Niko woke with a shock as bullets whizzed over him. So much of a shock that he bashed his head into the… sand? If sand was here then he must be on Hove beach, near Roman's old place. But as he crawled forward, under the haze of bullets, he realized that he'd bumped into a brick wall. There were no brick walls on Hove beach. Niko climbed over this wall and finally was able to get a look at where he was.

He wasn't even in Liberty City.

All Niko could see was rotting buildings, caravans, rocks and lots of sand. Niko slowly turned around to see 5 white cop cars. These weren't LC cops. They sure were white but the blue stripes and LCPD text was gone. It was replaced by sheriff in gold text and on the rear, call 911. But it was what was under sheriff that again, shocked Niko.

Sheriff
los santos county

Niko was on the other side of the country! Now he realised where he was. He was in the grand senora desert, blaine county. Just north of Los santos. Now he got worried. He had just $4,000 in his pocket, no credit card so the million in his bank couldn't be accessed, in fact the only thing he really had was his glock 17 pistol and 3 ammo clips. That gave him 68 shots.

Niko rose from the wall and fired. He'd been helped to fight the cops plenty of times before, now to return the favour. The shot took the already occupied officers by surprise as one fell to the floor. Suddenly multiple shots were fired his way. As Niko dived back behind the safety of the red wall, he felt something hard hit his chest from his inside pocket. A grenade. He suddenly thought of something to do with this grenade, there were multiple cars near the officers...

A massive bomb waiting to go off.

He pulled out the baseball-sized explosive and pulled out it's pin, then threw over the wall. Multiple fragments flew in all directions as three of the cars exploded, killing most of the officers. A door came over the wall, nearly beheading Niko who was frozen to the spot behind the wall. He heard more shooting and looked over the wall to se the last 4 cops getting shot down by what could only have been a shotgun. At last, the noise stopped and the bullets stilled.

"hey tough guy, get over here!"

An evidently canadian voice called out to him. Niko looked around to see a man who looked like he could have been a hobo waving him over to an equally filthy caravan. Niko climbed back over the now bullet riddled wall and made his way over to the canadian.

Trevor Phillips watched this new arrival to Sandy Shores cross the road to his caravan, thinking of something to do with him. He was seriously considering offering this obviously weapon trained man a place in TP Industries. Maybe with Ron as a gunman but he'd think on that later. For now, he'd already decided to give this man a good, full pisswasser from his crate inside.

"well hello armed stranger! Thanks for that help, have a pisswasser" Trevor said, halfway between normal talking and shouting. He ran inside and grabbed a bottle from the crate, opening it with his knife before handing it to Niko.

"Thanks man, drink's just what I need right now" Niko thanked in his usual, heavily eastern european accent. "So then, you from Russia?" Trevor asked, questioning Niko's voice. "Yugoslavia, born and raised" Niko corrected. "I'm Niko by the way, Niko Bellic"

"Trevor Phillips" He replied, opening a fridge that Niko was surprised to find working. Trevor pulled out a chilled pisswasser and handed it to Niko

"Have that one instead, they're better chilled" Trevor said, grabbing the hot one Niko had been drinking and taking it outside. He placed it on the old chest of draws with two other ones before calling inside. "Niko! Come here!"

Great, Niko thought. Only just arrived and already getting orders. Niko went to Trevor outside who handed him a combat pistol. "How good is your aim?" he asked. Niko's reply was a quick succession of 3 bursts of sound as he shot all three bottles, the one he'd just been drinking from sending an explosion of alcohol over the sand. Trevor, for one rare time actually looked impressed. But being an ex-soldier he knew that there was only one place that kind of shooting came from.

"If you're from Yugoslavia then I'm guessing you were in the war?" Trevor asked, almost knowing the answer "Yes, i was. At 14 years of age i was forced to learn to use an a Skorpion vz. 61 and then pushed into battle as what could only be described as bait to divert fire." Niko explained, remembering those horrific days. The memory of an enemy soldier who came at him with a knife. He felt a slight itch in the scar that had been given to his inner thigh by that knife. "Later I got older and was reassigned to a PK machine gun operator. That was where I properly learnt to use a weapon. I also learnt to fly aircraft"

This confirmed Niko a vital asset for Trevor. Good gunner was one thing but able to fly too? now he was definitely going to ask.

"So, I've been thinking, are you occupied at all?" Trevor asked "Hey, I'm always looking for cash, especially now with me far away from home" was the reply

"where is home?" Trevor questioned, he obviously didn't live here. "Liberty city, no idea how i ended up here, across the country" Niko replied. Trevor finally dropped the bomb.

"so then Niko, you've got nowhere to go, no real money to speak of, how'd you like a job?"