his old office and Angel is taking orders from his new employers. A young couple making out in a car is attacked by something wearing a hood. Angel encounters several obstacles when trying to re-establish his friends' trust; especially Cordelia, who is still very angry at him for abandoning them. She gets a vision that sends the guys after the couple attacked in their car. Cordelia follows Angel's advice to take the rest of the night off, but as she is leaving, an old friend from Sunnydale, Harmony, shows up.

The girls talk about their lives and how they have both changed, Harmony failing to mention that she is now a vampire. Harmony tells of her recent breakup with Spike, and Cordelia invites her to stay at her place while she is in town. Angel, Wesley, and Gunn find the car with windows smashed, but run off in another direction when they hear a woman scream. The woman is rescued and the three fight the hooded creature, which is revealed to be a vampire, which is quickly staked by Angel.

Later that night, a hungry and tempted Harmony goes to Cordelia's room while she is sleeping and attempts to bite her, but when Cordelia wakes she mistakes an apologetic Harmony's actions as sexual. A phone call to Willow in Sunnydale clears up all the confusion. Willow stresses that Harmony is a vampire, not a lesbian, and cannot be trusted, though Cordelia embarrasses herself by voicing a mild slur before she learns of Willow's new relationship.

Willow calls the hotel and informs Angel about Harmony. He and Wesley rush to Cordelia's rescue only to find that the ladies are getting along like friends, painting each other's toenails. Cordelia discourages them from any plans to kill Harmony as she intends to help her undead friend. Cordelia brings Harmony back to the hotel where she researches the symbol found on the robe. Angel, still attempting to get on Cordelia's good side, agrees that Cordelia should be allowed to spend time with her friend. Back at the hotel, Harmony annoys Wesley, and Angel tries to find other clues from Cordelia's vision including a large bird figure she saw. To prevent Wesley from killing Harmony, Angel takes her back to the refrigerator for blood.

Gunn returns having found that there have been humans taken off the streets, and it is concluded that they are taken not for food, but to add to an army of vampires. A vampire speaks to a crowd of robed vampires about his plan, revealing a large cage filled with humans. Cordelia finds that the symbol represents a pyramid scheme started by a motivational speaker named Doug Sanders, and it is assumed that he is now continuing it as a vampire. Harmony accidentally spills her cup of blood onto the keyboard prompting Wesley to demand that she leave immediately. Cordelia takes her desperate friend to Caritas for advice on what path the vampire should take. After Harmony sings poorly on stage, Lorne says that Cordelia will guide Harmony to her destiny.

The guys find Cordelia at the bar and request her help in locating the specific building where the vampire group is meeting. Harmony tags along, convinced that her mission is to be good and help people. Arriving at a theater, a bird statue is spotted but appears different than the vision that showed until Angel turns on some lights that illuminate the statue in red, making it recognizable to Cordelia. Before heading in, Angel, unable to not speak of the matter anymore, tries to tell Cordelia that Harmony is a danger and will betray her, but she reminds him that he betrayed her as well, even with his soul.

Harmony is selected to go inside and pretend that she wants to join the group. While she goes inside, everyone else waits at the back of the building for her to let them in. She arrives late and tells them of the cage filled with people, but when they get inside, the room is deserted, and the team is attacked by vampires as Harmony has betrayed them. She thanks them for guiding her to her destiny as Doug approaches and offers to promote Harmony to a blue robe. Doug threatens the team, but they are up to the challenge and are prepared to kill them all.

Cordelia fights with Harmony while Angel, Wesley, and Gunn take on Doug and the few members of the vampire cult that did not flee, effectively slaying them all. Cordelia pulls two crossbows on Harmony but instead of killing her, she urges her to get out of town, partly out of respect for their friendship and realizing that Harmony is struggling to find her own purpose in life. Back at the hotel, Angel finally manages to win Cordelia's forgiveness by ordering her a complete new wardrobe of clothes, much to Wesley's chagrin.

The movie starts with the history of how mighty fire-breathing dragons came to be. The dragons and their crystals of tremendous power came to the human world through a portal from their world of the dragons. But while the dragons brought knowledge and wanted only peace, the human kingdoms of Norvagen and Draigar wanted war and, having misused the knowledge brought by the dragons, battled erupted. Thoron, the Dragon King and holder of the legendary Aurathon crystal, appointed Xenoz the wizard as an ambassador for both the dragons and the two kingdoms with gifts of immortality and power and strength over all of the dragon crystals. However, when things started looking good, an evil force came upon the land and killed the Dragon Queen and took her ice crystal. After this, The Dragon King and many followers returned to their world, vowing to return only after the war had ended.

In the present day, King Olsef of the Norvagen Kingdom is giving his eight-year-old son, Prince Dev, some practice for battle while expressing his hatred for the Draigar, who he believes hunted the remaining dragons to near-extinction. While Dev's practice shows him to be too impulsive, Olsef believes nevertheless that he is ready to begin riding on Targon, the only dragon that they have left. During this time, Xenoz arrives and gives Dev his blessing. Meanwhile, in the Draigar kingdom, King Siddari is training Princess Kyra in the same form and blames the Norvagen for the disappearances of the dragons. Xenoz comes by to give the same blessing he gave to Dev so that Kyra can begin flying on the Draigar's last dragon, Aurora. During the flight, the dragons are drawn to a fireball in the sky where a portal opens and a black dragon on fire falls through, knocking the dragons and royals into an old battle field. The black dragon absorbs a bright green crystal on its neck and marks both the children with his mystical teardrops, disappearing into the ground soon after. As Dev and Kyra prepare to fight, their fathers appear and duel. While Dev and Kyra are taken away by their dragons, Xenoz watches through his scrying crystal, stating that the battle begins again.

Eight years later, Dev and Kyra are both sixteen-year-old teenagers with strange abilities and want the war to end, but their fathers object to their ideas on how it should. They both violate orders and continue with their ideas anyway, catching the eye of Xenoz in the process. The two royals fight until their fathers and armies show up to fight to the death once and for all. Just before the battle commences, an army of vorgans show up and capture the kings. Xenoz arrives just in time to save Dev and Kyra and takes them to his ice mountain home. Once there, Xenoz recommends that they retrieve the Aurathon from a rogue dragon in order to rescue their fathers. In the cave where the dragon resides, they fight him but are quickly overpowered. The dragon then reveals that they were sent there to try and trick him into giving the Aurathon's location so that Xenoz could take it for himself. They escape the following vorgan attack and go to the Ring of Oroborus. There, the Dragon reveals himself to be the Dragon King Thoron. The kings, meanwhile, have discovered Xenoz's treachery when they learn that he kept the bones of dragons he had slain. Thoron explains the truth behind everything that made him leave. When Xenoz was granted the ability to use dragon crystals, it was only to promote good things between the two worlds. However, Xenoz conspired to kill the Dragon Queen with the help of an evil and vengeful dragon named Stendahl and take her ice crystal. When Thoron arrived, he flamed them in his fury, but it wasn't strong enough. He took Stendahl back to the dragon and imprisoned him. Stendahl broke free 1,000 years later and attacked Thoron again. During the battle, the Aurathon became activated. While Stendahl was stopped, he hurled Thoron through where he bumped into the royals eight years earlier. Knowing he didn't have any strength to fight Xenoz (who was still alive thanks to his gift of immortality), he absorbed the Aurathon into himself and placed it inside Dev and Kyra. Knowing now where their elemental abilities came from, Dev and Kyra begin practicing their powers over fire and air. Unfortunately, they tear a hole in the Ring of Oroborus, alerting Xenoz to their position. They escape the attack with Targon and Aurora's help and head for Xenoz's castle.

Back at the castle, Xenoz summons ice dragons to fight Thoron. Dev and Kyra break in and quickly dispatch the vorgan guards but are captured by Xenoz, who uses a mind-reading crystal to discover the Aurathon's hiding place within Dev and Kyra. He then proceeds to extract it from their bodies. Thoron crashes through and falls to the base of the castle, where he discovers the skeleton of his queen. With a new driving force, he heads off to fight Xenoz. After betraying Gortaz, the leader of the vorgans, Xenoz gets hit in the face by Kyra. A mask falls off to reveal that Xenoz's face is burned. The downside of Xenoz's immortality was that he could never heal himself and he wants revenge for this. He opens the portal to Dragon World but Thoron gets in the way. However, Xenoz traps him in ice then explains that Dev and Kyra are weak and cannot do anything. Thoron begs to differ, pointing out that Dev and Kyra were chosen by the dragons themselves. With this, Dev and Kyra use their elemental abilities to break free and put the Aurathon back on Thoron's necklace. Thoron sticks himself in front of Xenoz's ice shards, seemingly sacrificing himself. However, he stands back up and then drags Xenoz back to Dragon World. With Xenoz gone, the ice castle begins to fall apart, so the kings and their children escape on Targon and Aurora.

The next day, both Norvagen and Draigar armies celebrate at Olsef's castle. During the celebration, the dragons return. Dev and Kyra jump on to Targon and Aurora to join the flight. As the celebration continues, Xenoz vows from his prison in Dragon World, which seems to be inside the Aurathon itself, "This is not over!"

Zishe Breitbart (Jouko Ahola) is the son of an Orthodox Jewish blacksmith in rural Poland. He is fantastically strong, largely from working at hard labour all day. A talent agent sees how strong Breitbart is in his Jewish shtetl home and convinces him to move to Berlin, where he can find work as a strongman.

Hanussen (an allusion to the real-life figure Erik Jan Hanussen, played by Tim Roth), an epic con-man and supposed mystic, runs a cabaret variety show. Hanussen gives Breitbart a blonde wig and a Nordic helmet and calls him "Siegfried" so as to identify him with the Aryan notion of physical superiority. This appeals to the largely Nazi clientele, and he is a big hit.

This is a dark comedy but is equally a deeply dramatic story, involving the mainly secular Jews of Berlin. Included is interaction between Breitbart, an attractive stage musician Marta, their boss Hanussen, who abuses her, and some very top level Nazis. Ultimately Breitbart becomes disgusted and dismayed.

A visit from Breitbart's young brother, Benjamin (Jacob Benjamin Wein), convinces Breitbart to be proud of his Jewish heritage, and so, without warning, he takes off the blonde wig in the middle of his act to announce that he is not an "Aryan", and calls himself a new Jewish Samson. This has the effect of making him a hero to the local Jews, who flock to the cabaret to see their new Samson. The Nazis aren't as pleased, and Hanussen tries to discredit Breitbart. He tries to make it seem that it was his mystic powers that were the true strength behind the strongman, and makes it look as though even his frail female pianist Marta can break chains and lift weights if under his power.

Hanussen knows the Nazis dabble in the occult and hopes to become a part of Hitler's future government. He therefore hobnobs with the likes of Himmler and Goebbels. In the end, however, he is exposed as a Czech Jewish con artist named Herschel Steinschneider. As a result, Hanussen is kidnapped and murdered by the Brownshirts. Breitbart foresees what will be known as the Holocaust and returns to Poland to warn the Jewish people of its coming. Unfortunately, no one believes him and he accidentally dies from an infected wound, according to the final titles, two days before Hitler takes power in 1933. In the final scene he is in a delirium as a result of the infection. In a dreamscape surrounded by Christmas Island red crabs, he has a vision of his younger brother Benjamin flying safely away from the looming Holocaust.

Momokichi Momoi, the mob boss owner of a professional baseball team known as "the Peach Twisters", has a unique way of dealing with ineffective players: killing them. His daughter, Momomi, is twice as twisted as her father. Mikura and the Danger Service Agency are hired by a mysterious old man to kidnap Momokichi. But during that attempt they run afoul of Momomi. Before the resulting firefight, Momokichi dies when his head falls on a ventilation pipe. Now Mikura and the D.S.A. have to come up with a new plan before they end up as Momomi's next target.

Beginning in Karuizawa, the novel alternates between the now middle-aged Momoi and recurring memories of a lake from his hometown, and his interactions with a number of women, beginning with a relative and the uncomfortable circumstances surrounding a death in his family. The novel then explores his connection to a woman who loses a purse full of several years' worth of money earned as a lover to an older man as well as a relationship with a student, Hisako, when Momoi is a teacher, a relationship that begins with a somewhat odd-request for a good cure for a foot condition Momoi suffers from and then examines the circumstances of Hisako's family, who are well-off in the immediate post-war era. Finally, the now middle-aged Momoi follows a young girl during a summer period leading up to a festival and crosses path with a woman closer to his age.

Judgement 6, an organization seeking global domination, are hosting a third fighting tournament. The characters all enter to achieve their personal goals. Some wish to challenge Judgement 6 and uncover the group's secrets. Kage-Maru won the tournament. whose actual specialty is Jujutsu, has a vendetta against the Syndicate that killed his father. The Syndicate also took his mother away from him and made her as one of their fighters. He made an impressive showing as a fighter during the first tournament but was not able to find much information on Judgement 6, although he did receive word that his mother is still alive, he hopes to learn more the second time around, in the past tournament he succeeded in saving his mother (who had been transformed into Dural). When a Bajiquan fighter Akira defeated Dural and thereby saving Tsukikage from both Judgement 6's brainwashing and Dural state at the end of second tournament, Kage was able to get his mother back.

For many months, Kage and his mother lived a peaceful life in a small, hidden village. When about a year had passed, though, Kage's mother was suddenly struck by a mysterious illness. Kage's investigation into her ailment revealed that it was an after-effect of her transformation into Dural, and now he is entering the new tournament to find out what connection this has to the new-model Dural, After winning this world tournament, Kage managed to recover a part from the new type Dural. He used that part on his mother, hoping it would cure her. However, the plan backfired. Not only did his mother not recover, it caused his mother to transform back to Dural. She immediately attacked Kage. Sensing no way out, Kage decides to kill her in order to end her suffering. He was nearly successful but she managed to escape and was ultimately rescued by J6. Kage hears of the 4th world tournament and decides to enter the tournament with every intention of killing Dural.

Lucien Chardon, the son of a lower middle-class father and an impoverished mother of aristocratic descent, is the pivotal figure of the entire work. Living at Angoulême, he is impoverished, impatient, handsome and ambitious. His widowed mother, his sister Ève and his best friend, David Séchard, do nothing to lessen his high opinion of his own talents, for it is an opinion they share. Even as Part I of ''Illusions perdues, Les Deux poètes'' (''The Two Poets''), begins, Lucien has already written a historical novel and a sonnet sequence, whereas David is a scientist. Both, according to Balzac, are "poets" in that they creatively seek truth. Theirs is a fraternity of poetic aspiration, whether as scientist or writer, even before David marries Ève, the two young men are spiritual brothers. Lucien is introduced into the drawing-room of the leading figure of Angoulême high society, Mme de Bargeton, who rapidly becomes infatuated with him. It is not long before the pair flee to Paris where Lucien adopts his maternal patronymic of de Rubempré and hopes to make his mark as a poet. Mme de Bargeton, on the other hand, recognises her mésalliance and though remaining in Paris, severs all ties with Lucien, abandoning him to a life of destitution.

In Part II, ''Un Grand homme de province à Paris'', Lucien is contrasted with the journalist Lousteau and the high-minded writer Daniel d’Arthez. Jilted by Mme de Bargeton for the adventurer Sixte du Châtelet, he moves in a social circle of high-class actress-prostitutes and their journalist lovers: soon he becomes the lover of Coralie. As a literary journalist he prostitutes his talent, yet still harbours the ambition of belonging to high society and longs to assume by royal warrant the surname and coat of arms of the de Rubemprés. He switches his allegiance from the liberal opposition press to the one or two royalist newspapers that support the government. This act of betrayal earns him the implacable hatred of his erstwhile journalist colleagues, who destroy Coralie's theatrical reputation. In the depths of his despair he forges his brother-in-law's name on three promissory notes. This is his ultimate betrayal of his integrity as a person. After Coralie's death he returns in disgrace to Angoulême, stowed away behind the Châtelets' carriage; Mme de Bargeton has just married du Châtelet, who has been appointed prefect of that region.

In Part III, ''Les Souffrances de l’inventeur'', in Angoulême David Séchard is betrayed on all sides but is supported by his loving wife. He invents a new and cheaper method of paper production. At a thematic level, the advances of paper-manufacturing processes are very closely interwoven with the commercialization of literature. Lucien's forgery of his brother-in-law's signature almost bankrupts David, who has to sell the secret of his invention to business rivals. Lucien is about to commit suicide when he is approached by a sham Jesuit priest, the Abbé Carlos Herrera. He is the escaped convict Vautrin whom Balzac had already presented in ''Le Père Goriot''. Herrera takes Lucien under his protection and they drive off to Paris, there to begin a fresh assault on the capital. Lucien's story continues in ''Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes''.

A small group of civilian and military personnel carries out humanity's first crewed mission to another star system. They embark on a one-way exploratory mission to Barnard's Star, where planets have been discovered by a robot probe. They travel in a laser-driven light sail spacecraft christened Prometheus. The journey lasts 40 years, but the crew uses a drug called "No-Die," which slows their aging process, whilst lowering their effective I.Q. and emotional state to that of small children. They arrive only a decade physically older than when they left. They are cared for during this period by the ship's AI computer.

At Barnard they begin their exploration, moving around the system and deploying various robot probes. Part of the crew then uses a lander to visit the double planet Rocheworld, which consists of a solid-surface lobe they call Roche (French for rock as well as the name of the French mathematician who worked on Roche limits) and an ammonia/water-covered lobe they call Eau (French for water). A subset of the landing party journeys to Eau in the space-plane Dragonfly, which was carried on the lander. Over Eau the Dragonfly is caught in a violent storm that forces it to ditch. Unable to take off, the crew uses the plane's lift fans as propellers to make their way to the inner pole of the double planet, where the gravitation from Roche will help them to break free and return to the lander.

While making this journey, the Dragonfly attracts the attention of one of the native species of the planet: the very intelligent but non-technological Flouwen. The Flouwen and the AI aboard the Dragonfly establish communications; the AI brings the Flouwen and the crew into contact and the two species begin to exchange cultural and scientific knowledge. The crew witnesses the birth of a Flouwen youngling, while one crew member takes a ride on a Flouwen who is fascinated by human technology.

The Flouwen realize the humans are travelling to the pole and warn them that they are approaching a period where the configuration of the planetary system will cause the ocean on Eau to partially flow to Roche. They try to stop the humans from continuing into this violent event by pinning the spacecraft to the ocean floor with ice as ballast (water ice sinks in the ammonia-water solution of the ocean). The humans then realize that the interplanetary waterfall poses a threat to the lander crew remaining on Roche. Fortunately, the tidal stresses cause nearby dormant volcanoes to become active again. This melts an underwater glacier and floods the area with warm water, upon which the ice floats off the plane. The crew manages to get airborne and return to Roche. They rendezvous with the lander just as water is reaching it, and the entire landing party makes it back to the Prometheus.

An epilogue is set many years later, when a follow-on mission arrives from Earth and is met by the sole surviving crew member, the others having died in accidents or from old age. This episode is expanded in the last sequel novel, Rescued from Paradise.

With baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates in last place, their combative, foul-mouthed manager Guffy McGovern has plenty to complain about. His abusive language toward players is publicized by local newspaper reporter and former "household hints" writer Jennifer Paige, who is thoroughly unimpressed with his style of management.

Guffy's fortune changes while wandering through Forbes Field in search of his good luck charm one night, where he is accosted by the voice of an angel, who hints at having been a ballplayer during his earthly life. As the spokes-angel for the Heavenly Choir Nine, a celestial team of deceased ballplayers, he begins bestowing "miracles" upon the Pirates—but only on the condition that Guffy put a moratorium on swearing and fighting. He acquiesces and, with the help of the invisible ghosts of past baseball greats, the Pirates make it into the pennant race.

During a game, 8-year-old orphan Bridget White insists she can see the angels helping out the "live" ballplayers—understandably so, since it was Bridget's prayers to the Archangel Gabriel which prompted the angel to visit McGovern in the first place. Jennifer inadvertently transforms Bridget's angelic visions into a nationwide news story, causing McGovern no end of trouble.

After a line drive hits him in the head during a game, Guffy himself deliriously confirms Bridget's claims to the press. He falls into the hands of vengeful sportscaster Fred Bayles, who has been scheming to have Guffy thrown out of baseball and persuades the Commissioner of Baseball to investigate the manager's fitness to lead the team.

Complication piles upon complication until the pennant-deciding game, wherein Guffy is forced to rely exclusively upon the talents of his ballplayers notably "over the hill" pitcher Saul Hellman, who the angel declares will be "signed up" by the Heavenly Choir team shortly. Guffy also wins over Jennifer, and they plan to adopt young Bridget.

Young foster child Roger Bomman and his friend, J.P., love to sneak into baseball games of the struggling California Angels. Still in limited contact with his widowed father, Roger asks when they will be a family again. His father replies sarcastically, "I'd say when the Angels win the pennant." Taking his father's words literally, he prays for God to help the Angels win. In a game against the Toronto Blue Jays which Roger and J.P. attend, he sees a group of angels led by Al helping the team. Although he can see them quite clearly, everyone else can only explain the seemingly impossible acts as freak occurrences. Roger's unique ability to see which players are receiving help from angels leads their skeptical manager George Knox to keep him around as a good luck charm and consultant. Due to the much-needed help, the Angels start to win games and make a surprising second-half surge to the top of their division.

Roger's father permanently gives up custody of him, believing it is in Roger's best interest. As Roger laments his loss, an equally distraught J.P. accidentally reveals to antagonistic sportscaster Ranch Wilder that Roger has the ability to see angels, and that George has been winning through the advice Roger gave him. Hoping to destroy George's career in baseball due to a long-time mutual hatred between them, Ranch informs the press of this, and their owner Hank Murphy threatens to relieve George of his management responsibilities. Roger comes clean to his caretaker Maggie Nelson about his special ability, and at a press conference, they and the entire team defend George in front of the press. Moved by their faith, Murphy allows him to remain as the Angels' manager.

During the final game of the season against the rival Chicago White Sox, none of the angels show up to help the team. Later on, Al appears to Roger and explains that championships must be decided without the angels' intervention. He also says that he is there to check on pitcher Mel Clark, who only has months to live due to his years of smoking and will become an angel himself. Mel struggles in the ninth inning but perseveres after encouragement from George, his team, and the fans in attendance. The Angels ultimately win the game on their own and clinch the division title and the pennant. Murphy fires Ranch because of his denigration of the team. George adopts Roger and J.P., as he wants to try to be a father. J.P. sees Al and says, "I knew it could happen." Al flies off and says, "We're always watching".

Sixteenth century Spanish sailors beach their launch on the Manzanita beach. They carry a treasure chest up Neahkahnie Mountain, leading a manacled African slave. The treasure is buried and the slave is killed and laid on top of the ground to "guard" the treasure and frighten away the local Indians.

Julie (Suzanne Marie Doyon), a lonely 14-year-old girl, and her family move from California to an Oregon seaside town as a last resort after her father loses his job. Her family has trouble adjusting to their new life and Julie is forgotten and ignored, as the family adjusts to living in uncle Jimmy's (Brian Thompson) seaside home.

Julie has a dramatic mystical encounter with a Roosevelt elk on the beach. The elk's fur has black hand prints on its neck. Its hooves uncover an old Spanish gold coin in the sand. The elk becomes Julie's silent, watchful guide and protector as she becomes drawn to the legend of Tillamook's gold.

She seeks the wisdom and guidance of her grandfather (Max Gail) and his good friend, Standing Elk (Floyd Red Crow Westerman). The men tell Julie the legend of the Spanish treasure and also of an elk, saved from drowning by the slave who, before his death, had grasped the exhausted animal as it swam near the Spanish launch. Julie is confused because 400 years later, she is convinced that "her elk" is the same elk. Julie's desire to solve the treasure mystery becomes a passion that leads to further mystery and self-discovery. When she experiences visions of Indians, she is frightened. When she tells Grandpa and Standing Elk, the elders realize that she is having a magical experience. Grandpa and Standing Elk suspect that Julie has been chosen to find the treasure and to release the spirit of the slave. They watch and guide her on her quest.

