"Say hello to my little friend!" The TV was on in the other room, as Max stood above his sink, brushing his teeth. The cinnamon flavored toothpaste was very refreshing. He then fixed his hair the way he liked it. The date is November first, a little after twelve am. The phone rang, Max finished what he was doing and walked into his living room without any shirt on to pick it up.

"Yeah?" Max answered the phone.

A familiar voice answered, "Yo! Payne? What up?"

"Hey, Pierce, nothing."

"Yeah, sorry to call so early."

"No, it's okay, I was awake."

"At this hour? Why?"

"That's when I get up."

"Oh. Anyway, um, Leon, my man, he was in Portland doin' his thang, and he, he overheard a, JCF member talk about a fight with the uh… Yakuza! That's right, in Harwood, on that large, grassy area North in Portland, that they uh, have started construction on for the new offices. Ya know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"So, uh, he said we should, ah, go check it out. You dig?"

"Sure."

"Okay Max."

"Next up: Liberty After Dark." A commercial was on the TV, followed by moans of pleasure.

"Max, the hell ya watchin'?"

"It's just a commercial, I'm watching Scarface."

"Oh, okay. So you uh?"

"Yes, I'll be over there in a bit."

"Uhuh, 'aight, see ya man."

"Bye." Max hung up the phone, the TV caught his attention.

Music played and it showed a man in a firefight, the a narrator spoke, with a really deep voice: "Jason Chan is a young Triad. After his father is killed, he vows to gain revenge on the Mafia. On his way, he will meet old and new friends in an attempt that will take him across America to avenge his family…" It showed a close up of Jason. "Little did he know, there was a bomb, in his shoe." Then came a loud explosion, the screen said in text: 'Paths of Revenge' coming December 08 to a theatre near you.

Max raised an eyebrow. "Hmm… Looks good."

He got a cup of coffee, then got ready to leave. He took the elevator down, and ended up outside, beside his car, which was a beautiful blue Windsor, and Max loved it. A few moments passed, and Max had traveled form his apartment in Staunton, to Wichita Gardens, where Pierce's apartment is.

Max got out, walking to the elevator holding his cup of coffee, and took it up to Pierce's apartment. As Max walked up to the wooden door, he could hear music coming form inside; "Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games."

He knocked three times before Pierce answered. The door opened slowly, Pierce was dressed, holding a bowl of soup, "Yo Max!"

Max nodded and said, "Pierce."

Pierce took a few second swallowing, "So what's up Max?"

"Not much? Mind if I fill up my coffee?" Max held out his mug that said, looked at Max, "Yeah, sure, it's in the kitchen."

After filling up his coffee, Max commented, "You should clean up your apartment."

"Hey! Don't diss my digs man." Pierce replied, solemnly.

They hung out for a while, talking about the case, until it was around two am.

"Okay, we should get going." max said, he walked out the door.

"Okay, I'll be there in a sec!"

Max was now out in his Windsor, waiting for Pierce. He sighed, as it was taking too long.

Eventually, he walked out, holding two coffee mugs, "You forgot you mug, I filled it up for you."

"Cool, thanks." Max took a large drink. They took a calm drive over to SVPD, not much traffic out, but there was some. When they got to the precinct, they spent about an hour inside, taking care of business. After three am, they got in their patrol car.

As they drove to Harwood, Max driving as always, they listened to the radio: "Ah shit! Darren just ate forty-five doughnuts!" a black guy said

"Really? Holy shit!" Another officer responded.

This made Pierce laugh, Max looked over at him, and took another sip of his coffee. Slowly, the sky became lighter, traffic gradually increased, more people awoke to become pedestrians.

As Max was concentrating on the road, he heard some noises. "What's that? Did you hear it?"

"Hear what?" Pierce replied.

Max looked over at him, holding a PSP2. "Oh my god, you're not serious."

"Shut up man! I'm trying to concentrate! Ah! Shit! I just got killed!"

"What are you playing?"

"It's, uh… called, Gang Warfare."

"Oh."

They finally arrived at Harwood. The day slowly passed as they waited there for at least two hours! Max was getting frustrated. It was almost getting bright and sunny. The morning was cold.

