[Author's Note: All I have to say about this one is: Magikazam]
[Prologue: The Sudden Stop at the Bottom]
The rift opened at its destination and Velvet plummeted through the exit, this was starting to become an unfortunately regular occurrence for Velvet. "Oh no, not again." Velvet thought, realizing that she was, once again, going for a little freefall, and slammed into a pile of trash. Thankfully, she didn't sustain any real injuries, but she was still sore, battered, and bruised from her last two falls, and that made this one all the more painful. Being constantly in the presence of her impressionable younger brother, and later on, Phi, Velvet had mostly sworn off using the more colorful words of the language, however, right now there was only one word that oh-so-perfectly and oh-so-concisely summed up her present thoughts and feelings. "Shit..." Velvet hissed out. Velvet knew Phi wasn't the kind of person to make mistakes, but she was still reluctant to shatter the last little bit of hope she had. She reluctantly opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, loud music and singing in Portuguese blared in the background, the sound of a soccer game being played in the distance, the overbearing heat and humidity, the putrid smell of garbage and refuse in the small canal she had been dumped in - She had been sent to Brazil. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing she could think of.
Magilou had told her plenty of horror stories about this realm, and all she could do was hope that they were wrong. A bout of shouting in a foreign language caught Velvet's attention, and she looked to see what appeared to be some kind of hold up. "What do you need guys, what do you need?" A man with a scruffy beard, shaved head and strange shirt with some kind of pattern of flowers and parrots tried to reason with the assailants. "Easy pal, easy..." The men continued to shout at him, it became clear to Velvet that the man understood very little, if anything of what they were saying. He continued to try to deescalate. "Yeah look, I didn't mean any offense..." One of the men responded by swiping his sunglasses. "Descopa, amigo. Por favor..." he tried to speak in their language, even Velvet knew he wasn't being very convincing. She saw the men swipe the man's watch and his weapon. "Bem-vindo a favela Nova Eseperança!" The mugger mockingly said to him as he slammed the handle of his weapon onto his head with enough force to leave a nasty cut, and laughed as he rolled him over the edge into the same canal where she was laying. The men continued to laugh as they turned away and walked off into the distance.
"You too, huh?" Velvet grunted out. Absolutely nothing could ever top her cell in Titania, but this experience was proving a capable runner-up for her lowest point. Apart from 'Brazil', she had no idea where she was, and although this guy didn't seem to be in a much better spot than she did, she could at least understand what he was saying compared to everybody else. "Yeah..." the man replied as he slowly picked himself up. Velvet followed his example and made her way back to her feet, her unhealed injuries still screaming at her. The man walked up to Velvet and pulled a small picture out of his shirt. "Listen, have you seen this girl? She was kidnapped a while ago and I heard she was being held around here somewhere." The man said, showing the picture to Velvet. "No...I don't even know where I am." Velvet replied truthfully. "Well, I guess that makes two of us then. My first day off the drink and I still end up laying in the gutter after getting my ass kicked, this is shaping up to be a fine day." The man sarcastically quipped. "I guess I can sympathize, I'd told myself my days of ending up in this kind of trouble were over, and here I am not a day later..." Velvet replied. "Looks like we're in the same boat then, come on, let's get out of this gutter and try to get our bearings." The man said to her as he started towards a staircase leading out of the canal. Velvet figured she may as well follow, he was just as lost as she was. "Sure. Whatever gets me out of this dump the quickest." She said as she began to follow. "You got a name?" The man asked her.
"Velvet Crowe."
"Max Payne."
Velvet thought of making some kind of snide quip about his name, but that was exactly what got her in this situation to begin with, so she held her tongue. She had the feeling that this was going to be a long day, and the problems were only just getting started.