''Beyond the Crystal Cave'', is in adventure in which the player characters are hired to save a recently eloped couple from the Cave of Echoes after they fled there. The heroes must resolve the secret of the Crystal Cave to enter Porpherio's Garden, a magical place located on the island of Sybarate, where it is summer all year long. Experience points are gained by resolving with encounters intelligently without unneeded violence.

Stan and Cartman are playing in a boat that Cartman claims is his uncle's when Cartman dares Stan to drive the boat, claiming he will take the blame if trouble arises. However, as Stan does not know how to drive a boat, they crash into the world's largest beaver dam, flooding the town of Beaverton. Cartman reveals that he lied about the boat belonging to his uncle and convinces Stan to try to hide their involvement by maintaining complete silence about the incident.

Meanwhile, the flood has a worse outcome than Stan expected. The people of Beaverton are in a state of disaster. Nobody tries to help the situation; instead, everybody would rather figure out who is to blame. At a conference at the Governor's office with top Colorado scientists and government officials, they all declare that the disaster is the result of global warming. At first, it is determined the full effects will take place on "the day after tomorrow". However, some scientists suddenly burst in and state that it has been proven that the disaster will take place "two days before the day after tomorrow".

The declaration of the scientists causes mass hysteria, and everybody runs from "global warming". Most of the South Park people crowd in the community center. Randy authoritatively states that global warming is causing an ice age outside that would kill them if they left.

Stan admits to Kyle that he and Cartman were the cause of the Beaverton flood (although Stan takes most of the blame). The trio then set off to rescue the people by boat. The attempt is a disaster in itself, as they wind up crashing into an oil refinery, compounding the problems of the stranded people, who now must deal with drowning and fire. Meanwhile, Randy, Gerald, and Stephen brave the supposed ice age to find their sons. Dressed in heavy arctic mountaineering gear despite the mild weather, the trio quickly collapse in the street due to heat exhaustion and dehydration, but mistake their symptoms as the "last stages of hypothermia."

The boys nearly escape to the roof of the flooded and burning refinery, but Cartman claims that "all Jews carry gold in a little bag around their necks", and holds Kyle at gunpoint, demanding his "Jew gold," not wanting to be poor in a supposedly changing world. Kyle inexplicably has the gold, along with a fake bag, but he throws it into the destroyed refinery to spite Cartman. After this, boys are rescued by an Army helicopter and fly back to South Park where the Army declares that Crab People, not global warming, are responsible for breaking the dam. In exasperation, Stan finally admits that he broke the dam, but one of the townspeople incorrectly interprets his admission as a lesson to stop obsessing over who to blame while ignoring the problem. The townspeople all begin to declare, "I broke the dam", with Cartman joining in knowing that he won't get in trouble now, while Stan tries unsuccessfully to explain that he literally did it, with a boat. Stan gets angry and finally just shouts, "Oh, fuck it!"

Storyline and protagonists

''Contra'', and its initial sequels, are set in the 27th century, and center around two commandos named Bill Rizer and Lance Bean. They are members of a special guerrilla task force codenamed "Contra", who are sent to thwart armies of alien invaders seeking to destroy the Earth. After ''Contra III: The Alien Wars'', the series would deviate from its original premise.

''Contra: Hard Corps'' and its sequels (''Legacy of War'' and ''C The Contra Adventure'') take place after the events of ''Contra III'', and followed several new characters; namely, recurring protagonist Ray Poward. Additionally, ''Hard Corps'' would feature human antagonists, rather than aliens. 2011's ''Hard Corps: Uprising'' is a prequel to ''Hard Corps'', and is also set twenty years before the events of the original ''Contra''. The game follows a character named "Bahamut", but in an interview with Siliconera, producer Kenji Yamamoto comments that Bahamut may or may not be the same character from the original ''Hard Corps''. Yamamoto would also reveal the reason why the game doesn't use the ''Contra'' name in its title was due to how "different" fans regarded ''Hard Corps'' from the rest of the series. ''Hard Corps'' and its follow ups have since been considered to be spin-offs from the main series.

Bill would not return until 2002's ''Contra: Shattered Soldier''; where he became a convicted war criminal sent to fight against his former partner, Lance, who has become a terrorist leader. In the game's sequel, ''Neo Contra'', a cryogenically frozen Bill is ultimately revealed to be a clone of the original Bill Rizer.

''Contra 4'' was intended to be a direct sequel to ''Contra III'', ignoring the events of previous installments. However, "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion", originally the nicknames given to Bill and Lance in the NES versions of ''Contra'' and ''Super C'', were made into separate characters. The game's main antagonist, "Black Viper", is also treated as a new character, despite originally appearing in the North American version of ''Operation C'' (which also refers to protagonist Lance as "Scorpion"). On the official timeline seen in the "History of ''Contra''" e-book included with the ''Contra Anniversary Collection'', the game is chronology set after the Japanese versions of ''Operation C'' and ''Contra III'', but before the events of ''Hard Corps''.

''Contra: Rogue Corps'' would return to the post-''Contra III'' setting. The game features the return of Kaiser from the latter game, who joins a group of bounty hunters in a place called the "Damned City".

Continuity differences

While the original Japanese version of the early ''Contra'' games (specifically ''Contra'', ''Super Contra'' and ''Operation C'') were set in the 27th century (in the years 2633, 2634, and 2635 in that order), the American versions of these games omitted this detail and the instruction manuals for these versions implied that the series was set during the present day. ''Contra III: The Alien Wars'' retains its futuristic setting of 2636 for its American release, but the identities of the two player characters, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean (the heroes from the previous installments), were changed to their descendants "Jimbo" and "Sully" in order to retain the continuity of the previous localizations.

The enemy characters of the earlier games were also named differently in the American versions. In particular, "Red Falcon", originally the name of the terrorist army that was fought by the main characters in the first game (the Red Falcon Organization), became the name of the actual alien entity leader; thus, "Red Falcon" became the name of the final boss fought at the end of ''Contra'', where the player fights both his alien body form and his heart. In Japan, these are intended to be two different entities: Emperor Demon Dragon God Java and Emperor Demon Evil Heart Gomera Mosking, respectively.

The final boss of ''Super Contra'' (or the third to last boss in the NES ''Super C'') and ''Contra III''; is named Emperor Demon Gyaba in the original Japanese versions. Often mistaken as Red Falcon, his American name is referred to as Jagger Froid in the ''Super C'' instruction manual. The American ''Super C'' instruction manual also illustrates a common "running" alien enemy from its final stage as Red Falcon. The alien entity leader known as Red Falcon does not appear as an enemy in the ''Super Contra'' or ''Super C'' games.

In the Japanese version of ''Operation C'', the antagonist was originally a nameless hostile nation seeking to develop alien-based weapons. This was changed in the North American version to "Black Viper", another alien invader.

With the release of the American and European versions of ''Contra: Shattered Soldier'', all international ''Contra'' releases began to follow the Japanese continuity.

Alternate continuities

''Contra Force'' is a standalone entry that, due to it being originally intended to be separate game altogether, is considered to be non-canon from the rest of the franchise.

''Contra ReBirth'' begins in 2633, but the game's plot primarily takes place in 1973 and incorporates elements of time travel. It has since been considered non-canon, instead taking place in an alternate timeline during a period dubbed "the KONTRA era".

''Probotector''

When Konami released the NES version of the original ''Contra'' in the PAL region (Europe and Australia) they modified the game by replacing the original main characters and most of the human enemies with robotic counterparts, retitling the game ''Probotector'' (a portmanteau of "Robot" and "Protector"), the latter move done probably to avoid any association with the Iran–Contra affair (the reason for which ''Super Contra'''s American title was shortened to ''Super C''). The title referred to the two robotic soldiers, RD-008 and RC-011, who replaced Bill and Lance in this version. This was presumably done due to the German Federal Agency BPjM, which prohibited the sale and advertisement of media deemed too violent to children, including "content which glorifies war".

While the original arcade games, as well as a few computer conversions under the ''Gryzor'' title, were released unchanged in Europe, subsequent console installments of the ''Contra'' series were released under the ''Probotector'' title in Europe. The original ''Probotector'' was followed by ''Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces'' for the NES (originally ''Super C'') and ''Super Probotector: Alien Rebels'' for the SNES (''Contra III: The Alien Wars''). The ''Contra'' games for the Game Boy (''Operation C'' and the Game Boy version of ''Alien Wars'') and Mega Drive (''Contra: Hard Corps'') were also released as ''Probotector'' titles in Europe. The series would revert to the ''Contra'' title in Europe beginning with ''Contra: Legacy of War'' for the PlayStation, retaining the human characters. However, ''Probotector II'' and ''Super Probotector'' were still released for the Wii Virtual Console in Europe and Australia like their original releases, with no "uncensored" versions available. Although ''Contra 4'' was not released in Europe, the "Probotector" character appears in the game as a hidden character.

As three US servicemen – Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes, Private First Class Rene Gagnon, and Navy Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class John "Doc" Bradley – are feted as heroes in a war bond drive, they reflect on their experiences via flashback.

After training at Camp Tarawa in Hawaii, the 28th Marine Regiment 5th Marine Division sails to invade Iwo Jima. The Navy bombards suspected Japanese positions for three days. Sergeant Mike Strank is put in charge of Second Platoon.

The next day, February 19, 1945, the Marines land in Higgins boats and LVTs. The beaches are silent and Private First Class Ralph "Iggy" Ignatowski wonders if the defenders are all dead before Japanese heavy artillery and machine guns open fire on the advancing Marines and the Navy ships. Casualties are heavy, but the beaches are secured.

Two days later, the Marines attack Mount Suribachi under a rain of Japanese artillery and machine gun fire, as the Navy bombards the mountain. Doc saves the lives of several Marines under fire, which later earns him the Navy Cross. The mountain is eventually secured.

On February 23, the platoon under command of Sergeant Hank Hansen reaches the top of Mount Suribachi and hoists the United States flag to cheers from the beaches and the ships. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who witnesses the flag raising as he lands on the beach, requests the flag for himself. Colonel Chandler Johnson decides his 2nd Battalion deserves the flag more. Rene is sent up with Second Platoon to replace the first flag with a second one for Forrestal to take. Mike, Doc, Ira, Rene, and two other Marines (Corporal Harlon Block and Private First Class Franklin Sousley) are photographed by Joe Rosenthal as they raise the second flag.

On March 1, the Second Platoon is ambushed from a Japanese machine gun nest. During the fight over the nest, Mike is hit by a U.S. Navy shell and dies from his wounds. Later that day, Hank is shot in the chest and dies, and Harlon is killed by machine gun fire.

Two nights later, while Doc is helping a wounded Marine, Iggy is abducted by Japanese troops and dragged into a tunnel. Doc finds his viciously mangled body a few days later. On March 21, Franklin is killed by machine gun fire and dies in Ira's arms. Of the eight men in the squad, only three are left: Doc, Ira, and Rene. A few days after Franklin's death, Doc is wounded by artillery fire while trying to save a fellow corpsman. He survives and is sent back home. On March 26, the battle ends and the U.S. Marines are victorious.

After the battle, the press gets hold of Rosenthal's photograph. It is a huge morale booster and becomes famous. Rene is asked to name the six men in the photo; he identifies himself, Mike, Doc, and Franklin, but misidentifies Harlon as Hank. Rene eventually names Ira as the sixth man, even after Ira threatens to kill him for doing so.

Doc, Ira, and Rene are sent home as part of the seventh bond tour. When they arrive to a hero's welcome in Washington, DC, Doc notices that Hank's mother is on the list of mothers of the dead flag raisers. Ira angrily denounces the bond drive as a farce. The men are reprimanded by Bud Gerber of the Treasury Department, who tells them that the country cannot afford the war and if the bond drive fails, the U.S. will abandon the Pacific and their sacrifices will be for nothing. The three agree not to tell anyone that Hank was not in the photograph.

As the three are sent around the country to raise money and make speeches, Ira is guilt-ridden, faces discrimination as a Native American, and descends into alcoholism. After he throws up one night in front of General Alexander Vandegrift, commandant of the Marine Corps, he is sent back to his unit and the bond drive continues without him.

After the war, the three survivors return to their homes. Ira still struggles with alcoholism and is never able to escape his unwanted fame. One day after being released from jail, he hitchhikes over 1,300 miles to Texas to see Harlon Block's family. He tells Harlon's father that his son was indeed at the base of the flag in the photograph. In 1954, the USMC War Memorial is dedicated and the three flag raisers see each other one last time. In 1955, Ira is found dead and he is suspected to have died from exposure after a night of drinking. There was no autopsy. That same year, Doc drives to the town where Iggy's mother lives to tell her how Iggy died, though it is implied that he does not tell her the truth. Rene attempts a business career, but finds that the opportunities and offers he received during the bond drive are rescinded. After failing to find work as a police officer, he spends the rest of his life as a janitor. Doc, by contrast, is successful, buying a funeral home. In 1994, on his deathbed, he tells his story to his son, James, and in a final flashback to 1945, the men swim in the ocean after raising the flags.

''Postal III'' includes performances by a wide array of minor celebrities, including Ron Jeremy, Jennifer Walcott, and Randy Jones. The game also contains characters depicting Uwe Boll (director of the 2007 ''Postal'' film), Sergei Mavrodi, Osama bin Laden and Hugo Chávez.

In ''Postal III'', the Postal Dude emigrates to Paradise's sister town of Catharsis as he previously blew up Paradise with a nuclear bomb. Due to the economic meltdown, the Dude drives into town and becomes stranded because he can not afford a tank of gas. He must then find work and do various odd jobs to escape the town.

Through the course of the game, the player can choose one of two paths: the "bad path", which includes joining in on the schemes of Mayor Chomo and Uncle Dave, or the "good path", which involves the Dude joining the Catharsis Police force. The game plays out in a fairly linear and cinematic way, although the player's actions affect the outcome of the story and the game. Although the "good path" is more difficult to play, it offers more storyline and a longer campaign.

There are three endings to the game as Postal Dude must escape from the impending Venezuelan invasion with Hugo Chávez leading the charge. Evil Ending: Escaping Carthasis by the skin of his teeth and leaving Chomo, Dave, and Bin Laden at the mercy of Hockey Moms, Postal Dude winds up at the mercy of the law enforcement, who are quick to give him and his dog the death penalty for his slaughter. His appeal to heaven completely fails and the Postal Dude is sent to hell. Neutral Ending: Postal Dude succeeds in escaping Carthasis without resorting to murder or delivering swift justice and meets Jennifer "Jen" Walcott who tries to hijack his car but winds up marrying him instead and enjoying a honeymoon in Peru. He wins the lottery and has a bestselling book that details his personal view of the exploits in Postal 2. During a talk show interview, Champ bites on the groin of the talk show host. *Good Ending: Saving the world from Hugo Chávez, Postal Dude become one of the most popular yet controversial heroes of American history. He winds up becoming the President of the United States with Jen Walcott as his wife and head of the Secret Service who winds up annoying both sides of the political spectrum. As he moves into the White House, a certain nuclear button sparks his inner psychopath.

Regardless of the endings, the Postal Dude's final words are "I regret nothing!"

The starship ''Voyager'' approaches an alien world which is enveloped in a tachyon field, giving it an odd temporal nature. To learn more about the planet, Captain Kathryn Janeway orders the ship to move closer, but ''Voyager'' becomes trapped in orbit by the planet's magnetic field. While the crew concocts an escape plan, Seven of Nine surveys the planet and discovers that ''Voyager'' s presence is causing occasional quakes. Further scans reveal that time passes at a much more rapid rate on the planet and it is inhabited by primitive humanoids.

As hours on ''Voyager'' pass, centuries pass on the planet and its humanoid inhabitants reach a level of technology similar to 20th-century Earth. As the crew discusses the unusually rapid technological progress of the species, a radio message is broadcast at ''Voyager''. Tom Paris wants to reply but Tuvok points out that the species has not developed warp technology; a reply would be a violation of the Prime Directive. Janeway suggests a covert one-person mission to the planet. As he would not be affected by the change in the passage of time because he is a hologram, the Doctor volunteers for the mission, which, due to the time differential, lasts three years from the Doctor's perspective, even though he is only gone from the ship for minutes. Upon returning, he reports that ''Voyager'', simply by its presence, has encouraged the society to advance as the humanoids attempt to contact the "sky-ship". While some strive to establish peaceful contact, others are developing increasingly powerful weaponry to shoot down ''Voyager'' and stop the earthquakes.

The humanoids develop technology sophisticated enough to send astronauts on a crewed mission to make contact with the sky-ship. A capsule is launched and succeeds in docking with ''Voyager''. Its two astronauts, a male and female, begin to explore the ship, which appears frozen in time, but fall unconscious from the stress of adjusting to the different space-time. The bodies are found on the bridge and are taken to sickbay. The female dies from the shock of adjustment but the male, Gotana-Retz, is successfully treated whilst ''Voyager'' is hit by a bombardment of antimatter artillery.

Janeway urges Gotana-Retz to return to the planet and convince them to cease the attack. Gotana-Retz does so just after ''Voyager's'' shields collapse. Suddenly, two spaceships appear alongside ''Voyager'' and use tractor beams to tow the vessel out of the planet's field. A visibly older Gotana-Retz briefly transports to ''Voyager'' to explain what has happened and Janeway thanks him and his people. On the surface, an elderly Gotana-Retz, long returned from his experience in space, gazes wistfully into the sky as his people's sky-ship vanishes from the heavens.

Story

Returning from their journey in the Mojoverse, the X-Men return to the destroyed remains of their home, the X-Mansion. They soon discover that they are in an alternate universe under the control of the evil mutant, Apocalypse. The X-Men must battle their way through Apocalypse's army of Sentinels and Mutants in order to return to their universe.

Setting

The setting takes place in an alternate universe controlled by Apocalypse, with backgrounds that stay true to the ''X-Men'' comics. The X-Mansion, the Blackbird, Genosha and other familiar locations are present in the game.

Characters

The playable X-Men roster consists of Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and Rogue. Each character has a different super power that gives them a unique playstyle. Boss enemies include classic villains from the comics such as Blob and Magneto. Other X-Men from the 616 Marvel Universe, such as Colossus and Nightcrawler, are allies of Apocalypse in this alternate universe and must be defeated.

In 1870, 18-year-old Travis Coates (Tommy Kirk) is left in charge of his precocious 12-year-old brother, Arliss (Kevin Corcoran), on the family farm in Southwest Texas, while their parents visit an ailing grandmother. While Arliss and his dog, Savage Sam, are tracking a bobcat, Travis is warned by Bud Searcy (Jeff York) that renegade Apaches are in the area. When Travis joins Bud's 17-year-old daughter, Lisbeth (Marta Kristen), in a search for Arliss, all three are captured by a band of Apaches led by a Comanche. The boys' Uncle Beck Coates (Brian Keith) witnesses the scene and manages to wound the Indian leader, but Beck's horse is shot by one of the braves, allowing the Comanche and his followers to escape with the captives. Beck alerts the U. S. Cavalry, but the Indians split into three groups and ride for the hills; in the confusion, Travis escapes but is knocked unconscious and left to die. Beck and his posse of five find Travis and his dog, set out in pursuit of the other captives, and eventually find the Indians in a valley fighting over Lisbeth. Although posse member Pack Underwood (Royal Dano), bent on revenge for the massacre of his family, fires a shot that alerts the Indians to their planned ambush, the youngsters are saved and the renegades captured.

The movie begins with Gouki (as Akuma is called in both the Japanese and English dubs of the movie) battling his master Goutetsu. Though both combatants show equal potency, in the end, Gouki is the victor, killing Goutetsu with the ''Raging Demon'' technique.

Gouken arrives in time to find the mangled body of their master Goutetsu and a no longer human-looking Gouki. Gouken scorns Gouki, telling him that his path was set for him and asking why he would do such a thing. Gouki took his master's beaded necklace and walks away completely unfazed. Sayaka, unable to reach the fight in time, falls down to her knees and vomits, a sign of her pregnancy and her connection to Gouki.

The movie then moves forward, introducing Ryu, who is visiting his master's old dojo. It is there that an apparition of Gouki comes to Ryu and challenges him. When Ryu comes to his senses, he is greeted by an old man, who says that he, too, had just witnessed what was a true demon. The old man invites Ryu to his house, where Ryu meets his granddaughter Fuka, and offers to train him. Sakura shows up and spars with him, which encourages Ryu to accept Gouki's challenge.

Ryu seeks out Akuma, and the fight begins. During their hard battle Ken confronts the old man and is easily taken down. It is here that old man tells Ken about the Satsui no Hadou. He states that the Satsui no Hadou is a mysterious evil life force that dwells within certain fighters. As this life force is exploited, it grows stronger until it consumes its possessor. Once the person is consumed by the Satsui no Hadou, they cannot be released from its hold. He states that the Satsui no Hadou is ancient, that even old warlords knew of its existence.

As Ryu and Gouki continue to fight, Ryu becomes desperate and is temporarily possessed by the Satsui no Hadou. However, he realizes that it is not the correct course of action and stops using the power. Gouki scolds Ryu, saying to him that his path to a great warrior had been clouded and that a true warrior unleashes his full potential. Seeing Ryu as no threat to him anymore, Gouki unleashes a ''Metsu Hadouken'' on him, only to have Ryu survive it. Gouki then walks away, cursing Gouken and saying that he will meet Ryu again and fight him. Gouki sees an apparition of Sayaka treating his wounds in the past before the scene shifts back to the present with Gouki demonstrating a more human appearance with normal eyes, perhaps implying that he has regained some of his humanity. Bruised from his fight, Ryu walks away, foreshadowing a possible battle in the future.

The movie ends with the old man standing, looking to the sky and addressing an old friend (Gouken). He states that he was asked by Gouken to take care of a young child (Fuka or Ryu) who was left in his care when his mother (Sayaka) died giving birth to the child and was told not to let the child take the path that the father (Gouki) had chosen, but one day, took his eyes off the child for an instant, and it was the biggest mistake he had ever made. He states that he is too old, and that his time has come. Fuka is later seen praying in tears. Ryu takes one last look at her and leaves soon after, beginning his travels again.

A curse affects the Preston family, caused by an ancestor's betrayal of the Satanic priest Jonathan Corbis in colonial New England. Corbis has harassed the Preston family for generations to obtain a book containing the signatures of the members of his cult which bind their souls to Satan. In what appears to be 1970s Arizona, Corbis captures patriarch Steve Preston, who is allowed to escape to warn his wife Emma and son Mark. He tells them to give the book to Corbis, before melting into a waxy substance. Mark advises Emma to keep the book hidden and entrusts her to family friend John. However, moments after he leaves to meet Corbis, he hears Emma scream and returns to find the Satanists have abducted Emma, leaving John bound, hanging by his feet and terrified.

In a ghost town in the desert, Mark challenges Corbis to a battle of faith. Corbis leads Mark to his cult's church where he reveals that Emma has joined them, as reflected by her now eyeless face. When Mark refuses to do the same (even resisting the temptations of Lilith), he is surrounded and overwhelmed by Corbis's followers, despite deploying the power of a Christian amulet.

Sheriff Owens scoffs at John's story of eyeless cultists living in a long-deserted town and refuses to conduct a search for the three missing Prestons, so Mark's older brother, Tom, and his wife Julie search for them on their own. In the ghost town they are attacked by Satanists. After escaping, Tom sends Julie to summon the authorities while he returns to rescue Mark. En route, Julie is captured by a Satanist who was waiting hidden in her car.

Wearing the robe of a defeated Satanist, Tom infiltrates Corbis's church, where Corbis performs a ceremony to convert Mark into one of his eyeless minions. Tom is discovered by Danny, one of the Satanists, but eludes capture. He and Dr. Sam Richards, a psychic researcher, review the book, which explains that the source of Corbis's power is an ornate glass bottle known as "The Devil's Rain", which contains the souls of Corbis's disciples. They also find Mark's signature in the book, which Richards is sure was not there the last time Mark had the book.