The Harwood office development consisted of three unfinished buildings, on was about eight stories tall, the faming still visible, as only half of the building was covered by the green plastic covering. Another one was almost finished, two stories, completely brown, with some of the roof missing. The last building was finished, and just needed to be painted, a series of one story offices. An area was cleared out, through the set of buildings, for a road. The big building had a small courtyard, metal planks, tools, stacks of wood, a concrete fountain, and a Panlantic Construction (under new management) van was parked out on the unfinished dirt road.

The time came upon seven-thirty am. Max was sleeping, and he didn't even know it. A sudden noise woke him up: "What the hell!"

Max jumped, noticing he was sleeping. "What?"

"I frickin' died. AGAIN!"

"Calm down, man. Or I'll make you calm down." Max threatened, then laughed.

"Fine." Pierce turned of his game. "So, uh, Max. Anyone arrive?"

Max was dumbfounded. "Uh… I was… sleeping." He admitted.

"Oh… I see…" Followed by a few minutes of silence, a solid black Patriot pulled up. Max positioned the car out of sight, back by the ocean, they used binoculars to see what was going on.

From this position, four clean cut men, in black suits, with ties stepped out. They walked to the back of the Patriot, and picked up a few modified M4's. They had scopes on them.

The four me disappeared behind the two story building, heading towards the commercial building (the 8 story one). Three minutes passed, and two Black Yosemite truck pulled up, each with some more black suites, two in the seats, four in the back, each bearing MP5's, and who knows what else. The last Mafia car to pull up was a Black Rumpo Van. Only four men got out, two of whom had boxes. They started to open one up in plain sight.

Oh my god, they're going to set bombs.

"We need backup." Max ordered, reaching for the radio. "This is car 52, requesting for backup. Over." Nobody answered.

"I repeat, this is car 52, requesting for backup!" The radio must have been out. "Damn! They must have a wave blocker." A wave block was illegally invented in 2006, which allows the owner to alter the radio waves coming from any radio, CB or anything else, thus making them not be able to contact HQ."

"Let's go." Pierce suggested.

"No, this is our chance. Our chance to find out more, if we leave, we'll be back to step one."

"What are we on? Step two"

Max made a face, "This is our chance." Max pointed towards the L train. "Keep an eye out around here. Make sure nobody else is watching." Max opened the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To get a closer, look, and to stop the bombs."

"You're not on the bomb squad."

More cars pulled up, a few Mafia Sunrise. The Mafia soldiers got into positions, they were wearing vests. A line of five Primos drove up, all grey. They parked behind the one-story offices. 20 Yakuza soldiers got out, you could tell they were wearing vests. Each of them dressed the same, grey pants, and black button up silk shirts. They were bearing AK's, SOCOM pistols, and a few Uzi 9mm's.

They were about to confront each other, when a Yakuza fell, subject to a sniper bullet. Max and Pierce's eyes drew right the L Tran. A few Mafia snipers were upon it.

Having no chance to hit the snipers, the Yakuza circled around the building, into the road before the commercial building. Max and Pierce jumped as a sniper bullet crashed through the windshield, shattering it.

"Oh my-"

"Come on! They know we're here!" Max ordered. They had to make a dash for the enclosure of buildings, to avoid the snipers. As they neared the enclosure, gun shots rang out, constantly, one ever half second, never ending. There were shout outs in Italian and Japanese. Max and Pierce made it without being shot.

Before them lay the court yard, around the corner, where a few bodies were found. Grabbing his Beretta, Max ran into the chaos, in the rear of the Yakuza group, dodging the bullets that flew over him. The ground was covered in small holes, most of the shots were missing. Max his behind a block of metal planks. Bullets ricocheted off of them, hitting a Yakuza in the back.

Max hadn't felt a rush like this in years.

Pierce eventually made his way to Max, who spotted some Mafia soldiers coming from behind him, to flank the Yakuza, who have taken cover behind the many objects in the courtyard, some retreating into the two-story building to the left of the courtyard, still safe form the Mafia snipers south, upon the L train.

"Who the fuck?" a Mafia shoulder cried pointed at Max.