Tom and Richards head to Corbis's church and remove The Devil's Rain from its hiding place. The Satanists converge on the church, so Tom and Richards retreat, taking The Devil's Rain but leaving behind the book, which is taken by Corbis. As Corbis (sporting a horned goat head) begins the ceremony to convert Julie to an eyeless one (hinting also of possible rape), Tom jumps in to intervene, and is captured as well. (Inexplicably, the sheriff shows up with an ax, but fights against the Prestons and Richards.) Richards threatens to destroy The Devil's Rain, but is overpowered by the Satanists, and Mark takes the Devil's Rain from him. Richards tells Mark that he can still save his soul by destroying the bottle, while Corbis maintains that if the bottle is destroyed Mark will wander through nothingness for eternity, unable to enter either Heaven or Hell. Mark smashes the bottle. The Devil's Rain is released from the bottle, melting the Satanists (including Mark and Corbis) and burning down the church. Tom and Julie make a hasty exit. As Tom embraces Julie, it is revealed that he is actually embracing Corbis, and that his wife's soul has become trapped within a new Devil's Rain.

Royal Earle Thompson owns a dairy farm in southern Texas during the late 1890s. His farm is fairly unproductive, due in part to Thompson's laziness and distaste for most of the required labor on a dairy farm, which he considers "women's work." Thompson lives with his wife, Ellie, and two small sons, Arthur and Herbert. Ellie is continually ill, though she does her best to perform her domestic duties around the farm. The two boys, aged about six and eight when the story opens, are generally well-behaved.

One day, a man named Olaf Helton presents himself at the farm. The remarkably taciturn Swede asks Farmer Thompson for a job. Thompson agrees to employ Helton, offering him a small monthly wage, plus room and board. It is clear that Thompson views Helton as somewhat beneath him because he is a foreigner. Even though the wage is far below what Helton reports having earned in the wheat fields of North Dakota, he nonetheless sets to work immediately and proves himself to be an efficient farmhand, single-handedly transforming Thompson's run-down dairy farm into a productive, profitable enterprise.

Though he is unable to figure out anything about Helton's personal life or origins, Thompson grows to appreciate his mysterious, silent farmhand. He increases his pay and entrusts him with much responsibility. Ellie also values Helton for the prosperity he brings to the farm. She is troubled by him just once, in a bizarre event in which she sees Helton silently shake her two boys in a terrifying manner after they had snatched his harmonica. She asks her husband to tell Helton that in the future he is to leave the discipline of the boys to their parents. The family quickly moves past the event.

Nine years go by, and the Thompson dairy farm thrives, thanks to Helton's incomparable work ethic. The Thompsons come to view Helton as one of the family; his traits of rarely speaking, never smiling, and continually playing the same song on his precious harmonica are oddities, once puzzling, that they simply accept.

One day, an offensive and irritating stranger named Homer T. Hatch shows up at the farm. Like Helton, he has come to Texas from North Dakota, and says he is there to "locate" Helton. The man annoys Farmer Thompson immediately with his grating banter and subtle insults. Hatch eventually reveals the reason for his visit: he is a bounty hunter, and Olaf Helton is an escaped mental patient who must be returned to the asylum. Many years earlier, Helton killed his only brother with a pitchfork after he lost one of Helton's harmonicas and refused to replace it. Thompson is stunned by this news and unwilling to give up Helton to Hatch, whom he instinctively feels is an evil man.

Thompson has a vision of Hatch driving a knife blade into Helton's stomach. The farmer rushes to Helton's defense, striking Hatch with an axe blade and killing him. Ellie comes on the scene only in time to see Hatch lying on the ground and Helton running away (unaccountably, in view of what Thompson "saw"), and she faints. The fleeing Helton, in the midst of an apparent "mad" episode, such as he had never exhibited while with the Thompsons, is killed by the sheriff's men. When found, Helton's body bears no mark of a knife. It appears (though what happened is never explained) that Hatch's attack on Helton was merely Thompson's hallucination. Thompson impresses on Ellie the importance of her swearing that she witnessed Hatch attacking Helton, and she reluctantly agrees.

After a perfunctory trial, Thompson is acquitted on the ground of self-defense/defense of another. Thompson continues to relive the killing, at one moment sure that there must have been a way to get Hatch off his farm without harming him, at the next certain that he had no choice and that if the scene were playing before his eyes again, he would instinctively act as he did before. Worse, he is sure that though he is legally "not guilty," the community regards him as not innocent, and fears that he has become an outcast. He decides to pay a visit on every household of the small farming community, accompanied by the unwilling Ellie, in an attempt to regain his reputation. His efforts are unsuccessful; both he and Ellie can see that they have lost the esteem of their neighbors and former friends.

In a climactic scene at home, Thompson realizes that even his wife is afraid of him and that their now nearly grown sons no longer trust him with her. He decides that he must end his ruined life. Dressed in his best, Thompson leaves the house and walks as far as he can while still on his land. He writes a note of explanation, saying that he never intended to harm Hatch, even though Hatch deserved to die; still, he is sorry that he had to be the one to kill him. Poignantly, Thompson puts no blame on Helton, observing that had Hatch come hunting him instead of Helton, his friend would have done the same for him. Thompson then shoots himself with his shotgun.

Leo Fast Elk, a tribal council member of a Native American reservation in South Dakota, is murdered. FBI Agent William Dawes assigns Agent Ray Levoi to help investigate. The latter is chosen for his mixed Sioux heritage, which might assist in the inquiry as they interview residents of the reservation. Ray is apprehensive as he is disconnected from his heritage and does not speak Lakota. Ray is partnered with veteran Agent Frank "Cooch" Coutelle, who has narrowed down the suspect list to Maggie Eagle Bear, a peaceful Native American political activist and schoolteacher, and Jimmy Looks Twice, leader of the radical Aboriginal Rights Movement (ARM).

Ray and Frank meet tribal police officer Walter Crow Horse at the murder scene. Walter is resistant to their claims of jurisdiction as he generally distrusts the government, and Ray and Frank tell him not to impede their investigation. Frank has already determined that Jimmy Looks Twice is the prime suspect and has been working with tribal council president Jack Milton to apprehend him. Jack has hired an unofficial militia to protect the reservation from Jimmy and the ARM, who oppose the tribal council's efforts to modernize the reservation. Jimmy is successfully caught and taken into custody, but escapes after a gunfight with the FBI and tribal police.

When Walter informs him that the murder took place on Maggie's property, Ray goes to collect evidence and finds bullet casings but is told to leave by Maggie. Ray is initially mocked and ridiculed by the locals (being called a "Washington Redskin"), but tribal elder Grandpa Sam Reaches tells him that he comes from strong Native American blood. Ray returns to Maggie's to question her grandmother, and commends her for her activism. While Ray is visiting, Maggie's son is shot in the arm by Jack's militia, who claim the shooting was actually committed by the ARM. Ray drives Maggie and her son to the hospital, and gets into a fight with Jack's men when they arrive. After witnessing the harrowing conditions and violence from Milton's pro-government faction on the reservation, Ray gradually becomes sensitized to Native American issues.

Although Frank is convinced that Jimmy committed the murder, Walter tells Ray that the killer was heavier than Jimmy is and also stole Leo's car, which was used to take the body from Maggie's property to the dump site. Leo's car is still missing, but Frank dismisses the lead and tells Ray to focus on locating Jimmy instead of talking to Walter. Ray continues to meet with Walter and Grandpa Sam Reaches despite Frank's orders and starts his own investigation off the record. Leo's car is found with a large jacket in the trunk, supporting Walter's claim that the killer was bigger than Jimmy is. Ray surreptitiously takes a raffle ticket stub from the jacket pocket and takes it to Maggie, who organized the raffle, to see if she can identify who it belongs to. Maggie informs Ray that she is concerned about the possibility of contaminated water on the reservation, and thanks him for his help with her son.

Ray visits Grandpa Sam Reaches and finds Jimmy, who he is now convinced is innocent. Ray warns Jimmy to leave quickly or the FBI will kill him, but Jimmy is apprehended by Frank and the rest of the FBI agents who were called in for the manhunt. Much to Frank's anger, Ray comes to suspect a conspiracy and cover-up involving the reservation and Leo's murder. After Jimmy is arrested, Maggie matches the ticket stub for Ray. The ticket was purchased by Richard Yellow Hawk, a wheelchair-bound convict on the reservation. Ray visits Richard, who admits to killing Leo after Ray tells him to get out of his wheelchair, which he does. Richard confirms that Frank and other FBI agents visited him in prison, offering to reduce his sentence if he did favors for them. Richard stirred up tensions between the ARM and the tribal council, and was effectively blackmailed by Frank under the threat of going back to prison.

After being told to find 'the source', Ray and Walter travel to Red Deer Table, a location that Leo was investigating prior to his death. Ray tells Walter about a dream he had about the Wounded Knee Massacre, in which he was running with other Native Americans from US soldiers. Walter states that Ray had a vision, and that Ray is "Thunderheart", a Native American hero slain at Wounded Knee, who is now reincarnated to deliver them from their current troubles. After arriving at Red Deer Table, the pair come across a government-sponsored plan to strip mine uranium on the reservation. The mining is polluting the water supply and fueling the bloody conflict between the reservation's anti-government ARM and Milton's men. While the land is not owned by Milton, he receives kickbacks from the leases. Ray and Crow Horse discover Maggie's body at the site. Ray rushes back to Richard, but finds him dead in his wheelchair, his wrists slit to make his death look like a suicide.

Walter and Ray are pursued by Frank, Jack, and his pro-government collaborators. Ray reveals that he recorded Richard's confession, implicating Frank in Leo's murder. Ray and Walter are eventually cornered but before they can be killed, the ARM shows up to protect them. Frank and Jack are apprehended after being cornered and outnumbered by the armed resistance. Ray, disillusioned by the corruption, leaves the FBI.

Carmen, in a voice over paired with shots of the city and the sea, introduces herself as "the girl who should not be called Carmen." Somewhere a string quartet is rehearsing the late string quartets of Beethoven. The eccentric Jeannot (played by Godard himself) is living in a sanitarium where the doctor threatens to throw him out if he doesn't start to show signs of real illness. Carmen comes to visit him, and it is revealed he is a washed up filmmaker and her lecherous uncle. After getting her Uncle Jeannot to loan her his seaside apartment, Carmen and some others attempt to rob a bank.

During the mayhem of the robbery, Carmen comes face to face with Joseph, a comically inept bank guard, and the two immediately fall in love. The string quartet continues to rehearse, inflecting the scenes of the robbery, and vice versa. The narrative link is that one of the members of the quartet is Claire, who is established earlier in the film as a potential love interest for Joseph.

Carmen and Joseph retreat to Uncle Jeannot's apartment, where Carmen recalls childhood incestuous encounters. Carmen tells Joseph, quoting from ''Carmen Jones'', "if I love you, that's the end of you." Joseph is arrested and put on trial, while Carmen escapes with Fred, the leader of her gang. In flashback, Carmen reveals to Joseph that the robbery was intended to fund a larger project, the kidnapping of "a big manufacturer," or his daughter, with a fake film directed by Uncle Jeannot meant to provide cover, a scheme that John Dillinger supposedly once perpetrated. Joseph is acquitted with the help of an impassioned public defender and Claire's moral support.

Meanwhile, Fred persuades Uncle Jeannot to direct the gang's film. After receiving a rose from her during the trial, Joseph reunites with Carmen at a hotel where the gang is staying. He plans to renew their relationship and to participate in the kidnapping, but Carmen seems increasingly uninterested in him and the gang ostracizes Joseph. Things go from bad to worse for Joseph as Carmen toys with a young hotel attendant, Fred directs Carmen to tell Joseph it's over, and Joseph forces Carmen into an abject sexual encounter in the shower where he masturbates on her.

The day of the kidnapping arrives, and is to take place in the restaurant in the hotel where the gang has been staying. Uncle Jeannot is present to direct the film (apparently shot on video), along with the string quartet (performing in public at last) and eventually the police (who have followed Joseph). As with the bank robbery, mayhem ensues.

Joseph is determined to face off with Carmen alone; a gun goes off between them, and Carmen falls to the floor. Leaving her for dead, the police drag Joseph away. In a stupor, Carmen asks the young hotel attendant what it is called when the innocents are on one side and the guilty on the other, when everything has been lost but you are still breathing and the sun is still rising. "Daybreak," he responds.

Living on an isolated Greek island are a few native Greeks; several Chinese who spend their days playing ''mahjong''; Nordmann, a boozy screenwriter; and seductive Sarah la-Blonde, the madam at the Blue Villa, the town whorehouse, in which Sarah hides Santa, alias Lotus Blossom. Sarah is teaching Santa to sing an aria from Wagner. One day, Frank arrives on the island. At first, he does not speak and appears to be looking for something or someone. It is later learned that he was involved in the supposed death of Santa, who just might be Nordmann's daughter. It is up to the local police chief, Thieu, to figure out what parts of the story are true and what parts are fiction.

While scuba-diving near shipwrecks off Bermuda, vacationing couple David Sanders and Gail Berke recover a number of artifacts, including an ampoule of amber-coloured liquid and a medallion bearing the image of a woman and the letters "S.C.O.P.N." (meaning "Santa Clara, ora pro nobis", for "Saint Clara, pray for us") and a date, 1714. Gail is attacked while probing a crevice in the wreck, and in panic escapes by getting loose from her wooden baton, which is shown to have its end shredded. Sanders and Berke seek the advice of lighthouse-keeper and treasure-hunter Romer Treece on the origin of the medallion; he identifies the item as Spanish and takes an interest in the young couple. The ampoule is noticed by the man who had rented diving equipment to Sanders and Berke, which in turn attracts the attention of Henri "Cloche" Bondurant, a local drug kingpin for whom the shop owner works, who unsuccessfully tries to buy the ampoule and then begins to terrorise the couple with black magic. The ampoule contains medicinal morphine from the ''Goliath'', a ship that sank during World War II with a cargo of munitions and medical supplies. The wreck of the ''Goliath'' is considered dangerous and is posted as off-limits to divers due to the danger of explosions. Treece concludes that a recent storm has exposed her cargo of morphine and unearthed a much older wreck containing Spanish treasure.

Treece makes a deal with Cloche, so they can dive in peace and making him believe he will get the ampoules for a million dollars, while his real plan is to have the chance to find the treasure. Cloche gives him three days to recover them. Sanders, Berke and Treece make several dives to the wrecks, recovering thousands of morphine ampoules from ''Goliath'' and several additional artifacts from the Spanish wreck. They also encounter a huge moray eel, which lurks inside the vessel, and was obviously the source of the attack on Gail earlier. Adam Coffin, the only survivor from ''Goliath'', joins to help in the boat, but his loyalty is not very clear. When they are attacked by sharks, Coffin only says that he probably fell asleep without noticing they were in trouble.

Through research in Treece's library, they reconstruct the history of the lost treasure ship, locate a list of valuable items, including a gold pinecone filled with pearls, with the letters "EF" engraved on it, and learn that it identifies Elisabeth Farnese, a noblewoman for whom they were made by the King of Spain. Sanders is determined to locate at least one item on the list to establish provenance, since without it there is no real value to the treasure. Treece wishes to destroy the ''Goliath'' to put the morphine out of reach of Cloche, and Cloche interferes with their efforts so that he can recover the morphine for himself. During a running series of conflicts, Treece's friend Kevin is murdered by one of Cloche's henchmen. Adam betrays them and is killed when he triggers a booby-trap while trying to steal the recovered morphine. A climactic battle during the final dive ensues, with Cloche (who is killed by the giant eel) and his divers being killed in the destruction of the ''Goliath'' and the recovery of a gold dragon necklace that will provide the needed provenance of the treasure.

In an unidentified European country, Police Inspector Ginko oversees the transportation of $10 million from a bank. To prevent the master thief Diabolik from stealing the money, he creates a diversion whereby a truck from the bank transports wastepaper, while a team of himself and disguised officers take the money in a Rolls-Royce. The plan is still foiled by Diabolik, who escapes with the money and his lover Eva Kant to their underground hideout, where they passionately make love on top of their loot.

Diabolik and Eva attend a press conference held by the Minister of the Interior, who reinstates the death penalty to dissuade criminals such as themselves; they disrupt the conference by releasing exhilarating gas into the crowd. Unable to locate Diabolik, Ginko and his fellow officers are granted emergency privileges that allow them to crackdown on the activities of gangster Ralph Valmont, who they hope will aid in capturing him. Realizing their plan after a teen discotheque he operates is raided due to it being a front for his drug trafficking operations, Valmont makes a deal with Ginko.

While watching a news report, Diabolik decides to steal the famous Aksand emerald necklace from Saint Just Castle for Eva's birthday. After learning of Eva's features from a prostitute who spotted her scouting the castle, Valmont builds and circulates an identikit image of her. Diabolik scales the castle's sheer walls as the police lie in wait, and steals the necklace. Driving on his getaway, he and Eva fool the police by pulling a mirrored film across the road and using dummy decoys of himself; Eva is injured while helping him to set up the traps.

While visiting her private doctor, Eva is recognised from the identikit image and abducted. To rescue her, Diabolik boards Valmont's airplane with the stolen $10 million and the necklace to trade for Eva. He is ejected from the plane, but manages to grab Valmont just before a bomb he had planted earlier explodes. Diabolik rescues Eva as Ginko and the police close in on them. Eva makes her escape, while Diabolik loads a gun magazine with the emeralds and fires them at Valmont, killing him. He then seemingly commits suicide by taking a mysterious capsule. As the police hold a press conference about Diabolik's death, he is about to be autopsied when he returns to life, having faked his death using a technique created by Tibetan lamas which requires an antidote to be administered within twelve hours; posing as a nurse, Eva administers the antidote and sneaks him past the police and the press.

Later, a disguised Diabolik visits the morgue where Valmont's body has been cremated, collects the emeralds from his ashes and escapes, gifting them to Eva. Upon Ginko's realization that Diabolik is still alive, a million-dollar reward is offered for his capture; in retaliation, he blows up the tax offices. Despite pleas from the disgraced Minister of the Interior — now the Minister of Finance — the citizens refuse to pay their taxes, forcing the country into debt. Twenty tons of gold, which will be used to buy currency, are melted into a single block to make it difficult to steal; the block is loaded onto a train commandeered by Ginko. Diabolik and Eva divert the train by leaving a burning truck on the tracks and re-route it to a bridge where a bomb is placed. It explodes when the train arrives, and the gold falls into the water below. As Ginko swims ashore, Diabolik and Eva collect the gold and return to their hideout.

The steel casket containing the gold is traced by the police, allowing them to track Diabolik's hideout. They close in on Diabolik, who is melting the gold into smaller ingots. As the police fire upon him, Diabolik is unable to control the smelting, and the whole cavern ends up being covered in molten gold. Diabolik is believed to have been killed, with his heat-proof suit now covered in solidified gold. The police seal off the cavern, intending to recover the gold later. As Ginko arrives to arrest her, Eva is allowed a private moment to pay her respects to Diabolik, who winks at her.

Veronica Franco is an adventurous, curious, slightly tomboyish young woman in Venice. Her lover Marco, who will be a Senator like his father, cannot marry her because her family is too poor; he marries a foreign noblewoman instead. Veronica's mother plans for her family's financial security, as she still requires dowries for her younger daughters and money for her son's commission. Rather than go to a convent, Veronica's mother suggests she become a courtesan, a highly paid, cultured prostitute like her mother and grandmother before her. At first Veronica is repelled by the idea, but once she discovers that courtesans are allowed access to libraries and education, she tentatively embraces the idea.

Veronica quickly gains a reputation as a top courtesan, impressing the powerful men of Venice with her beauty, wit, and compassion. Marco finds it difficult to adjust to his new wife, who is nothing like Veronica, and becomes jealous as she takes his friends and relatives as lovers. After Marco's cousin Maffio, a poor bard who was once publicly upstaged by Veronica, attacks her, Marco rushes to her aid. They rekindle their romance, but Veronica refuses to stop seeing clients and accept his support. Nevertheless, she spends a great deal of time with Marco, neglecting her business and ignoring her mother's warnings that such a relationship is dangerous for her.

The Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–73) breaks out, and the city appeals to France for aid. Veronica is encouraged to seduce the King of France and secures a military alliance. Marco accuses her of enjoying being a courtesan, implying she ought to have rejected the King despite the risk to Venice. Veronica points out that she sacrificed their love for the good of the city, while he only did it to protect his family's political standing, and Marco leaves for war angry. While the Venetians are fighting at sea, a plague hits the city. Religious zealots take the war and plague as punishment for the city's moral degradation, and Veronica's home is quarantined and almost ransacked by a mob.

Veronica is summoned to appear before the Inquisition on charges of witchcraft and refuses to name her clients. When it appears that she will be executed, Marco publicly shames the Venetian ministers and senators into admitting their own adulteries and sins by standing up in the assembly. Bewildered by the extent of sin in the city, the Inquisitor drops the charges of witchcraft, and Marco and Veronica reconcile.

In this military thriller, intelligence officer Jack Poynt (Antonio Sabàto Jr.) discovers evidence of a CIA-backed raid on a medical facility in Cambodia in 1972, which led to the torture and killing of a number of civilians. Poynt decides it's high time that the men responsible were exposed and brought to justice, but the deeper he digs in search of the truth, the more he finds himself in danger.

For the last decade, Baltimore industrialist Wendell Armbruster, Sr., has annually spent a month at the Grand Hotel Excelsior on the resort island of Ischia on the Bay of Naples, allegedly to soak in the therapeutic mud baths. During his last visit he died in an automobile accident, and his straitlaced son Wendell Armbruster, Jr., travels to Ischia to claim the body. He meets Pamela Piggott, a London traveler, who has come to claim the body of her mother. Wendell discovers his father had an affair with Pamela's mother for every one of those ten years, despite him having a wife in Baltimore. Pamela knows of their parents' clandestine annual meeting. Hotel manager Carlo Carlucci plans a funeral and the delivery of Wendell Senior's remains in three days time so Wendell Junior can take his father's body back to the family home for a funeral to be viewed on television by all the workers in his father's factories. They are delayed at every turn due to the twin Italian traditions of bureaucracy and short working hours.

Pamela asks Wendell to bury their parents together on their beloved Ischia. When the bodies vanish from the morgue, Wendell suspects Pamela. However, the bodies were stolen by the brothers of the Trotta family, whose vineyard was damaged in the accident. Wendell discovers another Italian tradition, extortion. The Trottas spirited the remains away from the morgue, holding them for a two million lire ransom. At the same time, hotel valet Bruno wants to return to America from which he had been deported since he is Italian. Bruno has compromising photos of Wendell's father and Pamela's mother and plans to use blackmail to make his dreams come true. As Wendell and Pamela swim naked, Bruno take a snapshot of them and tries to force Wendell to his influence to get him an American visa. However, the maid, Anna - whom Bruno has impregnated and seeks to flee Italy to avoid marrying her - kills Bruno in Pamela's room while Pamela is away. Carlucci moves Pamela's property to Wendell's room to prevent her being involved in the incident, but Pamela believes that Wendell has surprised her and ordered the move so the pair can stay together as lovers. Meanwhile, back in the States, Wendell's wife uses her connections to send State Department Agent J.J. Blodgett from Paris to quickly expedite the matter. Wendell and Pamela at last fall in love and have their parents interred together in the Carlucci family cemetery, and places Bruno's remains in a coffin marked as Wendell Senior, granting Bruno's wish to return to the United States.

After enjoying himself in the mud baths, Blodgett appoints Wendell Senior to an embassy post, in the interest of Equal Opportunity Employment by not discriminating regardless of health. Blodgett then Wendell Senior's coffin carrying Bruno's remains sent to America in a diplomatic pouch. Carlucci promises Pamela and Wendell to have a room ready for a month in a year's time just like he did for their parents. Wendell and Blodgett leave Ischia and head to the airport in Rome on a U.S. Navy helicopter.

As ''Voyager'' starts its way back home from the Delta Quadrant, tensions between the Starfleet and the Maquis crewmembers begin to rise, and some brief hostilities are incurred. However, both Captain Kathryn Janeway and her first officer, Chakotay, originally the captain of the Maquis crew, agree they need to integrate the two crews as one to fill vacancies left by the disastrous events to date. Of note, Chakotay recommends B'Elanna Torres, one of the more outspoken Maquis and a former Starfleet cadet, to be Chief of Engineering, a move that Janeway is hesitant about, considering that Torres recently broke another engineer's nose in a fight.

As the ship passes near a quantum singularity, the ''Voyager'' crew detect a ship stuck in the singularity's event horizon. Receiving no contact with the ship, they attempt to move in closer to engage the ship via tractor beams, but the result damages more of ''Voyager's'' systems. Janeway orders the crew to take ''Voyager'' to a nearby planet to seek help for the trapped ship. However, after some time has passed, the crew finds themselves back at the singularity, and quickly realize the ship they are seeing is themselves from before. The ship has become trapped in the singularity, and it is impacting several of the ship's systems.

Eventually, they discover a point in space where ''Voyager'' crossed into the singularity, but it has since shrunk, too small for ''Voyager'' to exit through. Janeway takes Torres, who has knowledge of singularities, on a shuttle to the opening, using the shuttle's shields to expand the opening large enough for ''Voyager'' to pass through. However, the result damages their communications systems; on returning to ''Voyager'' they find two versions of the ship, both appearing real to their sensors. Though they have a heated argument about which ship is the correct ''Voyager'', Janeway makes the ultimate decision, and correctly picks the right vessel. ''Voyager'' leaves the singularity safely and begins to effect repairs. Janeway follows through on Chakotay's advice and promotes Torres to Chief Engineer.

The story revolves around Hatsumi Narita, a passive sixteen-year-old girl who lives in a company housing complex that is ruled by the tyrannical Mrs. Tachibana, the wife of the company's vice president. How a family behaves in the housing complex can affect an employee's status in the company. When her promiscuous younger sister Akané thinks she might be pregnant, Hatsumi gets talked into buying her a pregnancy test. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned and Hatsumi is blackmailed by Ryōki Tachibana, the arrogant teenage son of the powerful Tachibana family who bullied her as a child, into being his slave.

The game takes place in the year 2015, ten years after a deadly man-made virus (Spontaneous Genome Degeneration Syndrome) kills billions across the planet. The initial protagonists are four soldiers who have spent the last decade in a bunker at a Russian Kalinina military base. What greets the survivors initially is a barren world populated by sporadic groups of survivors. Every community is self-sustaining, with trade organized by the Seeker Guild. Seekers are people who scavenge pre-catastrophe (referred to as Old Time) equipment from ruined cities. It is also revealed that after the disaster, central society became non-existent, with territories being controlled by gangs; apparently the area where the group's base was located was the territory of the Slingers, a group of thugs who have started to capture and kidnap people lately.

The group took control of a nearby town and its radar station. They also interrupted another kidnapping and busted up the Slinger base nearby, securing vital intelligence. The kidnapped were due to be sold at a slave market in New Boston, which the group wiped out and freed the slaves. They also paid a small visit to the Slinger headquarters nearby, killing their leader and permanently crippling their operations, as well as narrowly avoiding being caught in the crossfire of a gang war between the Claws and The Final Revolution.

The protagonists acquired intel about a secretive group of highly trained and heavily armed soldiers and scientists, known as NOAH. Their operations and location were a complete secret with only the local Seekers knowing the location of their laboratories. To gain this information in exchange, the protagonists intervened in the gang war in Bergstadt, joining one gang and wiping out the other (the choice is up to the player). However, the defeated gang retreated first to the township Solensk, then besieged the nearby NOAH base, leaving the protagonists to break the siege.

The leader of the local NOAH forces, Prof. Vlamidir Czeko gave the group minimal info: they were extensively but not successfully researching SGDS in the hope of finding a cure. They were suspicious about a religious community known as COTUC (Church Of The Undying Child). Suspiciously, nearly all of COTUC survived the SGDS-catastrophe and seem to be benefited from it, as they used the past ten years to research advanced technology.

To get more information, especially the location of the COTUC headquarters protagonists infiltrated a COTUC monastery protected by heavily armed troops, cyborgs and crawling mines: mines capable of subterranean movement and attracted to vibrations caused by surface movement. Fortunately the visit of a high ranked COTUC member can be used to extract the desired information. At this point, the storyline splits into two paths: the player can choose to join COTUC or to defeat them.

Joining COTUC the protagonists accepted a mission to infiltrate a NOAH compound and got vital intelligence from a COTUC spy. The intelligence revealed NOAH as responsible for creating SGDS and distributing it through the world in order to develop and sell the vaccine at a high price. Obviously, the vaccine wasn't completed and billions died as a result. Finally, the joint protagonist-COTUC taskforce raided and destroyed the central NOAH headquarters. At the end, the leader of COTUC arrived and gave the group a Hobson's choice: either surrender and be transformed into Death Knight cyborgs, or go down fighting.

Opposing COTUC the protagonists had to infiltrate the COTUC headquarters, disguised as unarmed monks. The group had to use anything they can find to fight their way out. It was also discovered that the COTUC not only found and synthesised a cure, but also perfected SGDS to become an even more potent toxin. Unfortunately the leader of COTUC escaped to his last resort and took the antidot with him. With a little help from a squad of NOAH soldiers the numerous enemies were defeated and a counterstrike targeting the players base was prevented. In his final standoff the COTUC leader offered an alliance, which was promptly and violently rejected.

Depending on the players choice the game has three possible endings, which are narrated in the closing: * If the player joined COTUC and surrendered, the protagonists are transformed into hideous Death Knights. Their only hope is to eventually be able to break through the brainwashing and get revenge. * If the player joined COTUC and fights, everyone is slaughtered. Maybe someone else will rise up and win against the COTUC in the future. * If the player sided with NOAH and killed the COTUC leader, it is remarked as the first step of humanity towards restoring civilization.

Eccentric teenager Vivienne Freeman hitches a ride from a reluctant recluse, visiting Englishman Alex Hughes. Just when they reach her hometown of Wawa, Ontario, she is killed by a transport truck ramming their vehicle, while Alex only gets a nosebleed. Everybody confirms that this was not Alex's fault.

Alex visits Vivienne's mother, Linda, to deliver some gifts Vivienne had bought her and to provide support. She has been informed about her daughter's death a few hours before Alex's visit, but does not show any signs of grief. Linda is autistic and constantly behaves in unusual ways while showing that she fully understands what is happening around her. She has a cleanliness mania which involves her constantly making sure everything in her home is neat, and prevents her from touching garbage bags. Her problem is finding someone who will put the garbage outside to be collected (but only when the truck arrives), as this was always something done by her daughter. Linda insists that Alex stay a few days so that he can do this for her. He agrees and also arranges Vivienne's funeral.

During his stay, he begins a relationship with Linda's back fence neighbor, Maggie, who Linda mistakenly thinks is a prostitute. Wawa's Chief of Police, Clyde, is jealous of Alex's connection to Maggie, which he tries to sour by informing Maggie that Alex has just been released after serving time for killing a man.

Maggie does not ask Alex about this, but instead waits until he brings the subject up himself. Alex reveals that he punched and accidentally killed the man (he fell and cracked his head) who caused his son's death. The man had been driving drunk and hit Alex's 22-year-old son while his son was on his way to meet Alex for the first time — Alex had only recently learned about his existence, the result of a brief affair. Released from prison, Alex has flown to Timmins and is driving to Winnipeg (he was not aware of the vast distance) to see his son's mother.

Linda dislikes Maggie to the point where she initially refuses her help. But after Alex leaves to continue his journey to Winnipeg, she allows Maggie to come into her home to take out her garbage.

The main character of the novel is the World Health Organization doctor John Mallory who, six months after his arrival in Central Africa, finds that intense guerrilla activity has left him without patients. He devotes himself, instead, to the task of bringing water to the region, with dreams of setting the Sahara in flower. When he accidentally manages to achieve his task by creating a river, he becomes prey of an increasingly delirious spiral of fantasies, starting to identify himself with the new river that he has dubbed "Mallory". Obsessed, he decides to go up the river in order to "kill" its source, together with a teenaged African girl, whom he considers a sort of spirit of the waters, and other characters including a half-blind British documentary filmmaker and two ruthless local chieftains trying to take advantage of the new prosperity brought by the water.

Konquest

In Edenia, the sorceress Delia has a vision of the future where the forces of good and evil will engage in a final battle of Mortal Kombat that threatens to end all realms. In an effort to spare the Realms, Delia’s husband Argus (an Elder God) constructs a pyramid where the battle will take place and has his sons, Taven and Daegon, put into dormant states in caverns. Delia instructs her Elemental, Blaze, to signal their dragons to awaken them just before final battle commences.

In the future, Taven is awakened by his dragon Orin in Earthrealm and is told that he and Daegon will be competing against each other in their quest. Wishing to speak with his father, Taven teleports to his father’s temple and fights several members of the Black Dragon as well as mysterious warriors in red only to find it deserted. He eventually finds a message left to him and Daegon by Argus stating that they will be competing to take his place as an Elder God by defeating Blaze and that he has left weapons for each of them. When Taven finds both weapons are missing, he is suddenly stunned unconscious by Sektor. Despite being imprisoned on a Tekunin warship, Taven manages to free himself and defeat Sektor before escaping back to Orin’s portal.

Taven then travels to his mother's temple in the mountains where she has left armor for Daegon and himself. Upon reaching the Temple, Taven finds that it has been occupied by the Lin Kuei and is forced to fight through their assassins including Frost and their Grand Master Sub-Zero. Upon defeating the latter, Taven retrieves his armor and is soon attacked by Dark Lin-Kuei. Alongside Sub-Zero, Taven defeats the attackers after fighting both Smoke and Noob Saibot. With Taven’s assistance, Sub-Zero reveals the identity of the mysterious warriors attacking him as the Red Dragon and that they are based out of Charred Mountain.

Upon traveling through the portal, Taven is forced to fight Fujin when the latter warns him to return to Edenia. Taven reluctantly defeats the wind god and proceeds to the Red Dragon stronghold and finds Daegon, who is now much older. Despite being reunited, Daegon reveals himself as the leader of the Red Dragon and his intention to kill Taven in order to kill Blaze first. Taven then fights several enemies and eventually finds Daegon’s dragon Caro, who had been imprisoned and experimented on. Upon being freed, Caro reveals that he had accidentally awoken Daegon earlier than planned which resulted in Daegon seeking out and murdering Argus and Delia upon learning the true nature of the competition. Hoping to atone for his mistake, Caro informs Taven that Daegon has gone to the Netherrealm and stays behind to destroy the Red Dragon stronghold.

Arriving in the Netherrealm, Taven repels an ambush by Drahmin before noticing Shinnok being attacked by Li Mei. Believing that he is still an Elder God, Taven comes to Shinnok’s defense and is later tasked to help reclaim his Spire in exchange for answers of Daegon’s whereabouts. After Taven defeats Havik, Sheeva, and Kintaro, Shinnok reclaims his throne and informs Taven that Daegon has returned to Earthrealm and transports him there. However, it is revealed that Shinnok is actually assisting Daegon and has informed other warriors of the contests prize in order to eliminate all the competitors.

Upon returning to Orin’s cave, Taven finds him mortally wounded from an attack by Quan Chi. On the verge of death, Orin keeps Quan Chi’s portal open to prevent Taven from remaining trapped in the cave with him. Vowing revenge, Taven goes through the portal and arrives at Shao Khan’s palace in Outworld. After reaching the palace dungeons, Taven fights and defeats Mileena and comes across a captive Shujinko who informs him of a meeting taking place in Shao Kahn’s throne room. After fighting through Goro and Reiko, Taven reaches the meeting between Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Onaga, and Shao Khan where they agree to an alliance to take possession of the contests prize before transporting themselves to Argus’s pyramid. Before he can follow however, Taven is confronted by Raiden who reveals he has made a deal with Shao Khan to assist him in exchange for Earthrealm’s independence. Shocked at Raiden’s betrayal, Taven defeats him before taking Quan Chi’s portal to Edenia.

Once through the portal, Taven fights and defeats Scorpion before being confronted by Daegon. Before they can fight however, they are interrupted by Blaze who informs them that the competition has been corrupted and that they’re fighting in the wrong place. Transported to the edge of the crater, Taven and Daegon engage in a final battle. Although Taven ultimately kills Daegon, he becomes disillusioned with the quest and refuses to go further until Blaze reveals the true nature of the quest.

With all the fighters engaged in Mortal Kombat in the crater, Blaze reveals that it will be the epicenter of the apocalypse unless the quest is fulfilled. With their respective armors being the catalysts for ending armageddon, only Taven and Daegon are meant to defeat Blaze with one of two outcomes occurring depending on which brother completed the quest first and will either destroy all the warriors or strip them of powers and abilities.

Reclaiming his sword from his fallen brother, Taven travels through a portal to confront Blaze. After fighting his way to the top of the pyramid, Taven confronts Blaze. In the non-canon ending, Taven manages to defeat Blaze and becomes an Elder God. However, neither outcome occurs and instead the fighters power are increased. Taven vows to use his status as Elder God to find another solution to prevent armageddon.

The game is divided into six segments, each having its own separate plot. The two bonus stages are only available in the console and Windows versions of the game.

In "Cool Yer Ed", the Eds plan to steal ice cubes from coolers in the neighborhood kids' backyards to create snow-cones to sell during the hot weather. Though they face obstacles, Ed's unquestioned strength and speed guides them through. They find a meatball-making machine in Rolf's shed, but Rolf refuses to let them use it. His pigs escape after Ed smashes the fence of their pen, and the Eds agree to catch the pigs if Rolf lets them borrow the machine. Rolf agrees, and the Eds capture the pigs in the pen. The Eds finally make snow cones by covering the meatballs in ice, which Ed begins to eat.

In "Pin the Tail on the Ed", Jimmy has a birthday party, but Rolf tells the Eds not to come. The Eds find their own way to the party, and Ed suggests that they sneak in through the sewers. Despite Edd's worries, Eddy leads his friends through the sewer to crash Jimmy's party and are successful. While everyone is inside Jimmy's house, the Eds break Jimmy's pinatas, but the Kankers pop out of one and chase them. Edd uses his slingshot to shoot down beehives, which makes the bees chase the Kankers away. But at that moment, Kevin tells the Eds that the party has ended. Jimmy "rewards" them with a blob of icing with five birthday candles in it, which Ed proceeds to eat.

In "Must Be Something I Ed", Rolf informs the Eds of the candy store's "Customer Appreciation Day", in which employees give out free jawbreakers. Because closing time is nearing, Eddy takes a shortcut, which passes Sarah and Jimmy, Kevin, Johnny, and Plank, and a vicious bulldog. After arriving at the candy store, Eddy suffers an allergic reaction to a tainted jawbreaker that turns his face green. The trio sneaks back to Eddy's house unseen, but as Eddy draws the curtains, the kids appear and laugh while photographing Eddy's face.

In "Ed on Arrival", Rolf boasts about his Urban Ranger badge to the Eds, and Eddy says he wants one. Rolf challenges the Eds to cross the Peach Creek Estates construction site, where he has set up an assault course, promising them the badge if they cross it. Eddy refuses at first, but when Rolf says the badge will go to Kevin instead, Eddy accepts his challenge. Rolf privately tells Kevin to ensure the Eds do not succeed. Despite Kevin's tricks, traps, and tribulations, the Eds complete Rolf's tasks. After a head-butting competition with Rolf's goat, Victor, the Eds race Kevin for the badge. The Eds win, but for the badge to be shared fairly, Rolf rips the badge into three pieces. Ed wants to trade his piece with Eddy's, but Eddy is so annoyed that he shoves it up Ed's nose and storms off.

In "Nightmare on Ed Street", Jimmy's toy rabbit, Mr. Yum Yum, is trapped on the window sill of an abandoned house. When Eddy promises to retrieve it for a quarter, Jimmy refuses, saying he will pay him when he gets Mr. Yum Yum back. Inside the house, Eddy reveals that he told Ed to steal Jimmy's rabbit so Jimmy would pay to have it returned, but Ed tells Eddy that he put Mr. Yum Yum on the mantel, not the window sill. Suddenly, the Kanker sisters appear, holding Mr. Yum Yum and threatening to cut it with a spinning saw. After the Kankers make flirtatious advances towards the Eds, they agree to trade Mr. Yum Yum with the Eds in exchange for giving them "good boyfriend presents" without any kisses. After exploring around the abandoned house, the Eds bring the Kankers their presents (a ship in a bottle for Lee, a can of axle grease for Marie, and a taxidermy book for May) and disable the saw. They successfully retrieve Mr. Yum Yum for Jimmy, only for it to fall in half. Jimmy runs off crying, leaving the Eds without their promised reward.

In "Ed Marks the Spot", Eddy plans to share his secret stash of jawbreakers in his suitcase with Ed and Edd, but someone has taken them all. As Eddy shakes the suitcase, a piece of a map falls out. Edd suggests that they search for other map pieces to recover Eddy's missing jawbreakers. The Eds collaborate to discover the jawbreaker thief and confront him/her. They collect the first piece from Johnny (who tried to get it from a fence and turn it into a paper airplane), the second piece from Jimmy (who tried doing origami with it), and the last piece from Rolf's goat, Victor, by head-butting him off a cliff. After putting the pieces together, they realize the Kankers took the jawbreakers. When Eddy angrily storms into their trailer, the Eds accidentally activate a trap door and fall underground. They run away from the Kankers, who are madly trying to kiss them. They enter a room where they battle the Kankers to get the jawbreakers back. After defeating them, the Eds grab the jawbreakers and run back to the Kankers' trailer, which has been decorated to look like a church. They realize that the Kankers have trapped them in a wedding ceremony, as they kiss the frightened Eds.

Bonus levels

In "Revenge of Ed-zilla", Eddy recreates his Edtropolis scam. All is well until Ed believes he is a monster and rampages throughout the city. He battles the Kankerator at the Chunky Puffs factory, using giant Chunky Puffs as his weapon against them. After Ed defeats the Kankers (destroying Edtropolis in the process), Eddy angrily whacks Ed in the face with a metal dustpan lid.

In "Robot Rebel Ranch", the Eds are stuck on a robot planet, and their only hope is to get to the space rocket. Ed thinks he should take the lead, but he gets zapped by robot rebels and taken capture. Edd (using Ed's laser pistol and a red lightsaber) and Eddy (using a shock bomb and yellow plasma flail) try to rescue Ed from the robot rebels. After freeing Ed, they must find the space rocket before leaving the planet. They battle the giant robot leader: a huge, red robot turret with a cowboy hat and two laser cannons. Edd helps them complete their mission and find the rocket. Their imaginary game is disrupted when Sarah yells at Ed to come home for dinner as the game ends with Ed crossly storming away.

The crew of follows an ancient SOS to a Class L planet whose atmospheric interference requires landing the ship to investigate. On the surface, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) leads an away team to discover the source of the transmission: a Lockheed Model 10 Electra with an alien generator added to sustain the SOS. Joining Commander Chakotay's (Robert Beltran) team, the crew finds a "cryostasis chamber" containing eight humans preserved since the 1930s, including Amelia Earhart (Sharon Lawrence) and her navigator, Fred Noonan (David Graf).

After resuscitation, Noonan uses a handgun to hold the ''Voyager'' officers hostage, disbelieving their story and insisting on speaking to J. Edgar Hoover. Janeway speaks to Earhart and explains her significance to human history and to Janeway herself; Earhart, as Noonan's boss, tells him to cooperate, and some of them exit the caves. Outside, a firefight breaks out between the ''Voyager'' away team and three hooded figures. Janeway flanks the attackers and disarms them; they are human, and are surprised that Janeway is too. They had assumed the ''Voyager'' was a ship belonging to an alien species called the Briori.

Janeway learns that the Briori visited Earth in 1937 and abducted some 300 humans, bringing them to the Delta Quadrant to use as slaves. The humans later successfully rebelled against the Briori, who fled and never returned. Fifteen generations later, there are more than 100,000 humans living in three cities on the planet. The last eight un-revived humans in cryostasis were believed dead by the others, who came to revere "the 37s" as "monuments to [their] ancestors".

The settlers cannot offer the Briori technology that brought them there, as their ancestors dismantled the alien ship long ago, but they do offer to accept any of the ''Voyager'' crew into their society. Janeway thus faces a crisis of conscience over whether she can condemn all on ''Voyager'' to the 70-year journey home to Earth. Yet, if the choice is presented to the crew and only some decide to continue onward, the ship cannot be staffed by fewer than 100. Meanwhile, Earhart says that as much as she admires ''Voyager'' and yearns to learn more about it, she and the other 37s feel a stronger affinity to the people on the planet and they will all be staying. In the end, Janeway allows her crew to decide for themselves, and they all opt to stay aboard.

Dan is a world-class trampolining gymnast attending college at the University of California, Berkeley. The story begins when Dan experiences a series of nightmares, where he is in a dark lane. In front of him is Death, about to claim his life, when an old man appears out of nowhere and confronts Death. One particular night, Dan heads out to an all night gas station, where he meets the same old man from his dreams.

Dan, nervous, leaves immediately, but as he turns back, he sees the man standing on the roof. Surprised that he could move so quickly, Dan strikes up a conversation with the old man, and calls him Socrates. Dan begins to meet Socrates on a regular basis, and is interested in his philosophy.

Socrates ridicules Dan, pointing out that he is trapped in the illusions created by his mind, causing Dan so much trouble. Dan keeps a diary and is surprised that his mind is so troubled, that he is used to it. Dan demands Socrates to teach him. Socrates begins his initiation, by showing Dan visions of his whole life; his purpose; the world and "re arranges" the young man's mind. Socrates tells Dan that he should eliminate attachments and live in the present, but warns him that it would be a painful journey. Dan becomes besotted with Socrates's other protégée, a mysterious girl named Joy, who keeps turning up, unpredictably.

A few weeks later, Dan suffers an accident, where his right leg is badly fractured. Socrates arrives and accelerates Dan's healing process. Socrates takes Dan to a café, owned by his former disciple, Joseph, who serves simple food. Socrates instructs Dan to take up celibacy, consume only light food and avoid intoxicating substances.

Dan is frustrated, and even fails once, but resumes. Next, Socrates begins to train Dan physically, making him run, correcting his poise and breath, practice tai chi, meditation and aikido and refine his gymnastics.

Dan graduates and Socrates decides to part ways with him, as Dan must travel his path on his own. Dan marries Linda, but the marriage fails. He travels around the world for six years, learning new physical teachings, but is unable to find peace. Dejected, Dan returns to Berkeley, to an old place which Socrates had told him about long ago.

Dan meets Socrates again, now over hundred years old. Socrates tells Dan that he is almost near to his goal. Mystified, Dan follows Socrates to an ancient Native American burial ground. A thunderstorm breaks out and the two go inside a cave. Dan experiences a vision where he dies but still remains conscious. He finally overcomes his fear of death. Socrates reminds Dan of his teachings and that he must be happy without any reason. Socrates and Dan return home. Dan wonders where Socrates is and opens the door. Socrates has disappeared, died presumably. Dan returns home as a wiser man. He falls in love and marries Joyce, who is revealed to be Joy.

A womanizing racketeer (Montgomery) is wounded by police and hides out in a farmhouse, where he falls in love with a country girl (O'Sullivan) and meets her wholesome family.

Setting and characters

''Children of Mana'' takes place in the world of Fa'diel, split into the five continents of Jadd, Topple, Wendell, Ishe, and Lorimar, as well as the island of Illusia. At the center of that island, the beginning point of the game, stands the Tree of Mana. Several years ago, an event known the "great disaster" took place at the base of the Mana Tree and many lives were lost. During this event, a brave young boy and girl used the Sword of Mana to save the world from disaster. Now, one of a group of orphans sets out to investigate the details of the event that killed their families.