He and Pierce fired at the group of Mafia, two or three flopped to the ground, like rag dolls. "Run!" Max ordered Pierce, as if in bullet time, Max saw bullets zooming past him and Pierce, who were heading for the two-story building. As they entered, they were greeted by more gunshots, as three Yakuza screamed in enmity. Max dove through the air, shooting all three during his short flight.

They fell backwards hitting a wall, then tumbling to the ground. Gunshots were still ringing out, "Grab one!" Max pointed to their AK's.

Now armed with heavier fire power, Max took point from a window. The room was basically a square, empty except for three bodies, and a square staircase leading upwards.

From the window view, only 12 bodies were out in the courtyard, some Mafia, some Yakuza, lights of yellow were coming from the commercial building, followed by gun shots. Some Yakuza were still being attacked in the courtyard.

As max shot at the commercial building, a few Mafia soldiers fell out of it, bouncing off the ground as they hit. They were all on floors seven and eight. The gunshots slowed down, as most of them were dead.

"What the hell is that?" Max shouted. A small green ball of death flew through the window that Max stood at. "Go! Go! Now!" Pierce and Max ran up stairs, as the room shook by the small explosion, leaving a black mark from where it blew up.

Now on floor two, they were visible from the snipers because half of the wall wasn't finished, along with to roof. They had to crawl. Max reloaded his AK with his last clip as he leaned up against the wall. There was a hole where a window should go, giving an even better view of the few remaining soldiers in the court yard. Max picked them off.

A helicopter spotted his attention, south, landing on the one-story offices. A large figure appeared. Toni!

"Freeze!" a Japanese voice shouted, behind Max and Pierce. They turned, dropping their weapons, to see four Yakuza, holding them up, anxious to pull the trigger. He spoke in Japanese.

One of them fell to headless the ground, after a loud noise. They turned, a man dressed in grey pants, a long sleeved grey shirt, wearing a black vest. He had short hair, and a slight black eye, holding two sawn off shotguns.

Before the Yakuza could squeeze their triggers and eliminate him, the man blasted another Yakuza's chest out. Bullets shot over his head as he dropped to the ground, blasting the two remaining soldiers in the stomachs, dead. He stood up. The area was now covered in blood, shotguns were messy. The snipers were gone.

Max grabbed an Uzi 9mm, and some clips off the dead Yakuza, "Who the fuck are you?" Pierce demanded to know.

"Joey Leone. You needed help." He replied, swiftly, using hand gestures.

"Right, you saved our lives, what do you want?" said Max.

"You know I was betrayed, right?" They continued to talk over a few gunshots.

"Yes. I want to help you, take down Toni. I know he had something to do with the murders. I know it."

"Okay, let's go, before we all die." Pierce suggested. Joey ran down the stairs, yelling "Meet me at Belleville park tomorrow!" he was gone.

A beeping caught Max's attention. The bombs. "Crap! Run!." It got too fast, they sprinted downstairs, heading for the door, Pierce made it out, Max headed for the window.

The building crumbled in the explosion, blasting max through the window, smoke created a cloak for them. Max was in pain, not too bad though. He landed on concrete, some wood spread over his body. The sound of the helicopter disappeared, as the gunfire did too. Some yakuza were still shouting.

Max got up, behind him, was fire. He couldn't see through the blinding smoke, and began to cough. "P-Pierce!"

No answer.

Another explosion followed, shaking the ground. Some Yakuza screamed bloody murder. Just as the smoke began to clear, dust covered the area, sirens in the background, slowly increasing in noise level. Fire roared loudly in the background. A building must have crumbled, judging by the loud noise.

The last explosion blew Max back to the ground as the courtyard blew up. Piping, wood, pieces of concrete, and metal planks all covered the area. It was a miracle max survived.

Minutes later, Max stood up, his head aching bad. He was covered in dust, and concrete. It took almost every ounce of his strength to stand up, pushing the dirt concrete off of his body. The dust was settling, people were everywhere.

"We have a survivor!" A man in yellow shouted. The next thing max knew was that he was exiting the hospital, after a checkup, having a hard time seeing clearly. He was heading towards SVPD in a Taxi. He had no idea where Pierce was.

He had a stare the entire way there. Where is Pierce? He just crossed the bridge to Shoreside Vale.