The four main characters of ''Children of Mana'' are Ferrik, Tamber, Poppen, and Wanderer. They all live together in the Mana Village, near the Mana Tree. Ferrik is a fifteen-year-old boy, a knight who is said to be brave, bright and cheerful. He lost his parents and sister in the great disaster. After his life was saved by a knight, he has been honing his skills with the sword, his weapon of choice. Tamber is a sixteen-year-old girl, a dancer with a sense of truth and justice, and an air of maturity about her. She lost her parents and little brother due to the great disaster. Tamber's weapon of choice is the bow. Poppen is a stubborn and fearless nine-year-old boy, who lost his mother at birth and his father in the great disaster. Poppen's weapon of choice is the flail. Wanderer is a traveling merchant, a tradition kept throughout the series. He is a member of the Niccolo tribe of rabbit/cat people who lost his family due to the king of Lorimar during the great disaster. Wanderer's weapon of choice is the hammer.

Story

One day, following a flash of light, the stone at the base of the Mana Tree cracks, distorting time and space. The hero recalls that their friend Tess, who is a priestess, went to the Mana Tower to pray, and goes to find her. After reaching the tower with an Elemental in tow, the hero finds the tower is infested with monsters. Upon fighting their way to the top of the tower, the hero finds Tess, frightened but unharmed. Suddenly, a giant flaming bird descends upon the two. The hero attempts to fight it, but finds that the bird is protected by a barrier. A sword then falls from the sky, causing the bird's shield to fade away and allowing the hero to slay the beast. When the bird is defeated, a mysterious man garbed in black appears and attempts to take the Holy Sword, which is still stuck in the ground, but is prevented by the appearance of a barrier when he tries. The man disappears, and the hero attempts to grab the sword. No barrier appears to prevent them, and they take what turns out to be the fabled Sword of Mana.

Upon returning from the Mana Tower, the hero discovers that three mysterious pillars of light have struck in the lands of Topple, Jadd, and Lorimar. After being asked by the leaders of the village, the hero investigates these places and finds dungeons full of monsters with a huge monster at the end. After these three tasks are completed, the mysterious man appears once again, identifying himself as the Mana Lord. He steals the Sword of Mana and causes a large storm in the land of Wendel. The hero journeys there to stop the Mana Storm by confronting the Mana Lord. When the Mana Lord is about to kill the hero, a group of gems appear around the hero to prevent his attack. The Mana Lord then decides to kidnap Tess and vanishes.

After returning to the Mana Village, the hero heads for the Path of Life under the roots of the Mana Tree. At the end of the Path, the hero finds the Mana Lord waiting, and the two fight. Upon his defeat, the Mana Lord reveals that he was one of the two children of Mana who had saved the world during the great disaster, and rather than trying to hurt anyone, he was simply trying to fulfill the reason he was created: "to fill the world with the power of Mana". He tells the hero the other child of Mana is spreading disaster through the world and must be stopped. He proceeds to give the Sword of Mana to the hero, then commits suicide by throwing himself off a cliff. This shift in power causes a rift to open in the sky, where the second child of Mana is waiting. The hero destroys this second child, the Scion of Mana, restoring the world to peace.

In the aftermath, Tess and the Elementals are entrusted with care of Illusia, while everyone else must leave. Moti says Illusia will be protected as a haven and that humans will not return for many more years. They embark to Jadd to start a new life in a new world.

A pickup artist / womanizer named Patrick inadvertently pursues two young women who actually happen to be roommates.

When Campion saves him from certain death on the ship over, Judge Lobbett looks into the man's background, and is advised to trust him. So, he takes Campion's advice and brings his handsome son and pretty daughter down to Mystery Mile, a tiny village on a near-island on the Suffolk coast, where Campion's friends Biddy and Giles Paget own a run-down manor house.

The night they arrive, a roving fortune-teller visits, and soon afterward the local Rector "St." Swithin Cush, a mild and much-loved man, commits gruesome suicide, leaving a note and some mysterious clues—a red knight from his chess set, and the word "Danger" in encrypted form.

Settling in at the manor, the judge calls in an art expert to inspect a possible masterpiece, but as the man (an annoying bore they had encountered on the boat) arrives at the house, the judge vanishes, seemingly inexplicably, while exploring the maze. They search for the judge's secret knowledge, the clue to the identity of crime boss Simister, which has brought such danger, but find only a large box of children's books.

Travelling to London to investigate the judge's enemies, and to shake off art expert Barber, Campion and Lobbett's son Marlowe are recalled by a shocking telegram, but find the local Post Office man has exaggerated things—not a body, but Judge Lobbett's clothes, have been found. Next day, Biddy disappears, and Campion soon sees that the shopkeeper is behind it.

Thos. T Knapp, a low-class criminal of Campion's acquaintance, arrives with news of their enemies, and they all decamp to London to rescue Biddy, leaving Lobbett's daughter safe in Campion's flat. They break into the house of the fortune-teller, where Biddy is being cruelly interrogated, and after a fight and Campion's use of a smoke-bomb, escape, leaving the gang in disarray.

Back at Campion's flat, they see a photo of the judge in a newspaper, and Campion reveals that he had arranged for the disappearance, and hidden the man on a nearby estate, following St. Swithin's advice. They go there, fetch the judge, and he, Giles and Campion decamp for Mystery Mile once more, where they find the household, including Mr Barber, drugged. They retrieve the judge's evidence—a book of stories from the ''Thousand and One Nights'' from his set—and Giles and the judge flee using the same path used to smuggle the judge away before, a boat from a beach near some dangerous "soft" – mud that works like quicksand.

Campion sits in the hut and deciphers the clue—the art expert's name is Ali Barber. The man comes in, and reveals his secret role as Simister, head of a colossal criminal gang, inherited from his father. He tries to kill Campion with a syringe filled with acid, but Campion breaks through the floor of the hut and falls beneath it. Barber goes to retrieve the book, but is taken by the soft mud, dying horribly.

Recuperating later, Campion's friend Stanislaus Oates tells him the secret of Swithin Cush's suicide – he was in fact not a parson at all, having taken the place of his brother who died young. The fortune-teller, a blackmailer working for Simister, knew this and threatened to reveal it.

Biddy and Giles Paget plan to marry Marlowe and Isopel Lobbett, respectively, and to sell the valuable painting for a small fortune.

A college professor, Dr. Douglas Newton, develops an experimental drug named Tryptophan (not to be confused with real Tryptophan) that has the side effect of turning his students into bloodthirsty zombie-like creatures, leading them to eventually explode. It is up to a couple of grad students, Jenny Wayne and Joe Larsen, along with the local newspaper reporter Ray Elsworth, to uncover Dr. Newton's dark secret and thwart his plans before time runs out.

John Holmes and Dawn Schiller

The girlfriend of John Holmes, Dawn Schiller, is on the streets and picked up by a holy roller after Holmes leaves Schiller in a hotel room. Schiller eventually calls Holmes to come and get her. Holmes arrives at the apartment, and they have sex and snort cocaine in the bathroom. The next morning, while in a motel room, Dawn sees a newscast that states four people were murdered at a rowhouse on Wonderland Avenue, the same one she had earlier been at with Holmes. The story eventually moves on to two city detectives investigating the crime, Sam Nico and Louis Cruz, and their contact with Holmes. Another officer, Billy Ward, intervenes in the investigation.

David Lind's story

The next major character introduced is David Lind. He hears of his friends' murders at Wonderland and soon discovers his girlfriend was there. While at the crime scene, he is picked up by Nico and Cruz. Through Lind's story (told in flashbacks), we are introduced to some of the people who partied at Wonderland. These people, known as the Wonderland Gang, included Ron Launius and his wife Susan, Billy Deverell, Lind's 22-year-old girlfriend Barbara Richardson, and Joy Miller. Ron has a fondness for antique guns and frequently shows them off. When he learns that Holmes knows notorious gangster Eddie Nash, he gives Holmes a pair of stolen antique guns to take to Nash, so that Nash can fence them and the Wonderland Gang can split the loot. (Nash had befriended Holmes because of Holmes' notoriety as the porn film phenomenon Johnny Wadd.) Holmes takes the guns to Nash, but Nash says the guns are too rare to be sold, as they would be recognized right away and everyone involved would be apprehended. Rather than return the guns to Holmes, Nash keeps them for himself. Attempting to get back in the gang's good graces, Holmes suggests robbing Nash's home. Ron Launius is reluctant to go along with the robbery at first, but after Holmes gives him a rundown of what's there, he is eager to participate. Holmes volunteers to draw them a map to plan the robbery, since he has visited Nash's house frequently. Holmes then visits Nash to buy drugs, and on the way out leaves the kitchen door unlocked to give the Wonderland gang easy access.

The robbery of Eddie Nash

The next morning, Ron Launius, Lind, and Deverell carry out the robbery, while wheel-man Tracy McCourt waits outside in a car, serving as lookout. Neither Holmes nor any of the women are present when the robbery occurs. The Wonderland Gang gains access through the unlocked kitchen door and robs Nash at gunpoint. Lind accidentally fires his gun, wounding Nash's bodyguard, Greg Diles. The gang hurls racial epithets at Nash and Diles and walks away with over one million dollars in cash, jewels, and drugs. They bring their loot back to the Wonderland apartment to divide everything up. Holmes is unhappy with the cut he is given, even though he did not take part in the robbery and he's in debt to the gang.

Nash discovers Holmes was involved in the robbery, he has Holmes beaten and finds Holmes' little black book. He tells Holmes he will kill every person listed in the book, starting with Holmes' mother, if Holmes does not give up the men who robbed him.

July 1, 1981

The retaliation for the robbery is swift and fatal. On July 1, 1981, a group of Nash's henchmen (including Holmes), led by Diles, gains access to the apartment at Wonderland Avenue. Ron Launius, Deverell, Richardson, and Miller are all brutally beaten to death with striated lead pipes. Diles compels Holmes to deliver blows to Launius. Susan Launius is beaten but survives, and is questioned by Nico and Cruz in her hospital bed. She tells them (in a near comatose state) that she does not remember anything, only shadows. Lind is not present during the attacks.

Stan and Ollie are about to attend a poker game when Ollie receives a telephone call telling them their absence is holding up the game. Ollie then tells their wives they have a business engagement at the Orpheum Theater and sneak off to their poker game. En route, they gallantly stop to assist two young ladies retrieve a hat that has blown under a parked car. They end up being soaked by a passing street-cleaning vehicle while trying to retrieve it. The girls invite them up to their apartment while their clothes dry. One of the females becomes very amorous with Stan and all proceed to become blotto with beer.

A large boyfriend of one of the females appears at the apartment, sending the duo scrambling out the back window, in full view of their wives who have already seen a newspaper headline announcing that the Orpheum Theater had been gutted by a fire. The rest of the story is about how the duo lie to their unimpressed wives in ever-escalating tall tales about the things they supposedly saw at the theater, before realizing the truth and being chased out by the wives.

In Dublin, a working-class family has been unsuccessful in convincing their son to get a real job: the son prefers his job of scooping up horse's dung and selling it for flower gardens. An American exchange student almost runs him over and gets to know him. The dung man has ignored warnings from his family and suddenly the horses have been banned from Dublin. His new love is leaving for America and he must find a way to cope with the new reality.

An explosion resulting from an experiment gone awry rocks an Allied research facility near the border with the Soviet Bloc. A Soviet team abducts Lucas Martino, a leading Allied physicist in charge of a secret, high-priority project called K-88.

Several months later, under American pressure, the Soviet officials finally hand over an individual, claiming that he is Martino. The man has undergone extensive surgery for his injuries. He has a mechanical arm that is more advanced than any produced in the West. More importantly, his head is now a nearly featureless metal skull, a kind of extreme craniofacial prosthesis. A medical evaluation reveals that several of the man's internal organs are also artificial. His biological arm and its hand's fingerprints are identified as Martino's, but this may be the result of an arm and hand transplantation. The Allies are suspicious that the Soviets have sent them a technologically altered spy and are holding the real Martino for further interrogation.

The struggle to determine the man's true identity is the novel's central conflict. In the end, Shawn Rogers, the agent given the task, is unable to reach a conclusion. The man is released, but kept under surveillance and barred from working on physics projects. Later, when progress bogs down on the K-88 project, Rogers is sent to ask him to come back to work. The man refuses to go, and when finally asked directly if he is Lucas Martino, says simply "No": a reply that will later be seen as trenchantly mordant.

Budrys tells the story in alternating chapters. Every second chapter relates part of Lucas Martino's life, highlighting his family, his struggle to support a career in physics, and his dalliances in romance. The young man spent his formative years in an Italian American New Jersey farm community (with English as his second language), then works his way through the City College of New York, and graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The last part of the novel tells what happened on the Soviet side. It takes many weeks for doctors to save Martino's life. Soviet interrogator Anastas Azarin has little time to work with and is thrown off by the prisoner's expressionless appearance. An attempt was actually made to replace Martino with a Soviet agent (his former MIT roommate, who knows him well enough to take on the role), and who was to disappear in a staged air crash, but this fails.

Thus, at the end of the book the mystery is resolved to the reader's satisfaction: the man is indeed Lucas Martino, not a Soviet agent, and he is perfectly willing to resume his scientific work. But since the Western authorities cannot be sure of that, he will never be allowed near sensitive material again; rather, he is doomed to live out the rest of his life as an obscure farmer, under a shadow of suspicion that he will never be able to dispel. The treatment he received on his return, the endless suspicion and hostility, transformed him: he is indeed no longer the Lucas Martino he was before the accident, hence the mordant quality of his final reply to Rogers.

As made evident by one of the titles of the film adaptation , ''The Man in the Steel Mask'', the book is loosely inspired by the historical mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask in the 18th century.

Characters

Lucas Martino, a kidnapped physicist Shawn Rogers, the Allied intelligence agent assigned to determine the identity of the released man *Anastas Azarin, the Soviet agent who interrogates Martino

Jules, a young man, is a motorcycle courier for RCA in Paris, and an enthusiastic fan of classical music and opera. Jules is a particular fan of Cynthia Hawkins, a beautiful American opera singer, who only performs live and has never made a recording, studio or otherwise. One day, Jules secretly records a Cynthia Hawkins concert. He shares the tape with his friend Alba, a precocious teenage beauty. Alba shares the tape with her older friend Serge Gorodish,

Serge is a successful part-time criminal in his mid-40s, who has Alba as a sort of muse. Serge realizes that the Cynthia Hawkins tape could fetch a lot of money from "pirate" record makers.

This plot becomes entangled with the fate of Nadia, a young woman employed by Saporta, who controls the largest drug cartel and prostitution ring in Paris. Nadia records a statement exposing Saporta on a cassette tape, but is pursued by Saporta's henchmen. She hides the cassette in the satchel of Jules' motorcycle.

Soon, Jules is being chased by the police, as well as gangsters, though he has no idea why. Saporta mobilizes his entire crime organization to retrieve the tape from Jules. Locating an intrepid and skilled motorcyclist in Paris is not easy. Meanwhile, there is a furious underground bidding war for the Hawkins tape.

When Nyssa's psychic abilities threaten her life, the Doctor takes her to ancient Traken. Will Nyssa be healed, or does the Doctor's arrival threaten Traken and its Source?

The Phantom of the Opera is a disfigured musician named Erik who lives below the Opéra Garnier in Paris. He has a large part in managing each performance until his friend Gerard Carriere is dismissed. The new manager Choleti refuses to listen to warnings about the "ghost" who haunts the opera house, even when the wardrobe man goes into the depths of the opera house and is killed.

Christine Daaé comes to the Paris Opera House to receive voice lessons; however she is dismissed by Choleti's wife, Carlotta, to working in the costume department. The doorman lets Christine stay in a storage room in the Opera House. Upon hearing her sing, the Phantom is entranced by her voice. He offers to be her teacher, but must remain anonymous; that is why he wears a mask. They begin lessons, and the Phantom falls deeper in love with her.

Erik begins a campaign of humiliation against Carlotta, sabotaging her performances. With Erik's encouragement, Christine earns a singing contract. The Comte de Chagny realizes Christine was his childhood sweetheart. Erik witnesses them together and stays up all night in the rehearsal room.

Finding out Christine has been living in the Opera, Carlotta blackmails Christine into telling her about her vocal coach. When Carlotta informs her husband that Christine's teacher is the Phantom, Choleti gives Christine the female lead of the opera ''Faust''; he is working with the police to capture the Phantom. Carlotta gives Christine a drink that weakens her voice during the performance. The audience boos and Erik is enraged. He cuts through the ropes holding the chandelier and drops it on the audience, then abducts Christine to his underground lair.

The Phantom discovers Carlotta was behind Christine's voice problems and dumps rats on her, driving her insane. Carriere pleads with him to let Christine go, but Erik refuses. He insists that the world above is not fit for her and believes that in time she will love him. Carriere goes to Christine and urges her to get out. He tells her the story of Erik's past and of Erik's mother, a great singer named Belladova to whom she bears a resemblance. Belladova gave birth to him below the opera house, and Erik has lived there his entire life. Christine refuses to leave without talking to Erik.

She asks Erik to show her his face promising him that she would be able to look at him with love and acceptance, as his mother once did. When he does unmask, she faints. In the midst of an anguished breakdown, Erik locks her in one of his chambers. Christine escapes, and Carriere and the Count take her from the Opera House. Christine is stricken with guilt and begs Phillipe to take her back. The Comte agrees and he and Christine approach Choleti about singing that night. Choleti secretly arranges to have police planted throughout the opera house.

Carriere tells Erik that Christine did not mean to hurt him. The older man reveals that he has seen Erik's face, because he is his father. Erik says he knew, as they have the same eyes (the only thing of his face he can bear to look at). Christine sings at that night's performance of ''Faust''. Erik hears her and forces himself up to Box Five. He begins singing with her. Christine and the Phantom sing to each other with such passion that the audience is awed and gives them a standing ovation.

The police shoot at Erik and he grabs ahold of Christine, carrying her off to the roof. The Comte pursues them, but in the ensuing struggle is knocked off the roof, dangling above the street. At Christine's pleading, Erik pulls him to safety. Erik is cornered by police determined to take him alive. Carriere has retrieved a gun and upholding a promise, Carriere shoots him. Erik falls from the roof and Christine runs to him. While cradled in his father's lap, Christine removes Erik's mask, looks him straight in the face and smiles. Erik dies with his father and Christine at his side. Christine replaces Erik's mask and is led away by the Comte.

Adam is a young Dubliner who ingratiates himself into the Owens family after meeting Lucy at the restaurant where she waits tables and sings. While wooing her, he becomes involved with her more reserved older sister Laura, a romantic literary type who spends most of her time at the library, her oldest married sister Alice, a new mother who is unhappy with her boring husband Martin, and her brother David, who seeks Adam's advice on how to seduce his repressed girlfriend, only to find himself nearly succumbing to Adam's charms himself.

Revisits are made to several scenes, each seen from the point-of-view of a different character.

The series is set in the distant future. Humans have spread beyond living on Earth and have colonized planets across the universe, creating a ''New Frontier'' of man. In order to protect these new settlers and maintain law and order in the New Frontier, ''Earth's Cavalry Command'' was created. Cavalry Command is a military organization that maintains an army and fleet of ships to protect the New Frontier and the residents of the planets within it known as Settlers. Within Cavalry Command is a unit of special operatives known as ''Star Sheriffs'' that function as the organization's field agents, investigating any crimes and plots that threaten the security of the New Frontier.

The main foe of Cavalry Command and the Star Sheriffs is a race of non-human creatures known as ''Vapor Beings'' (also sometimes called ''Outriders'') that have jumped into our dimension in order to conquer it. They attack the Settlers, destroy settlements, and kidnap humans in order to mine various metals or crystals from the soil of various planets.

Outriders are superior to humans in battle technology. They control a legion of gigantic robots ('''"Renegade Units"''') with weapons greatly superior to the weapons and defenses of the space-going fleets of Cavalry Command. In response to the Outriders's threat, Cavalry Command develops a prototype spaceship known as the "Ramrod Equalizer Unit" (or simply ''Ramrod'') that has the ability to transform from a spaceship into a powerful robot that can fight the Outriders's Renegade Units on equal terms.

''Dark Angel'' follows an original storyline that takes place after the destruction of the headquarters of Manticore, an organization which creates genetically-enhanced super soldiers, at the beginning of the TV series' second season. Seattle has been placed on a curfew as the I Corporation round up the escapees from Manticore. They are particularly interested in capturing super soldier Max Guevara. Max evades and fights I Corporation through the streets of Seattle as she returns to her apartment. After battling opponents in her apartment lobby, Max learns that her friend and flatmate Original Cindy has been captured by the sector police. After defeating the police and rescuing Original Cindy, Max goes to meet her friend and ally, cyber-journalist Logan Cale at his apartment. Outside the apartment complex she defeats an I Corporation genetically engineered boss character named Beetle. Meanwhile, a cloaked figure murders a police officer at the scene and steals his vehicle. Logan informs Max that he has received an email from someone named Sylan who claims that Max has a twin sister. He traces the email to an I Corporation research lab named Tritech. Max tells Logan that Sylan was one of the child soldiers at Manticore, and that she stayed behind in order to help Max and eleven of her siblings escape. Max proceeds to Tritech to find her.

Max infiltrates the Tritech facility and defeats guards as well as a genetically engineered boss named Gekko. Then, she witnesses the cloaked figure kill a Tritech employee before capturing Sylan. Max continues her pursuit across a fortified bridge and a dockyard. Logan's research discovers Sylan is being held prisoner on a ship; Max enters the Marine Control Centre, the main headquarters of the I Corporation's offshore business operations, in order to learn which ship Sylan is on. Max boards the ship Stella Nova after learning that Sylan is aboard. Max rescues Sylan following a confrontation with an opponent disguised as her. Max discovers that her twin sister, Beka, was taken to the I Corporation headquarters years ago, and that an I Corporation scientist, Dr Stephen Van Der Mescht, knows more about her. Logan traces Van Der Mescht to a military train owned by I Corporation.

Max breaks through security at the train yard and boards the train. She locates Van Der Mescht, who initially refuses to help her. After Max threatens him with torture, Van Der Mescht explains that I Corporation was a rival of Manticore, and had a military contract for more aggressive genetic research. They created a 'Y' series of genetically engineered soldiers (as opposed to Manticore's 'X' series); when Max and Beka were born, Beka was taken by I Corporation so that the two different series could be compared. I Corporation guards ambush the room, killing Van Der Mescht before he can divulge more. I Corporation send a single soldier, a transgenic boss named Bear, to kill Max. Bear is defeated, and Max reaches the I Corporation headquarters with the train. Max fights her way to the upper level of the headquarters, defeating guards and the boss characters Beetle, Gekko and Bear again, before she confronts Beka. Beka reveals that she now controls the I Corporation, and has engineered a younger replacement to succeed her using the DNA that she and Max shares. She tries to recruit Max to join her and their 'younger sister' in creating a new generation of genetically engineered soldiers. Max refuses and Beka attacks her. After killing Beka, Max tries to rescue her younger sister. The cloaked figure, whose identity is never revealed, tries unsuccessfully to stop her. Logan arrives in a helicopter and rescues Max and her younger sister from the complex. Later, while sitting on the roof of the Space Needle, Max laments that knowing the truth about Beka is worse than not knowing at all, but is determined to create a positive life for herself and her younger sister. A post-credits scene shows Max and Original Cindy dancing in their apartment.

In Soleil Town, a law requires that all 14-year-old boys go to train and prepare for battle. The game's hero, Corona, has just turned fourteen at the beginning of the game. As such, Corona receives the sword and shield of his father, who died in battle and had a great reputation for his bravery in defending the city.

The story is divided into two parts. Corona must first take time to discover his world and unlock the various levels that make it up. He can then access them at his leisure. During this half of the game, Corona will not have the ability to speak to humans, but only to animals and plants. Only after beating Dragon (''Maldra the Dragon'' in the US version) will the second half of the game begin: Corona has recovered the ability to talk to humans and he will travel through time to build a better world and understand why the monsters are at war with humanity.

The movie is set at St. Francis Academy, a fictional all-girls Catholic boarding school in Pennsylvania operated by an order of nuns. The Mother Superior is at odds with Mary Clancy, a rebellious teenager, and her friend Rachel Devery. The episodic story line follows the young women through their sophomore, junior and senior high-school years as they pull pranks on the sisters and repeatedly get into trouble. Both girls almost get expelled for smoking in the basement. Although Mary spends much of her time at St. Francis resenting the authority of the Mother Superior and puzzling over why any woman would choose the life of a nun, as time goes on she is touched by examples of the sisters' dedication, devotion, kindness, love, and generosity, and begins to see that their life is one of fulfillment, not deprivation. Mary receives "the call" senior year and, after graduation, remains at the school to begin her novitiate in the order.

The story focuses on Jane Marks, her adult daughters Michelle and Elizabeth, and her pre-teen adopted African American daughter Annie, each of whom allows her personal insecurities to affect her life. Jane, longing to look younger and thinner, opts for liposuction, with near tragic results. When Michelle's artistic talents fail to produce any income for her family, much to the dismay of her husband Bill, she takes a job as a one-hour photo developer and finds herself falling for the attention of her teenaged co-worker Jordan. Aspiring actress Elizabeth, who bestows upon stray dogs the affection she finds difficult to offer her boyfriend Paul, questions her appeal when she's rejected for a role based on her looks, and she seeks reassurance from film heartthrob Kevin McCabe. Overweight Annie tries to fit in better with her white adopted family by having her hair straightened by black Big Sister volunteer Lorraine, who Jane hopes will put the young girl in touch with her heritage.

A small team from ''Voyager'', including Seven of Nine and the Doctor, are performing a survey of a proto-nebula. When the nebula becomes unstable, the team is transported to the ship, but a malfunction briefly merges their patterns together. The Doctor finds his mobile emitter is failing, and he is returned to sickbay while Lt. B'Elanna Torres takes the emitter to the science lab for repair. The crew is unaware that the emitter has gained some of Seven's Borg nanoprobes from the malfunctioning transporter, and it begins assimilating the equipment in the science lab.

The crew soon detects a large power draw from the lab, and discover that the nanoprobes have constructed a Borg maturation chamber, rapidly growing a Borg drone. They determine that the components of the drone are based on the advanced 29th-century technology of the emitter; should the Borg of this century gain that technology, the entire galaxy is doomed. Captain Janeway decides to allow the drone to mature, hoping to make it understand humanity's individualism once it is born.

The drone (J. Paul Boehmer) soon leaves the maturation chamber, and though it immediately attempts to seek out the Borg collective, Seven attempts to convince him that he is an individual. Several of the crew help the drone to integrate, purposely omitting information about the Borg collective, and soon the drone appears adapted to being an individual, requesting to be named "One".

Through the action of his nanoprobes, One involuntarily sends a signal to the Borg collective, and a Borg ship closes in on ''Voyager''. Seven gives One a crash course on the Borg collective, and though One is fascinated by it, Seven asserts that she considers the ''Voyager'' crew her collective. One helps the crew enhance their shields and weapons, but the battle is still a losing one. One transports to the Borg ship and overrides the controls, sending the ship into the proto-nebula where it is destroyed.

The crew detects a life sign, and find One is still alive but in critical condition. He is rushed to sickbay, but refuses treatment, explaining that now that the Borg know of him they will pursue ''Voyager'' endlessly to assimilate him. He assures the emotional Seven that she will adapt once he passes away.

Grace Ansley and Alida Slade are middle-aged American women visiting Rome with their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade. The women live in Manhattan, New York, and have been friends since girlhood. A youthful and romantic rivalry led Mrs. Slade to nurture feelings of jealousy and hatred against Mrs. Ansley. For her part, Mrs. Ansley looks down on Mrs. Slade, who she feels has led "a sad life."

In the opening pages of the story, the two women compare their daughters and reflect on each other's lives. Eventually, Alida reveals a secret about a letter written to Grace on a visit to Rome many years ago. The letter was purportedly from Alida's fiancé, Delphin, inviting Grace to a rendezvous at the Colosseum. In fact, Alida forged the letter in an attempt to send Grace on a fruitless outing and expose her "delicate throat" to the "deathly cold." Mrs. Ansley is upset at this revelation, but explains that she was not left alone at the Colosseum; she responded to the letter, and Delphin arrived to meet her. Mrs. Ansley then says that she feels sorry for Mrs. Slade, repeating her earlier thoughts. Mrs. Slade states that, while she was "beaten there," Mrs. Ansley ought not to feel sorry for her, because she "had [Delphin] for twenty-five years" while Mrs. Ansley had "nothing but that one letter that he didn't write." Mrs. Ansley responds, in the last sentence of the story, "I had Barbara," implying that Barbara is Delphin's daughter.

Cate Blanchett portrays a marginally successful career woman preparing dinner for her gruff and unsympathetic mother. As she cooks the mashed potatoes and sausages, she tells an indifferent audience of her mother and cat about a recent promotion at work. While she rants about her job it becomes apparent that she is in the middle of a mental breakdown that culminates in burned sausage and mashed potatoes all over the floor.

The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself.

Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals a Knight's Cross from a visiting U-boat captain and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and receives a Knight's Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace.

The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator's perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator's inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke.

Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. Mahlke's main reason for entering the war in the first place was to make a speech at his school afterwards. Since he is denied that wish, Mahlke deserts his post, seeing no other reason to fight. Desertion implies treason and in consequence death. Pilenz, whose relationship to Mahlke becomes increasingly ambivalent, takes advantage of the situation and pressures an unwell Mahlke to dive into the wreck once more to hide, aware that Mahlke might not survive the dive. Pilenz never sees Mahlke again.

The story centers on creatures called "The Gruzzles". Because the Gruzzles cannot read, they steal words out of books, preventing others from reading as well. Playing as a boy or girl, the player must help Benny Bookworm take back all the stolen words and match them with their meanings so he may put them back in the books.

The book is set in two parallel times; the present-day Dalemark, and the time of Mitt (''Drowned Ammet'') and Moril (''Cart and Cwidder''), some 200 years in the past. Mitt, who has recently escaped from the South and met Moril in North Dalemark, finds himself embroiled in a race to find an heir to the throne of Dalemark, which has lain empty for over 200 years, and gets mixed up in the machinations of a number of powerful forces.

Maewen, a girl from present-day Dalemark, is transported by magic back in time to assist with the restoration of the royal line. In ancient Dalemark, Noreth Onesdaughter, a twin likeness of Maewen and apparently descended directly from the ancient kings of Dalemark, asks people to accompany her on her quest to become Queen. Unfortunately, just before she goes to meet her followers, she disappears. Maewen is drafted to replace her, and she has to lead Noreth's followers, collect the four tokens that will prove her right to the throne, and convince everyone that she is Noreth, all the while hearing mysterious voices in the air.

Maewen sets out on her quest for the ancient crown of Dalemark with a small band of followers from the previous books in the series: Moril, Mitt, Navis Haddsson (a refugee nobleman from the South, see ''Drowned Ammet''), Wend (the ancient magician-singer Tanamoril, Osfameron or Duck: see ''The Spellcoats''), and Hestefan the Singer (who is eventually exposed as the evil Kankredin's agent and the murderer of Noreth). When they finally receive the crown from the One, the supreme god-like power of Dalemark, it is not Maewen who receives it – but Mitt.

As the new king, Mitt assumes the name Amil (one of the One's secret names) and continues to reunite and rebuild Dalemark as Amil the Great. Maewen goes back to her future, but she is followed by the evil Kankredin who seeks to kill her for foiling his plans in the past. This is represented as a bomb threat to the building where Maewen is. Mitt, who we now learn is one of the Undying, appears as a bomb expert, and destroys Kankredin by invoking the "strong name" of the god-like Earth Shaker, who has been helping Mitt ever since his adventures in ''Drowned Ammet''. Mitt leaves, sending Maewen a message to wait four years to contact him, presumably until she is old enough to marry. On hearing this, Maewen decides that four years is far too long, and sets off to find him.

''The Crown'' is a particularly interesting addition to the Dalemark series, as many of the characters from previous books are seen from quite different perspectives, not necessarily favourable. Hildrida Navissdaughter, Earl Keril of Hannart, and the singer-magician Osfameron (appearing as Wend) are notable for the negative sides of their personalities that are brought out in the book.

Jefferson Davis Bussey marches off to Leavenworth from Linn County, Kansas in 1861, on his way to join the Union volunteers. He is off to fight for the North, his zeal having been fueled by reaction to the guerilla war of "bushwhackers" that was taking place in eastern Kansas. However, Stand Watie is on the side of the South. We meet many soldiers and civilians on both sides of the war, including Watie's raiding parties, itinerant printer Noah Babbitt and, in Tahlequah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) the beautiful Cherokee girl, Lucy Washbourne. During an undercover mission, Jeff finds that Captain Asa Clardy of the Union Cavalry is smuggling new Spencer rifles to the Indian forces of Stand Watie.

Jeff winds up fighting for both the North and the South (while on a special undercover mission) during the conflict while making friends on each side. The book is also notable for the detailed depiction of contemporary Cherokee life in Indian Territory, including various tribal political factions. Keith portrays the difficulties Jeff Bussey faces in choosing one side or the other in the midst of huge conflicts.

Elliot Wade obtains ownership of the Dolly Dearest factory in Mexico. Not far from the factory is the underground Mayan tomb of Sanzia, or Satan on Earth. An archaeologist breaks into the sarcophagus, accidentally releasing the malevolent spirit of Sanzia. Sanzia takes refuge in the porcelain doll, Dolly Dearest.

The Wade family travels to Mexico to see their new home, where they meet their realtor, Mr. Estrella, and housekeeper, Camilla. The factory, long abandoned, is structurally unstable, upsetting Elliot. Jessica discovers many well-preserved dolls on a shelf and her father allows her to take one: Dolly Dearest. Jimmy finds the entrance to the cave, but his father warns him to never go there.

The next day, the children's mother, Marilyn, finds a disturbing drawing she thinks Jessica drew. Jessica becomes progressively more violent and obsessed with Dolly. She acts normal when her father is around, but exhibits evil behavior around her mother. Camilla believes the doll is controlling Jessica. When Jessica speaks in Sanzian tongue, Camilla tries to warn Marilyn, but is killed by the spirit. Jimmy sneaks out one night and breaks into the factory. He finds the night watchman, Luis, dead and flees.

Marilyn realizes her daughter may truly be possessed and tries to take the doll. Sanzia momentarily possesses Jessica and yells, "I will kill you! The kid's mine." The next day, Marilyn talks with archaeologist Resnick (Rip Torn) about their dig. Resnick explains they are searching for the remains of the Sanzia devil child inside the tomb. The devil child, a force of evil, fed on the warm blood of children. The tribe killed the creature because its dietary needs almost wiped out the tribe's population. Marilyn reveals that Jessica is being controlled by her doll.

At home, Marilyn finds Jimmy hiding; he reveals that he saw Dolly talk and move. Marilyn gets their shotgun and tells Jimmy to call his father. At the factory, the dolls disconnect the phones. Marilyn returns to Jessica's room to find the doll gone. Jimmy can't get through to Elliot so he attempts to call the operator but is unable to communicate because he does not speak Spanish. When Jessica becomes separated from Dolly, her mother attempts to flee with her, only to be blocked by Dolly. Dolly calls to Jessica, who then attacks her mother as Dolly advances with a kitchen knife. Jimmy fires the shotgun at Dolly, releasing the doll's hold on Jessica.

Marilyn, Jessica and Jimmy drive to the factory, where Elliot is being attacked by the dolls. Meanwhile, the professor enters the tomb and sees the remains of the devil child, which has the body of an infant and the head of a goat. Realizing the myth was true, he runs to the factory, where he saves Elliot from the dolls. The family reunites and plants dynamite around the factory. It blows up, along with the dolls, and a demonic scream is heard, implying Sanzia is destroyed. The family watches the ablaze factory getting burn to the ground with the dolls trapped inside.

Orphaned and illegitimate, Jamie Sommers grows up believing he has "no hope of heaven", that he is doomed to a dreadful existence. A Roman Catholic, he is deeply depressed by the ideas of being conceived in adultery and born in sin. The impressionable Jamie is repeatedly told by nuns in the Bronx that he is destined to repeat the sins of his parents, and he proves them right.

Taking to the sea, Jamie seeks out danger and adventure in exotic ports all over the world as a smuggler, gunrunner, and murderer. Life became a constant struggle in his search for excitement and fulfillment. Also, Jamie believed he didn't deserve a better life than he has, so he chooses to worsen himself. Tough enough to handle anything, he survives foreign prisons, pirates, and a shark attack.

But in a quiet seaside town in Delaware, Jamie discovers something that pushes him over the edge mentally and changes his life forever. After being taken out of a mental institution life gets harder. Trying to deal with the townspeople who want him hurt and taking his medicine, all the while having to deal with his master. He starts to find himself when he switches medicines and Grenville takes him on a cruise.

The Nameless Hero is instructed by Xardas on the new danger, an army of evil that has gathered in the mine valley, led by dragons. Xardas sends the Hero to Lord Hagen, leader of the paladins, to retrieve the Eye of Innos, an artifact which makes it possible to speak with the dragons and learn more about their motivation.

The Nameless Hero starts to the City of Khorinis and after he found a way to enter the city, he learns he has to join one of the factions – the militia, the fire mages or the mercenaries – to be permitted entrance to Lord Hagen. When finally meeting the head of the paladins, the Nameless Hero is first sent into the mine valley, which is now overrun by Orcs, to bring back evidence of the dragons. In the castle, the former old camp, Garond heads the mission of the paladins. He also knows about the dragons, since the castle has already been attacked by them, but is only willing to write a notice on it for Lord Hagen, after the Nameless Hero has gathered information on the status in the mines. By the time the Hero exits the valley with the note about the dragons, the evil forces have become aware of his quest. Seekers are spread throughout the isle, with the goal to kill him.

Presented with the note Lord Hagen is willing to give the Eye of Innos to the Hero and sends him to the monastery of the fire mages to retrieve it. But shortly before the Hero arrives there, the eye was stolen. The Hero chases after the thief, but just arrives in time to witness Seekers destroy the Eye of Innos. A smith can repair the amulet, but for the magical power to be restored, a ritual with high mages representing the three gods is necessary. Vatras, the water mage, prepares the ritual and represents Adanos. With former fire mage Xardas representing Beliar, Pyrokar, head of the fire mages, joins the ritual reluctantly to represent Innos.

The mages manage to restore the power of the Eye of Innos and so the Hero can head back to the valley to destroy the four dragons that live there. After all of the dragons are killed, the Hero travels to Xardas' tower to report to him, but the mage is gone. The Hero is given a note from Xardas by Lester, telling him he was to find more information in the fire mages' monastery, in the book 'The Halls of Irdorath'.

The book contains a sea map, showing the way to the isle Irdorath, one of the ancient temples of Beliar that once disappeared. The hero assembles a crew and gets a ship and a captain for that ship to sail to Irdorath and confront the leader of the dragons, and avatar of Beliar – the undead dragon. After the hero slays the dragon, Xardas teleports into the cave and absorbs its soul, making him an avatar of Beliar. After the hero returns to the ship, Xardas appears and tells him that they will see each other again. The game ends with the ship sailing into the distance toward Myrtana.

In the eternally busy city of Din, the black-and-white Rushers constantly go about their business in a fast-paced way and stop only to sleep, due to their Cosmic Clock being wound too tightly. Din lies between two worlds that create dreams to deliver to the sleeping Rushers – one is the bright and cheerful Frivoli, where Greensleeves and his Figmen of Imagination bring sweet dreams; and the other is the Murkworks, a dark and dingy factory home to vultures who drop nightmare bombs. The evil Botch, maniacal ruler of the Murkworks, wants to foil Greenie's efforts and subject the Rushers to non-stop waking nightmares. He uses his vultures to kidnap the Figs and Greensleeves, but not before Greensleeves writes an S.O.S. to Frivoli.

Meanwhile, two misfits – known as Ralph, the All-Purpose Animal (named so for his somewhat unreliable shapeshifting abilities), and Mumford, a Chaplinesque mime – are put on trial for their incompetence at work. They are determined to prove themselves when they meet Flora Fauna, Greensleeves's niece, who found her uncle's S.O.S. and wants to rescue him. Botch spies on the three through Ibor, his robot gorilla, and uses Ralph and Mum's desire to be heroes to his advantage. Botch deceives the three, claiming to be a friend of Greenie and telling them that Greensleeves can be saved if they go into Din and take the main spring from the Cosmic Clock. Flora stays behind to act the part of the damsel in distress for Botch's nightmares.

Mumford and Ralph release the spring which causes time to freeze. They chase the spring throughout Din, but Botch's vultures steal the spring and begin planting every nightmare bomb in the Murkworks' inventory all over Din. A Fairy Godmother (FGM) twinkles in to tell Mumford and Ralph that they have been tricked and gives them three dimes to make a phone booth appear in case they need her help. FGM also recruits the help of the dim-witted but musclebound Rod Rescueman to aid them. Rod is more interested in rescuing Fauna, however, and abandons the boys to find her.

Ralph and Mumford find nightmare bombs scattered in an office, ready to be set off by Botch once starts time again. Mumford accidentally detonates a bomb and the two are trapped in a nightmare in which they are nearly killed by office supplies. When they are finally freed from the nightmare, the Fairy Godmother transports them back to Frivoli, suggests that they give up after all the mistakes they've made, and fires them from the hero business. This further strengthens Ralph and Mumford's resolve to do right. Meanwhile, Rod "rescues" Flora from the Murkworks and attempts to get a kiss from her. She tries to escape from his floating apartment in the sky and falls, landing on a mechanical serpent that attempts to stop Ralph and Mumford from reaching the Murkworks. The trio and Rod storm their way in with the help of Scuzzbopper, Botch's former nightmare screenwriter, who decides to aid them after Botch cruelly discards his recently completed "Great Amurkian Novel."

Rod and Flora rescue Greenie and the Figs but have to contend with Ibor. Rod tries to save Flora again but fails, and Flora destroys the robot herself. At the same time, Botch has his head vulture Rudy fly the spring back to Din as the final phase of his plan. When Ralph, Mumford, and Scuzzbopper enter Botch's office, he has his pet rat attack them but Scuzzbopper tricks it into chasing a bowling ball out a window. Botch retreats to a control room housing his master nightmare bomb button, "The Big Red One", with Ralph and Mumford chasing after him. Ralph finally manages to control his shapeshifting to get through Botch's arsenal of booby traps and flies into the control room, while Mumford struggles through the traps and into the barrel of Botch's cannon. Ralph, in the form of a fly, tricks Botch into pressing The Big Red One, detonating all of the nightmare bombs before Rudy could put the spring back in the Cosmic Clock, the still-immobilized Rushers being unaffected. An enraged Botch is about to kill Ralph for ruining his plans when one last nightmare bomb appears, about to blow. Terrified of being subjected to his own nightmare, Botch is knocked out the window. The bomb turns out to be Mumford, who had stretched his hat over himself and used a cigar to simulate nightmare smoke. Ralph and Mumford consider themselves heroes, while Botch is saved and carried away by his vultures (who may harbor ill-will toward Botch for his insults and cruel demands).

Scuzzbopper, Flora, and Rod assume command of the Murkworks, with Flora giving a parting kiss to Ralph and Mumford for helping to save Greenie. As the two heroes leave, the Fairy Godmother congratulates them and allows them to keep their last dime as a symbol of good luck. The spring returns to the Cosmic Clock of its own will, and restarts the flow of time, but at a pace where the Rushers can enjoy their lives.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1951. Sid Silver (Steven Gilborn) has a problem: his social guidance films aren't working anymore. The teens of the '50s are going crazy buck wild and Sid can no longer reach them. Clay Crawford (Jamieson Stern) also has a problem. He's on the run from the law and trying to make it to California to find a man who may be his father. A grizzled bounty hunter named Lucky (Geoffrey Lewis) is hot on Clay's trail. Sid and Clay cross paths in the hot desert winds of New Mexico. Sid's daughter Anne-Marie (Jessica Kiper) begins to fall for Clay to the dismay of her fiancé, Ted (Clayton Rohner) who also bankrolls Sid's films. The fates of Formosa Studios and perhaps New Mexico itself hang in the balance.

Ra's al Ghul (Don Leslie), his daughter Talia (Wendy Jones), and his League of Assassins take control of a weaponized satellite that is targeting Gotham City. While trying to end a gang war between The Ventriloquist and Black Mask (Michael Wright), Batman (Julian Fletcher) discovers that Commissioner James Gordon (Ron McLarty) has been kidnapped and is being held hostage at an overrun Arkham Asylum. Racing through Gotham City's sewers to enter the Asylum undetected, Batman has to fight through several foes, including Victor Zsasz (Scott Sowers), Ratcatcher (Jonathan Roumie), Mr. Freeze (Ralph Byers), Poison Ivy (Wendy Jones), and Killer Croc (Richardo Ferrone), before finally encountering the Joker (Allen Enlow), the mastermind behind Gordon's kidnapping. After defeating the Joker and saving Gordon, Batman realizes that the villain was actually working for Ra's al Ghul and the kidnapping scheme was merely a distraction to allow Ra's to commence his newest plan to take over the world.

Traveling to the Himalayas, Batman makes his way to the League of Assassins' stronghold to foil Ra's al Ghul's scheme. Talia helps him by turning off the cameras around Ra's lair. Batman finds a terminal and overrides the homing signal, before defeating Ubu (Dean Wein), Ra's most trusted servant, guarding the entrance to the throne room. There, Batman confronts Ra, who reveals his master plan: 24 bombs have been planted throughout the world, which, once activated, will cause the ice caps to enter the oceans, forming tsunamis and hurricanes throughout the coastlines; every coastal city on the world will be destroyed and one-third of the planet's population with it, allowing Ra's to rebuild the world in his image. Ra then asks Batman to marry Talia and become his heir, but the Dark Knight declines, much to Talia's disappointment. Ra and Batman engage in a final swordfight, with Batman emerging victorious. A defeated Ra attempts to activate the bombs, but to no avail, as they had already been disabled by Batman. Ubu, having recovered, then tries to kill Batman, but Talia warns him and Batman dodges the attack, causing Ubu to unintentionally kill Ra instead. Talia and Ubu take Ra to the Lazarus Pit as the temple begins to self-destruct and revive him, while Batman escapes and returns to Gotham. As he looks out over the city, the Bat-Signal ignites the sky once more, calling him back into action.

Several alternate endings are possible, depending on whether or not the player had found and deactivated Ra's weapon before the final battle with him, or lost the fight. If Batman did not disable the signal and loses the sword fight, he is mortally wounded by Ra and dies in Talia's arms, as Ra puts his plan into action and floods the world. If Batman loses the fight but disabled the signal, Ra reveals to the dying Batman that the override is only temporary and that his victory is inevitable. If Batman wins the fight but did not disable the signal, a defeated Ra still manages to commence his plan and flood the world, as Batman watches on in horror.

Captain Dan Tracey and his two lieutenants are ordered to investigate trouble on the resort planet Clitoris, a pleasure world filled with shopping and gambling where, according to the Articles of the Venus Convention, only women are allowed. A variety of problems are occurring on the planet; most notably, several important pieces of Girlinium have been stolen from the Empress Nueva Gabor. Girlinium, as explained by the empress, is a very rare gem found only in the caverns of the fourth moon of Girlina, a distant planet. It is used by the empress to help the planet maintain its delicate orbit surrounding its sun. The stolen pieces must be found or the planet will fall into ruin as evidenced by increasingly violent earthquakes. The captain and his men, in order to remain undercover, become women via sex reversal pills and pose as showgirls from Earth performing a mid-20th century lounge act for the empress' annual off-world slumber party while investigating the crime.

''Amigas y Rivales'' tells the story of four women from different social backgrounds. The first is Laura, a studious, sensitive, serious girl from a middle-class family; she studies data processing in a private university because she received a scholarship.

Jimena is the typical rich girl, dissipated and irresponsible, for whom sex is just another amusement. At one point she is kidnapped although she doesn't realize it. She lives with Sebastián, a drug dealer who gives her drugs in exchange for her having sex with men in his home. Ofelia is Jimena's best friend. Like Jimena, she is rich and lives for pleasure and fun, until she gets infected with HIV.

The fourth protagonist is Nayeli, who has a humble background and works as a maid in Jimena's home. Nayeli dreams of being a Hollywood actress, like her idol, Salma Hayek. This dream takes her to the United States illegally, where she meets boxer Johnny Trinidad, who falls in love with her. She is reported to the immigration service and deported back to Mexico.

Laura's emotions are divided between Robertito and his father, Don Roberto de la O, who hired Laura to instruct his firm in how to use their new computers. Don Roberto becomes determined to attract Laura, who unconsciously compares him with her own father, a man of weak character. Laura and Don Roberto date briefly; their relationship ends when Laura's mother lies to Don Roberto, telling him she's his daughter. Later Laura discovers that he is not her biological father, and that she was the result of a one-night stand. Her parents separate. She resumes dating Don Roberto until she realizes, weeks later, that she isn't in love with him after all. She is caught kissing his son Robertito. When Don Roberto discovers, thanks to Roxana's deceitful efforts to keep him, that Laura loves Robertito, he suffers a stroke.

Roxana, Don Roberto's second wife, is extremely beautiful but hiding an unscrupulous criminal soul under the mask of an ideal wife. Her real name is Carolina. She attempted to kill her own father, Tomás, for which he sent her to an asylum, but she escaped and established the new identity of Roxana. She poisoned Don Roberto's first wife so he'd be free to marry her, but secretly desired her new stepson Robertito and killed his fiancée so she would have a chance with him. They became romantically involved, but Robertito realizes how much he loves Laura and tries to end his relationship with Roxana, which angers her. Roxana teams up with Sebastián to take revenge on the friends. She goes to jail but manages to escape.

Georgina sleeps with Sebastián and gets pregnant but she later shoots and kills him. After having been unwilling to live, Ofelia chooses to fight for her life. Roberto proposes to Laura. Jimena sheds her bad habits, and Nayeli manages to carry on a successful acting career.

At the friends' graduation party, Roxana appears with a group of armed men planning to take revenge on Jimena and Laura. Laura is absent because she felt sick. Roxana mentions killing Roberto's first wife. Joaquin is accidentally killed.

Pepe is shot in the arm. Carlota reveals that Robertito and Roxana are half-siblings, as Padre Tomás is the father of both of them. Roxana wants to throw sulfuric acid on Jimena's face but Nayeli, Ofelia and Tamara hold her and Nayeli manages to make Roxana pour the acid on her own face. The police arrive and detain Roxana, and she ends in an asylum with a disfigured face.

Jimena chose Pepe because Carlos failed her when he chose Ángela over her and will not forgive him. He wishes her happiness with Pepe. Paula gives up Ernesto so he can be happy with Nayeli. Nayeli ends up with Ernesto. Tamara ends up alone because of her bad luck with men.

Ofelia and Ulises reunite the whole group Jimena, Nayeli, Tamara, Georgina, Robertito, Johnny, Ernesto, and Pepe at the end. Laura is absent because she is sick. Ulises announces that Ofelia has a life expectancy of at least 10 more years. They celebrate life and friendship together after so much pain and suffering.

The game begins with Nowe becoming a fully-fledged Knight of the Seal. During his first mission, Nowe begins to doubt the ethics of the Knights' methods, as the seals require human sacrifices to remain strong. During a second mission to ensure the protection of the seal in the District of Soul Flame, Nowe encounters Manah, who kills the guardian Zhangpo and destroys the seal. Manah is sentenced to be burnt at the stake, but uses her magic to escape. After returning from the mission, Nowe is poisoned by Gismor, who reveals to have killed Nowe's adoptive father Oror. Surviving and escaping with Legna, Nowe is pursued by the Knights, including Eris, who wishes to persuade him to return. Nowe and Legna eventually meet up with Manah and join her on her quest to destroy the seals and, in her mind, free the people from the Knights' oppression. On their way to the second seal, Manah shows Nowe the true horror of the Knights' oppression, fully winning him over. The two then fight and kill Lieutenant Hanch, destroying the seal in the District of Hallowed Water. After this, they are joined by Urick, a former Lieutenant of the Knights, to rout a group of bandits. Attacked by the Knights, they are unexpectedly saved by Caim, who is also working to destroy the seals and free his dragon Angelus from the pain of being the Goddess Seal. After taking down Lieutenant Yaha and destroying the seal in the District of Precious Light, Manah is captured by the Knights and sentenced to death. Nowe manages to rescue her and heads for the seal in the District of Shining Life, which was once guarded by Urick before he fled in fear when Caim attacked the district. Urick and Nowe face off against Caim, who mortally wounds Urick before being driven off. Urick dies content and the seal is destroyed.

Nowe and Manah head for the final seal in the District of Heavenly Time, guarded by Gismor himself. Nowe and Gismor battle, and Gismor is wounded again, transforming into a shadow-like being and using Eris to block Nowe's final attack. Believing Eris dead, Nowe and Manah pursue Gismor, but are met by Seere, who unsuccessfully tries to stop them. When they confront Gismor, he reveals himself to be a vindictive survivor of the Empire from eighteen years before. Defeated, Gismor destroys the final seal himself, releasing Angelus from her imprisonment. After Seere reveals the true consequences of Manah's actions, Nowe and Legna pursue Angelus. When they find her, they find that Angelus has been driven mad by the pain of being the final seal. Caim asks them to kill her, and as she dies, he and Angelus share a final moment together before fading away. With the seals destroyed, the world begins to fall into chaos and Manah is driven mad by the memories of her actions eighteen years before. Legna then takes Nowe to the fortress of the holy dragons, where they hear a prophecy concerning Nowe: according to the prophecy, Nowe is a New Breed created to aid the dragons in their war against the Watchers. Nowe then reunites with Eris, who had been healed by Seere, and frees Manah from her madness. Legna then takes the three to the Promised Land, a dragon stronghold that holds the Bone Casket, an object given to the dragons by and imbued with the power of the Watchers that can speed up Nowe's evolution into the New Breed. It is also where Seere has gone to initiate a new Goddess of the Seal. The game has three endings, each achieved on a separate playthrough.

'''Ending A''': The group arrive in the Promised Land and Legna prepares to enact the prophecy, but Nowe instead chooses to find a new Goddess. Legna calls the Holy Dragons to battle, but Seere leads an army of Golems against them. With everything seeming lost, Manah and Nowe share a final kiss, which triggers Nowe's transformation into the New Breed. Nowe and Legna do battle, and Legna is killed. Eris then reveals that she is to become the new Goddess. Eris is initiated, and although the world is restored, Nowe and Manah feel sad that no other solution could be found. '''Ending B''': When they arrive, Legna reveals Eris' fate to become the new Goddess and Nowe chooses to follow Legna's plan. But upon trying to enter the Casket, it rejects him and fuses with Manah. Legna and Nowe battle Manah, who sacrifices herself to destroy the Bone Casket's power. Nowe, Legna and Eris then lead the Holy Dragons in their war against the Watchers. *'''Ending C''': Events proceed as in Ending B, but when the Casket attacks Manah, she manages to win the fight against it. Legna summons the Holy Dragons and events proceed as in Ending A. After Legna's defeat and the destruction of the Bone Casket, both the Watchers and the dragons fade, leaving the world safe and humans free to create a new future for themselves.

Set in the summer of 1976, the film follows the adventures of Drew Tate (Larenz Tate), a 16-year-old from upstate New York, when he and his family spend two weeks with affluent relatives on Martha's Vineyard. Drew's parents, Kenny (Joe Morton) and Brenda (Suzzanne Douglass), worry that their son is emotionally disturbed. His favorite companion is a doll, in which he names Iago (after the character in the Shakespeare classic Othello), with which he engages in animated conversations. They also fear that a fire he accidentally set in the family garage foreshadows a future as an arsonist.

On Martha's Vineyard, Drew is thrown into an affluent, party-loving black society that congregates on a beach known as the ''Inkwell''. The visit is also the occasion of some bitter family strife. Drew's Aunt Frances (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and her husband, Spencer (Glynn Turman), are conservatives whose walls are plastered with pictures of Republican dignitaries such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan (who they keep saying will become president someday). Kenny, a former Black Panther, and Spencer argue furiously about racial issues.

''The Inkwell'' follows Drew's bumbling pursuit of the insufferably snooty Lauren (Jada Pinkett). He also befriends Heather (Adrienne-Joi Johnson), a young woman whose husband, Harold (Morris Chestnut), is a faithless louse. The movie comes to an end on the Fourth of July, when the Bicentennial fireworks end up symbolizing not just America's 200th birthday but Drew finally having sex with Heather.

After attending the wedding of a coworker, Selma begs Marge to help her find a husband. Marge asks Homer to help find a husband for her sister, but he struggles to find anyone suitable. When Bart is caught spelling his name on the school's lawn by killing the grass with a herbicide, Principal Skinner summons Homer to his office to discuss the prank. After learning that Skinner is single, Homer invites him to dinner. When Skinner arrives at the Simpsons' house, Homer accidentally introduces him to Patty instead of Selma; Skinner is instantly smitten with her, making Selma feel even worse about her marriage prospects.

Skinner asks Patty for a date, but she is reluctant. Selma encourages her to go on her first date in 25 years and warns her this may be her last chance to marry. Patty does not enjoy her first date with Skinner, but they keep seeing each other, much to Selma's chagrin. Because Skinner is distracted by his love for Patty, he allows Bart and the other children to do whatever they want at school. He soon enlists Bart's help to persuade Patty to marry him. At the same time, Homer arranges a date between Barney and Selma, which she reluctantly attends.

Following Bart's lead, Skinner uses an herbicide to write "Marry Me Patty" on the school's lawn. Skinner takes her to the top of the school's bell tower to propose marriage. Patty is flattered, but she declines because she and Selma share a special bond as twin sisters. Patty appreciates Skinner's understanding and gentlemanly conduct. She admits that were she ever to settle down with a man, she would marry him. After rescuing Selma from her date with Barney, Patty drives her home to their apartment. Single again, Skinner reasserts his authority over Bart by destroying the entire lawn with herbicide and forcing him to repair the damage by replanting the field seed by seed, much to Groundskeeper Willie's satisfaction.

In a Chicago recording studio in 1927, Ma Rainey's band players Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag, and Levee gather to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they tell stories, joke, philosophize, and argue. Tension is apparent between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee, who dreams of having his own band, and veterans Cutler and Toledo.

By the time Ma Rainey arrives with entourage in tow, recording has fallen badly behind schedule, enraging producers Sturdyvant and Irvin. Ma's insistence that her stuttering nephew Sylvester speak the title song's introduction wreaks further havoc. As the band waits for various technical problems to be solved, Levee and Cutler come to blows. Levee is then simultaneously fired by Ma for his uncompromising behavior, and rejected by producer Sturdyvant when he tries to get his own record deal. In a rage, Levee fatally stabs Toledo, destroying any possibility of a future for himself.

Before the film begins, Ponette's mother dies in a car crash, which Ponette herself survives with only a broken arm (she consequently must wear an arm cast).

Following her mother's death, Ponette's father (Xavier Beauvois) leaves the young girl with her Aunt Claire (Claire Nebout), and her cousins Matiaz (Matiaz Bureau Caton) and Delphine (Delphine Schiltz). Ponette and her cousins are later sent to a boarding school. There the loss of her mother becomes even more harsh and painful when she is mocked on the playground for being motherless. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071102083708/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/136160/Ponette/overview The New York Times Movies]

Not yet having come to terms with her mother's death, Ponette searches for her. Ponette becomes increasingly withdrawn, and spends most of her time waiting for her mother to come back.

When waiting alone fails, Ponette enlists the help of her school friend Ada (Léopoldine Serre) to help her become a "child of God" to hopefully convince God to return her mother, in vain.

In the end, Ponette visits a cemetery and cries for her mother, who suddenly appears to comfort her and ask her to live her life and not be sad all the time. Her mother (played by Marie Trintignant) says she cannot keep coming back, so Ponette must move on and go be happy with her father.

Then it appears that her mother gives her a sweater that she did not bring to the cemetery, and her father comments when he sees her that "I haven't seen that sweater in a while".

The opening sequence of the game finds Larry mowing the lawn of Eve, his sexual encounter from the ending of the previous game, implying the pair have remained together. However, this is quickly revealed to be an instance of an unreliable narrator, as Eve pulls into the driveway with only the vaguest recollection of who Larry is. Realizing that his affair with Eve was merely a one-night stand, a distraught Larry wanders off, winning the Lottery as well as a free vacation after stumbling into a dating game show.

During his preparations for the cruise ship, a microfilm falls into Larry's hands by mistake; this attracts the attention of the KGB, as well as the mad scientist Dr. Nonookee (a pun on "no nookie"), who both want to recover the film. On the cruise ship, Larry discovers that the woman who mistakenly chose him in the dating show let her mother go with Larry, so he makes preparations in order to escape her; he stops the ship and escapes on a lifeboat. Days later he is washed off a resort on a Hispanophone Pacific island. As KGB agents block the way to the airport, Larry dresses up as a woman and passes through.

As the landing of the airplane will bring Larry to the agents, he opens the door and escapes the plane with a parachute. He falls in the jungle of a virgin tropical island, Nontoonyt ("None tonight"), where Dr. Nonookee has his base of operations. Passing through perils in the jungle, Larry meets Kalalau, the daughter of chief Keneewauwau, who explains to him that Dr. Nonookee prevents a company from investing on the island and develop it as a resort island. In order to marry Kalalau, Larry infiltrates the volcano and accidentally causes the death of Dr. Nonookee, liberating the native women he had hypnotized as slaves, including "Polyester Patti". In the final cutscene, Larry marries the chief's daughter, the witch doctor rejuvenates him, and he makes love to Kalalau as the volcano explodes.

Throughout the adventure there are recurring themes that contribute to the comedic effect, like visitation to identical barber shops in almost each location Larry visits; one of them is tended by Rosella of ''King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella''.

The story begins five years after the events of ''Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)''. Following Larry's victory over Dr. Nonookee, the tropical island of Nontoonyt has become a resort reminiscent of Honolulu, Hawaii. Larry has settled into a high-paying job in "Natives Inc." and lives in a luxurious house with his wife, Kalalau (the daughter of the tribal chief from the previous game). Larry's current boss is Kalalau's father (now a development mogul, who changed his name from "Chief Keneewauwau" to "Chairman Kenneth"). After years of marital bliss, Larry's union comes to an abrupt end when Kalalau dumps him—for another woman—and soon finds himself out of a job as well. With this news, Larry retreats into a phone booth (a nod to Superman) and swaps his aloha shirt for his signature white suit, firmly announcing his return to the swinger lifestyle.

The female characters include Tawni, a topless sunbather who is more interested in souvenirs than dating Larry; Cherri Tart, a showgirl who performs at the casino; Suzi, an attorney of law firm "Dewey, Cheatem & Howe" willing to finalize Larry's divorce proceedings; Bambi, an aerobics instructor; and Passionate Patti, a jazz pianist in the hotel (the character appeared in the previous game under the name "Polyester Patty"). Larry's attempts to seduce each of these women are, in typical Larry fashion, doomed to failure—until he meets Patti, who can be won over if Larry collects the right items and performs the right actions based on his encounters with the others.

Ultimately, Larry and Patti spend the night together, but after a round of passionate lovemaking, Larry hears Patti mumble her previous partner's name (who she intends to leave) as she drifts to sleep. Dejected, Larry abandons his new lover, eventually becoming lost in the uncharted jungle surrounding the resort area. It is at this point, the game shifts perspectives; the player now controls Patti, who must navigate the hostile terrain and assorted perils of the jungle (usually by removing parts of her clothing in the process) to find Larry and resolve the misunderstanding.

The final act of the game sees Larry and Patti get captured by lesbian cannibals. In an example of breaking the fourth wall, the pair escapes captivity through the use of a "magic marker"... only to end up at Sierra's Coarsegold, California headquarters (realized in-game as a literal movie studio), where they must make their way through various set pieces from other Sierra games, including ''Police Quest'' and ''Space Quest II''. This sequence includes many self-aware jokes which are prevalent in Sierra games. At its conclusion, Larry interrupts Sierra programmer Roberta Williams as she is "directing" the whale escape scene from ''King's Quest IV''.Williams herself was featured on the box art of ''Softporn Adventure'', a 1981 Apple II text adventure which served as the basis for the original ''Leisure Suit Larry'' title.

The game ends with Larry offered a job at Sierra, and the couple are seen living in a California log cabin; Larry is coding an aptly titled series of computer games based on his adventures.

The absence of a ''Leisure Suit Larry 4'' forms the basis of this newest installment, as Julius Biggs has stolen the "missing floppies" of the game and caused Larry Laffer to become amnesiac. Larry is now in the adult film industry, working for a Mafia-connected company known as PornProdCorp. His boss sends him across the United States to scout for models to appear in "America's Sexiest Home Videos".

Meanwhile, Patti is recruited by the FBI to dig up incriminating evidence on two record companies which are suspected of hiding subliminal messages in their songs. At the same time, PornProdCorp schemes to eliminate the competition in their industry by donating money to CANE (Conservatives Against Nearly Everything).

On his way back to Los Angeles, Larry is involved in an airplane incident, landing the plane safely and being greeted as a hero. He is invited to the White House by George H. W. Bush, where he is reunited with Patti, and Biggs's sinister role is revealed.

Larry Laffer is once again single at the outset of the game, as his girlfriend Passionate Patti is off doing her own thing (she is mentioned only briefly by the narrator at one point in the game, and appears in the calendar with the game). After competing—and losing—on the television dating show ''Stallions'', Larry gets an all-expenses-paid trip to La Costa Lotta, a refined health spa. Due to his status as non-paying guest, he is treated rudely by the staff and given the worst room on the premises. Larry would later find himself assisting a variety of women with various tasks.

Larry meets and eventually helps Gammie lose weight by figuring out how to start a weight-loss treatment machine, but he gets left after she feels far too pretty for Larry. Larry would also meet Shablee, and after finding and giving her an evening gown, she leads Larry to an evening date by the beach. The night ends after Larry realizes she is actually a guy. At one point he meets Cavaricchi and Burgundy, and after helping them, he gets invited to a sauna with the two of them but eventually ends up being left out. Larry later on meets Char and after gathering some items for her, gets asked into a room where he eventually gets electrocuted by a machine, he wakes up the next day in his room. Larry meets Merrily and she tells Larry about her dream to bungee jump from a nearby tower in the hotel, after Larry finds the key to the Bungee Tower door they both go up to get ready to jump but Larry mistakenly falls off the tower and later wakes up in his room. Eventually, Larry acquires all the required items to give to Shamara, he goes to a balcony in the hotel and speaks with Shamara. He gives her all the items and she eventually becomes happy with Larry. The game ends with both of them presumably having sex.

The main protagonist, Larry Lovage, is a student at Walnut Log Community College whose purpose is to get on a dating TV show called "Swingles". Uma Yasmine, the hostess of the show won't allow Larry on the show until he will prove his seductive wits by obtaining "tokens of affection". Sixteen college girls will conveniently be at his disposal. His aging uncle, Larry Laffer from the original games, provides brief advice and appears at a local bar. Larry also must outsmart a sorority house and a fraternity house, known as Dio, where they recite lines that are actually modified lyrics of Black Sabbath songs.

After going through several rounds on the dating show and obtaining tokens, Larry becomes a finalist and goes on a date at a strip club with three girls. Larry will choose one out of the three who he gets to bring back to his room with. The game ends with Larry partying in college during Spring Break with the entire college.

A brief subplot involves the college's arena football team going against a rival team known as the ''Maiming Maggots''. However, the college's team name is a running gag because it is obscured by objects, only revealing it as ''Flaming Fa-''. The final scene shows the team name is actually the ''Flaming Fantasticks'' after the Swingles van leaves the school.

The protagonist, Larry Laffer, is a 38-year-old (40-year-old in the 1991 remake) "loser" who lives in his mother's basement and has not yet lost his virginity. Having grown weary of his lonely existence, he decides to visit the resort city of Lost Wages (a parody of "Las Vegas") hoping to experience what he has not lived before and to finally find the woman of his dreams. Larry starts with nothing but an out-of-style 1970s disco-era leisure suit and $94 in his pocket. His quest involves four possible women: a nameless, seedy-looking sex worker; Fawn, a club-goer of low moral fiber; Faith, a receptionist who (true to her name) is faithful to her boyfriend; and Eve, a bathing beauty and Larry's ultimate goal.

It is the year 20** and computers become an integral part of society, Internet had evolved into a virtual reality called "ComNet". However, a teenage girl Yui Kasuga is one of the few who cannot use computers at all, despite the fact that her father is a software developer. At the time, an evil Host computer called Grosser wants to take over the both of ComNet and real world. The eight softwares whose developed to correct Grosser's evil intention, they're digital avatars exist only on ComNet and need help of a human called Corrector. Yui is sucked into the ComNet where she is recruited by I.R., one of eight softwares who gives her element suits that allow her to ComNet Fairy "Corrector Yui" and fight Grosser's evil softwares.

In the first season, the series revolves around the war against Grosser, and reveals the mysteries that surround the Correctors, their seemingly missing Grosser and Correctors's creator, and the relationship that he seems to have had with the corrupted softwares.

In the second season, Yui and the Correctors must fight with a mysterious computer virus who menaces the ComNet, and also cope with the mysterious Corrector Ai, a Corrector who tends to work on her own and seems to have her own agenda. The key to the mysteries seems to be a strange young girl who seems lost and may be related with the devastating virus appearances.

In 1990s Pittsburgh, Montel (Rusty Cundieff) and Clyde (Joe Torry) are friends who could not be less alike. An introverted photographer, Montel wants to meet the one right girl for him and settle down to build a family, while Clyde is a flamboyant womanizer just out for a good time.

At a party, they meet Adina (Paula Jai Parker), a sexy golddigger seeking a wealthy husband with robotic determination, and her shy law clerk friend Brandy (Tisha Campbell). The couples pair off in predictable combinations, but while the brief encounter between Clyde and Adina quickly implodes when she discovers that Clyde's success is an act and his Porsche is borrowed, the relationship between Montel and Brandy blooms into a true romance. Eventually, they decide to move in together, motivating Clyde and Adina to reunite in a selfish scheme to break their best friends up, using whatever treacherous means they can employ.

Karin Kokubu (Kassie Carlen) is late for school one day when she comes across an apparently injured yellow pig. It turns out the pig wasn't injured, just hungry, and he gets back his health when he eats Karin's apple. When Karin gets to her school, called Sei Ringo Gakuen (St. Ringo School), she discovers that the pig has stowed away in her backpack, which gets her into trouble with her teacher Makoto Arashiyama (Fowley Fatback).

Later, she meets the pig again and finds out he can talk and fly. The pig gives her a "Dream Tonpact" which she opens, and a pig snout appears from it and attaches itself to her nose. She finds the pig again who explains that he is actually Prince Tonrariano the 3rd (Iggy Pig) of the apple-shaped planet Buringo (Oinko). He tells her how she can transform: by saying "Ba Bi Bu Be Burin!" she transforms into a superpowered pink piglet called Tonde Burin (Super Pig). This is not something Karin is happy about at all, as she'd rather transform into a magical girl heroine like her idol, the tokusatsu character "Cutey Chao" (who is possibly a reference to Cutie Honey). Tonrariāno (who she calls Ton-chan) tells her if she can collect 108 pearls by doing good deeds as Burin, she can do so. The pearl collection operates on karma, meaning if Burin abuses her powers, she will lose pearls.

Whenever someone is in danger, Karin becomes Tonde Burin to thwart the crisis and uses her new abilities to help other people in need.

''Three Junes'' follows the McLeods, a Scottish family, throughout their lives and relationships. Its members are Paul and Maureen, and their sons: Fenno, and twins David and Dennis. At the opening of the book, Paul is on a tour of Greece, Maureen has died from lung cancer, and Fenno is running a bookstore in New York City. Other important characters include Malachy, Fenno's friend who is a music critic and suffering from AIDS, and Fern, an unwed pregnant woman, whom Paul formerly met on his trip to Greece, trying to recover from his wife's death. Finally, another important character of the book is Tony, a photographer, who is a house-sitter, never living in the same house for more than a few months. He is a catalyst in the narrative development of Fern and Fenno. He is an old friend with Fern and he develops a tumultuous relationship with Fenno.

The novel is written in three parts, using the flashback technique. The first takes place in 1989 and is told from Paul's perspective; the second, in 1995 and from Fenno's point of view; the third, in 1999 and from Fern's perspective. As Julia Glass has said herself, the book should be viewed not as a trilogy but rather a triptych – elements that may seem small in one section play a large role in another, like a triptych, rather than a consecutive series of novels in a trilogy.

The cartoon featured a large mangy dog named Precious Pupp and his owner Granny Sweet. Granny was a kindly woman with a passion for motorcycles, completely oblivious to the fact that her beloved, affectionate pet was something of a neighborhood terror. He had a habit of slipping behind a victim quietly---sometimes in defense of their home, sometimes just for the fun of it---and jolting him with a ferocious series of barks . . . but never where or when Granny could catch him in the act.

Unlike many cartoon animals, Precious did not speak. His usual vocalism was an asthmatic-sounding, "wheezing" laugh used even more famously by Muttley, a Hanna-Barbera character introduced three years later. He usually outsmarted his enemies, most notably Bruiser, the neighborhood bulldog, but he also usually outsmarted his oblivious owner, too.

Twenty-six episodes were produced.

The book begins with the Mysterious Stranger, known as X, the renegade Ethical (one of the Riverworld's creators) who posed as the engineer Barry Thorn on the airship ''Parseval'' and there murdered Milton Firebrass and several others, all of whom were fellow Ethicals. He is now posing as a Mayan named Ah Qaaq, in the company of the Chinese poet Li Po. Through his internal reverie he reveals that his identity was discovered by Monat Grrautut, the director of the Riverworld project, who recalled 'X' to the Dark Tower to be judged. Against this, 'X' used a remote command to kill all the inhabitants of the tower and stop the resurrections of Riverworld's inhabitants. His reverie when the left bank's 'grailstones' (supplying food and stimulants) fail to operate and are not mended by the Ethicals, who are either dead or confined (like 'X' himself) to the river. After the grailstones fail, the inhabitants of the left bank invade the right for resources, and half of humanity dies in the conflict.

Concurrently, protagonist Richard Burton and his friends have joined the crew of King John's ship, the ''Rex Grandissimus'', where Burton, masquerading as a Dark Age British warrior, becomes King John's security chief. One day Tom Mix, Jack London, and Peter Jairus Frigate apply to join the crew; and Burton, recognizing Frigate, attacks him as a spy for the Ethicals. Realizing his mistake, Burton allies himself with Frigate, Mix, and London. Meanwhile, the Ethical Monat Grrautut has boarded Sam Clemens' ship, where he is murdered by the renegade Ethical.

Eventually, the two riverboats reach Virolando, a wide lake before the headwaters, home to the pacifist Church of the Second Chance, where Hermann Göring has become a priest. There, King John and Clemens begin an aerial dog-fight, and later a naval combat in which both riverboats are sunk and most of the crews die. King John is killed by Clemens and Clemens dies of a heart attack after being pulled from the water by his mortal enemy Erik Bloodaxe, who has become an adherent of the Church of the Second Chance, and seeks no revenge against Clemens. Among the survivors are Burton, Frigate, Alice, Kaz, Joe Miller, Li Po, Ah Qaaq, and Nur ed-Din ("Light of the Faith"), now joined by Tom Turpin, Aphra Behn, a man claiming to be Gilgamesh, and Baron de Marbot. They take the only craft to survive the fight upriver, then scale the waterfall at the end of the river and enter the polar sea. At the tower, they expose Ah Qaaq as the renegade Ethical and take him prisoner. He identifies himself as Loga, a grandson of King Priam of Troy, resurrected centuries ago and raised by the alien Ethicals on the Gardenworld. He reveals the current date is 2307 AD and other stories were false stories to throw off investigators. He reveals also that the Riverworld is a moral test, to allow humanity enlightenment. When the project is brought to a close the souls of those who have not achieved enlightenment will wander the universe aimlessly. Loga, being obsessed with sparing his earthly family this fate, awakened Burton prematurely, recruited Clemens and the others, and diverted a metal meteorite (disrupting social harmony) to Clemens.

The protagonists discover a malfunction in the computer which runs the tower, threatening to release the stored ''wathans'' (souls), of the people who died on the Riverworld. Göring attempts to fix the computer, but is killed by security measures put in place by Monat, who was a member of the fifth-generation sentient race to receive ''wathans'' from the First Race to have ''wathans''. Alice then devises a way to evade this programming, and deactivate the security. Loga is then able to repair the computer.

Conor O'Neill is a gambler who secretly bets $6,000 on his dead father's account and is now severely in debt with two bookies. In order to repay the debts, he is told by a corporate friend that he must coach a baseball team of troubled African-American fifth grade kids from Chicago's ABLA housing projects in exchange for $500 each week, for ten weeks.

Worried only about getting his $500 check, Conor shows up at the baseball field to a rag tag bunch of trash-talking, street-wise, inner city kids who live in the projects. Some of the players include: Andre Ray Peetes, a smart-mouthed jokester, captain of the team who knows about all the players and forms a strong bond with Conor; Kofi Evans, a troubled, angry boy who has a rivalry with Andre, a quick temper, but is the best player on the team; Jefferson Albert Tibbs, a sweet, overweight, asthmatic player; Jamal, Andre's best friend and the oldest on the team; Miles Penfield II, the brilliant pitcher who listens to The Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa to pitch well; and Jarius "G-Baby" Evans, Kofi's much younger brother who is too young to play so he becomes Conor's assistant.

Conor's efforts are hindered from the onset by the fact that he does not have nine kids to make up the team—Jamal’s mother altered his birth certificate to be younger and G-Baby is sad because he is far too young to play. The older kids tell Conor it is because their teacher, Elizabeth "Sister" Wilkes, is making several boys finish a book report. Conor visits the teacher, but his life is threatened repeatedly by his bookies for not paying his gambling debts. He is visited by the mother of two boys and her sister's son that are allowed to play in exchange for his tutoring them.

Conor works to get the team to support each other and stop trash-talking each other's bad plays; but the team nevertheless loses its first game 16–1, which fosters hostility between the players. Conor brings them together by buying them pizza (trading sports tickets for the pizza) and leads the team to win their second game 9–3. The team starts to come together as Conor tries to kindle a romance with Wilkes.

Conor risks everything and makes a $12,000 bet with a new bookie to cover the $12,000 debt he owes to the other bookies. His stress, already high from his gambling debts, runs higher at the baseball field because Jamal is pulled from playing after a competing coach questions the boy's age and Myles can't wear headphones while he pitches. Conor takes offense to the league president's threat to be removed, after he voices his objection to his team having to wear ratty T-shirts while the other teams have full uniforms. In protest, he announces it was his last game which draws dissension and resentment from his players.

Conor barely wins his $12,000 bet, pays off all his debts, and refuses to turn that bet for $24,000 using the winnings. Conor connects with the kids and finds it harder to leave than he thought. He surprises them with second row seats (behind Sammy Sosa's dugout) to a major league game. He stops gambling; his relationship with Wilkes grows; he gets new uniforms for the players (sponsored by one of his bookies); and he assumes a fatherly role in leading the team to the championship game (called "going to the 'ship" by the boys).

Just after Conor drops the kids off at home after winning the pre-championship game, G-Baby is struck and killed by a stray bullet and Kofi has to hold him as he dies. Conor wants to forfeit the game, but Andre and especially Kofi, rallies the team together. The end credits show the kids finally getting the trophies they wanted after winning the championship.

Based on the 1963 book by Robert MacLeod, the title character is a beautiful horse (a breed, the Appaloosa) belonging to Matt Fletcher (Marlon Brando), a Mexican-American buffalo hunter who returns home only to have his beloved horse stolen by a powerful bandit, Chuy Medina (John Saxon) with the help of the bandit's girlfriend, Trini (Anjanette Comer) in the border town of Ojo Prieto. Trini was sold to Chuy at the age of 15, but has been brutalized and effectively discarded.

Matt begins to hunt down the bandit to recapture the horse, but finds matters more complicated than expected when he meets the girlfriend of the bandit. Fletcher is subjected to torture and humiliation by Chuy and his minions. A later foray into Medina's camp results in a brutal arm wrestling match in a bar between Fletcher and the bandido. Fletcher loses and is stung on the arm by a scorpion. Again left to die, Fletcher is rescued by Trini, who despises her "lover", Chuy, and prefers Fletcher's company. She gets him assistance from a kindly old peasant, which later costs the old man his life. During the violence-laden climax, Fletcher is forced to choose between Trini and his beloved Appaloosa. Matt, realizing that Trini means more to him than the horse, sends out the Appaloosa to draw Chuy's fire. As the bandit prepares to aim for the horse, sunlight glints on his gun barrel, revealing his position. Matt fires and kills him. Matt and Trini then cross the border with the Appaloosa to start a new life.

Robert Crain (Marlon Brando) is a German pacifist during World War II, living in India as a Swiss national. He is blackmailed by English Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard) and the Allies into going along with a plan to use his engineering knowledge to disable the scuttling charges on a German merchant ship carrying rubber from Japan. The Allies hope to bomb the ship and recover its cargo, as rubber is in short supply and essential for both sides' war effort. They provide Crain with fake documentation and a cover story that he is a high-ranking SS officer needing to sail to Germany.

On board the ship, Crain finds the captain, Mueller (Yul Brynner) to be a patriotic German whose humanistic inclinations are hostile to Nazi principles. The first officer, Kruse (Martin Benrath), is a fanatical Party member who keeps a close eye on the captain. Crain convinces Kruse that he too is suspicious of the captain's loyalties. Several of the crew pressed into service because of labour shortages are in effect prisoners because of their political views. In time, after one of them tries to kill him, Crain enlists them in a plan to have the Allies take the ship, whilst also winning Mueller's grudging trust by persuading him not to fire the scuttling charges when the ship is almost torpedoed by a Japanese submarine due to its disguise as a British merchantman.

That submarine has two German Naval officers aboard, along with a number of American prisoners and Esther (Janet Margolin), a young German-Jewish woman who has been raped and tortured by her Nazi captors. Complications arise when the submarine meets with the ship to transfer Esther and the prisoners. Despite the horrors Esther was subjected to, she is still openly defiant of every German she encounters on board the ship, including Mueller and Crain. When Mueller is alone with her, he is able to overcome her expectation that he too is a brutaliser, adding that he will assist her to escape once the ship gets to Europe, a hope that is soon dashed when Kruse also learns that she is Jewish. Later Crain persuades her to join in his plot, but she is disgusted by his lack of commitment to the anti-Nazi cause.

The two German Naval officers, who are familiar with military personnel and operations in the Far East, become suspicious of Crain's SS identity and return to the submarine to check on his credentials by radioing to Berlin, giving Crain less than 24 hours to complete his mission. While awaiting the Naval officers' report Captain Mueller hears that his son, a German Navy officer, has been decorated for sinking an Allied hospital ship. Disgusted by this, Mueller becomes drunk and reveals in a rage the full extent of his anti-Nazi beliefs, which gives Kruse a reason to declare the captain unfit and take command of the ship. Meanwhile, about to be exposed, Crain organises a mutiny. For it to have any chance of success the American prisoners would need to participate, but when Esther appeals to them for help some only agree on condition that she is sexually compliant with them.

Just before the mutiny occurs, Kruse receives the submarine radio message that Crain's SS identity is false, and arms the loyal part of the crew. The mutiny is then easily defeated and Kruse kills Esther for her part in it, but - though Mueller maintains he is "no traitor" and refuses to aid him - Crain is able to elude his pursuers long enough to detonate the scuttling charges he had not yet disabled. The surviving crew abandon ship, during which the anti-Nazi German sailors make sure the wounded Kruse drowns. Crain and Mueller are then the only persons left on board. Barrels of lard in the ship's hold spill open, expand and act as a stopper, temporarily keeping the ship afloat. Crain asks the captain to radio the Allies for rescue, and is surprised when he does so.

Four teenage girlfriends escape their middle-class parents for a few days in 1963 for an adventure in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the big spring festival promises a dance contest, beer blasts, and many cute boys.

Carson McBride is engaged to Harley, the boring son of a business man; Melaina Buller is a restless preacher's daughter; Luanne Clatterbuck is a conservative senator's daughter; and Caroline Carmichael, "Pudge", is self-conscious about her weight. They stay at Luanne's parents vacation home.

At a club, Melaina hooks up and leaves with a guy in his car. She then gets attacked and covered in shaving cream by two local girls. Earlier overhearing them talking about a beauty contest, she said she'd enter and beat them. Carson and Pudge hang out with Buzz and Chip, while Luanne is trying to escape another.

At the car-hop, Buzz flirts with Carson, ignoring that she's engaged and she is drawn to him. Pudge offers to teach Chip the shag, and he grudgingly relents. When the girls get home, Carson calls her fiancé, telling him she's at Myrtle Beach, but not that she went out with another.

Chip arrives when Pudge is not ready, but she is pleased and they begin the dance lessons. Buzz wakes Carson dangling a fly fishing lure in her face, asking her to go fishing. She insists nothing will ever happen between them, he agrees, saying they should just be friends. Melaina begins practicing her beauty pageant dance routine, but when Luanne walks in on her, she convinces her into giving a speech from ''Gone with the Wind'' instead.

Fishing, Carson and Buzz begin to get closer, while Chip and Pudge ask each other questions about sex and relationships. Buzz doesn't believe Carson will marry Harley, and makes her confront her beliefs and rules. The girls later watch Melaina in the contest. She loses to Suette because Luanne made her be a more modest contestant; she wins doing a dance routine in a bikini. Harley arrives during the contest so Carson hides, while Luanne seeks him out. Melaina gets Luanne to use her daddy's name as a Senator to invite Jimmy Valentine to the house for a small party, which gets out of control.

Melaina spends the evening dancing with and impressing Jimmy, Carson spends more time with Buzz, Luanne and Harley get close, and Pudge and Chip get to know each other more. Carson and Buzz go to Luanne's father's yacht and end up sleeping together. Luanne and Harley realize they have feelings for each other and are better suited than Harley and Carson were. Chip makes mistakenly says his feelings for Pudge are friendship and she rejects him.

Melaina tries to get Jimmy's attention in the morning, but he's still drunk and his manager has come to get him. Realizing the agent is the real celebrity maker, she focuses on him instead. Luanne and Harley wake and are told by the maid that her parents are coming to judge the shag contest. She sends Chip to pick them up and take them to the pavilion while they repair the damage done to the home. Pudge takes Melaina to the pavilion to meet with Jimmy's agent, seeing Chip she realizes he really does care.

Luanne and Harley, with Buzz and Carson (who snuck back from the yacht), follow Pudge and Melaina to the pavilion to watch Pudge and Chip in the contest. Once they all see Luanne's parents, she says she will lie to them about the weekend. Carson insists she tell the truth, so they agree to be honest. Carson tells Harley she can't marry him because she's in love with Buzz, and Luanne blurts out they had sex in the yacht.

Harley tries to hit Buzz, who ducks and he hits a mirror instead, so Luanne comforts him. Chip and Pudge win the contest and agree to stay in touch while he attends Annapolis; Melaina impresses the agent who agrees to take her on as a client; Luanne ends up with Harley; and Carson realizes she does not need to be married to be happy.

Taking place in Brooklyn, New York during the 1960s, Shorty (voiced by Omar Jones) rants about how the display of the striptease dancer is disgusting and how it reminds him of his mother. He then tells the story of him spotting his mother, who is a fortune teller, having sex with a clown. Shorty then murders both of them, with their body parts flying everywhere, piquing the interest of the mafia, eventually becoming one of them.

The film then transitions to the Stool Pidgeon Bar, a hangout for cops, where he sees his girl Molly (voiced by Tina Romanus), with her being unaware that Shorty is coming. Shorty then says it's all part of his true story and that she hangs out with a cop named Max (voiced by Robert Costanzo), who he has a despise for.

Ernest "Stick" Stickley (Burt Reynolds), a former car thief, has just been released from prison after serving seven years for armed robbery. He meets up with an old friend, Rainy (Jose Perez), who talks Stick into accompanying him for a "quick stop" near the Florida Everglades before they go to his home. The "quick stop" turns out to be an illegal drug deal set up by Rainy's dealer, Chucky (Charles Durning), that goes sour. Chucky's albino henchman, Moke (Dar Robinson), kills Rainy, but Stick gets away. Stick must now hide out for a while to elude the killers, who must eliminate him as a witness.

While lying low, Stick finds himself in the right place at the right time when he helps a wealthy eccentric named Barry (George Segal), get into his locked car. Hired as a driver, he now has a comfortable home with a stable job, and tries to make up for lost time with Katie, his teen-age daughter. He also finds a new flame in Kyle (Candice Bergen), a financial consultant who acts as a business adviser for Barry, who must decide if a relationship with Stick is worth it.

Stick confronts Chucky to demand the money owed to his murdered friend, wanting to use the money to start a new life. Chucky refuses, and after being pressured by his voodoo obsessed cartel boss, Nestor (Castulo Guerra), to eliminate the ex-con, Chucky sends Moke and some other hitmen after Stick. Nestor has Stick's daughter kidnapped to force him out of hiding.

Nestor, fed up with Chucky's bumbling, hires Moke to kill him. Stick confronts the two on the balcony of Chucky's high rise apartment before Moke can shoot Chucky, and Moke taunts Stick to try and get to him before he can pull a handgun from his belt. Chucky surprises Moke, pushing the men over the balcony railing. Chucky falls to his death, but Moke manages to grab onto a lower beam. Moke asks for help, but Stick mocks as Moke falls to his death, shooting his gun at Stick on the way down.

Stick goes to Nestor's home, and methodically eliminates all of Nestor's henchmen, before confronting Nestor himself. After Stick shoots up the bar area around him, a terrified Nestor gives up, and agrees to leave Stick and his daughter alone in exchange for his own life. After rescuing his daughter, Stick calls Kyle on a mobile phone and arranges for the two lovers to meet in the median of a highway, where they embrace.

Planet 14 was just a speck on a spacial stereo map, just a world inhabited by a group of barbaric refugees. But to Belfeor, it was instant cash. All he needed was an iron hand and a means to dig out its radioactive resources for export to his own world. To Maddalena it was a final exam: this would be her last chance to prove herself worthy of Corps Galactica membership. To Saikmar, it was a nation and a people stolen from him by cruel treachery. To Gus Langenschmidt, it was part of a job he had, watching the skies and helping men who were being enslaved. But how do you help people who don't know you exist and who must not be told?

In 1956, gun shearer Foley joins a new shearing team sharing a room with Old Garth, a once great shearer who is now a drunk. Foley and his team battle to get in a new cook, Old Garth dies and Foley befriends the grazier's daughter. Foley loses his status as top shearer to Arthur Black and blows most of his money gambling. The shearers go on strike and Foley and his team get involved in a brawl with non-union labour.

Set in London in the early 1990s, the film portrays the bittersweet lifestyles of a young gay couple in a fiery open relationship. Mark is an acerbic drag queen with a sharp tongue, who finds it difficult to accept his much better-looking partner's highly promiscuous lifestyle of non-stop clubbing and cruising. Worse still, Mark is HIV positive and his partner is negative.

Both of them are struggling to come to terms with Mark's deteriorating condition. Nowadays, Mark prefers to stay at home when not performing – working on his own panel of embroidery for an AIDS quilt memorial project. Simon, however, prefers to turn a blind eye to the situation and continues to cruise London's gay bars at night looking for action.

Mark dies early on in the story and Simon becomes the focus of the story as he buries his feelings and continues his torrid sex life. At first, he seems completely unaffected by his lover's death. However, when Mark returns to haunt him, his life suddenly becomes a lot more complex, especially as he is the only one who can see Mark.

It turns out that Mark has actually returned to help his partner to accept his true feelings and to encourage him to reassess his reckless lifestyle – a lifestyle that he is sure will never bring him the happiness he seeks. Eventually, Mark gets through to him and Simon breaks down and weeps for the very first time.

Mark's work is done and he can leave his one-time lover to move on with his life.

''Mushishi'' is set in an imaginary time between the Edo and Meiji periods, featuring some 19th-century technology but with Japan still as a "closed country". The story features ubiquitous creatures called that often display what appear as supernatural powers. It is implied that there are many more primitive lifeforms than "normal" living things such as animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria, and Mushi is the most primitive of all. Due to their ethereal nature, most humans are incapable of perceiving Mushi and are oblivious to their existence, but there are a few who possess the ability to see and interact with Mushi. One such person is , the main character of the series voiced by Yuto Nakano in the original version and by Travis Willingham in the English dub. He employs himself as a , traveling from place to place to research Mushi and aid people suffering from problems caused by them.

The series is an episodic anthology with no overarching plotline in which the only common elements are Ginko and the Mushi. Ginko is a man with one green eye, who not only can see various types of mushi but also attracts them. Because of this ability, he is constantly wandering and smokes in order to keep the mushi away. He appears to have a generally laid back personality, however, he can be very serious and focused on his work when it comes to protecting people from mushi. He stresses that the mushi are not evil, but merely trying to survive like everyone else. A majority of the stories do not focus on Ginko but rely on him as a catalyst to move the story forward by diagnosing or curing mushi-related illnesses and phenomena.

The film begins with Barry having a bad crash during the 1982 British Grand Prix. Suzuki rider Anton Mang crashes and Barry crashes into his bike. Barry is then hit by Honda rider Takazumi Katayama. One year later, chairman Asama Nakamura of Asama Motorbikes decides to hire the three fastest riders in the world to race for them. He ends up hiring Barry, who now has metal pins in his legs, American Ron Harris, who won the '82 title after Barry crashed, and Japanese rider Masao Yamashta.

Leading up to the race, Masao practices Japanese stick fighting and talks to his wife Mika. Ron rides on his 1983 Honda VF750F and meets a girl driving a 1978 Porsche 911 SC Targa. The two end up dating for about a week until she friend zones him. Some time later, the British Grand Prix begins and Barry ends up winning ahead of Ron and his archenemy Mike Lockwood. Soon the sidecar race begins, and Mika and her passenger Bruce win. Some time later, the South African Grand Prix begins. Masao wins ahead of Lockwood and Ron, with Barry dropping out after his bike has ignition trouble. As time passes, Barry wins Brazil, Ron wins Spain and Daytona, Lockwood wins Germany, Masao wins France, Ron wins the Dutch Grand Prix, Lockwood beats Masao in a photo finish at Sweden after Barry drops out after his transmission seizes, and Lockwood wins at Italy after Barry crashes.

Masao finds out there will only be two bikes for next season. In a desperate attempt to renew his contract, he wins Argentina and Venezuela. Masao takes the lead in Yugoslavia until he has visions of the devil on Lockwood's bike. His life flashes before his eyes, causing him to become airborne and his bike to explode. He goes flying through the air on fire and dies. After his wife Mika deals with the crash by doing wheelies up and down the pit lane while sobbing uncontrollably, the San Marino Grand Prix begins. Barry wins with Ron second and Lockwood dropping out after his bike throws a connecting rod. Barry and Ron celebrate on the podium drinking champagne, and Barry is interviewed about his win by ABC Sports.