"Salvatore" Tommy said with burning anger, "I don't know what this is about... but in the end, I'm going to kill you myself this time."

            "Ah, but Tommy, my old friend," Salvatore chuckled as he sat back in Tommy's seat, "It's been a long time since you've taken matters into your hands, hasn't it? Let's face it, you and I are far too old for any of this. The future is for these kids here. They're the ones doing the killing for us."

            "...What is this about?!" Tommy fumed.

            "Well, we are in quite a funny situation here, aren't we?"

Salvatore sat there at Tommy's master desk with Maria and Vince at his sides pointing guns at Jack and Tommy standing in front of the desk. The setting, red sun was piercing into the large room from behind a smoking Liberty City. The five super soldiers waging war against the entire National Guard deployment were destroying the city. An army of Destroyer soldiers overran the Kasen Corp. building and Jack wondered if the LCPD could do anything about it. Jack wondered if Salvatore and his henchmen knew anything about the secret underground lab. If they didn't, then Liberty City might have a fighting chance to win if they had the technology to fight the StarRock soldiers and the Destroyer soldiers.

"I guess its about time to tell you how you both played into all this," Salvatore began, "Tommy, I'll start with you first, since it should have been quite obvious. Ever since you took over Vice City and I took over Liberty City and we became partners, I knew it would only be a matter of time before one of us took the other out. It's been a long time coming, but I guess you took the first move. I would have thought you would know that Vince here would choose his loyalty to me over you and the Alliance.

"I mean, I took him in and raised him as my own. You really think he'd assassinate me? You really thought he wouldn't warn me? Well, we were happy you played into my plan, as did Jack.

"Oh, Jack... you were most important pawn in this entire plan. We discovered your existence from LCPD files when they oh so tragically used you to get information about us. While I would've just had you and 8-Ball killed immediately, I decided to use you to fulfill my master plan. Quite funny that everyone used you since you arrived here in Liberty, isn't it?

"I let you get close enough to the Leone Family Clan to make you believe you belonged. Come on, Jack, we're the Mafia, how could we possibly trust you so quickly, even if you did save Maria's life? Oh, and Maria, she did quite well as bait for you. She played her part well, and you were in and we knew you were doing everything according to plan."

"Jack... I'm sorry." Maria said through teary eyes, "... I... had to..."

"Maria, shut up," Salvatore said, "Anyway, we killed 8-Ball when we discovered that Tommy wanted to take me out. We wanted you to find out that I betrayed you so that you would join the Alliance and join Vince in assassinating me. We wanted you to trust Vince. I wanted two moles within the Alliance. You and Vince would be my eyes within the Alliance, except that you didn't know it. When he went to assassinate me, I made sure to be surrounded by bodyguards so any video footage wouldn't discover that I just exploded a fake blood pack to make everyone believe I had been shot. So everyone thought I was dead, and the Alliance would turn their attention to the Cartel.

"It was quite fortunate and unexpected that you destroyed the entire Columbian Cartel to save Vince and Maria. That surprised us all. The plan was that you and Vince would lead the Alliance to eventually destroying the Columbian Cartel so as to allow the Alliance to trust you both and shift their attention to the StarRock Project. I ordered Maria to follow you two and give you backup. She's not quite as helpless as she seems.

"I didn't expect the two of them to be captured, but they told me how you took down the Cartel by yourself. That was quite unusual... The whole time we built you up to believe that you were an unusual fighter. Turns out that you really were... But that's beside the point. Luckily Vince was hurt badly enough and Tommy trusted him enough that he was sent to the StarRock Project. That's when we knew we'd begin the takeover of the entire planet."

"You sound like a Saturday morning cartoon villain," Tommy said sarcastically, with underlying tone of rage. "I'm going to take over the earth, gimme a break."

"It sounds a bit contrived, doesn't it?" Salvatore said, "But that's exactly what I've done. Vince broke free from the Project and reprogrammed the supersoldiers to do my bidding. After they broke loose, they spread out over the planet and bribed the most desperate mercenaries into genetic alterations and mechanical upgrades. In less than 3 days, we've begun to takeover the Earth, all because the two of you led us to the StarRock Project."

"So that's all you want?!" Tommy asked, "You want to takeover the world... Okay, seriously, you need to stop watching cartoons and get a clue."

"Oh, Tommy," Salvatore smiled, "You and me are alike, you know that. You know that if you had the chance to do this, you would have done it too. We were born to takeover. One city at a time isn't enough. One of us was destined to take everything everything. We're modern day conquerors. This is my world now. Look at it." He pointed at the smoking city behind him and the TV monitors on the wall came on showing major cities all over the world being taken over by the StarRock soldiers and armies of Destroyer soldiers.

            Tommy and Jack looked at the screen with final hopelessness. Tommy turned to Salvatore with a tone of surrender, "... What do you want with us?"

            "Oh, that's simple," Salvatore said. "Despite Hyaku's infinite capacity for knowledge, the process by which to recharge himself was never uploaded into his neural chip. When we discovered that, we needed Dr. Doak, and he's here. Plus, we also found out you started creating technology to fight the StarRock soldiers, and we decided to wait awhile until we could take advantage of that and use it for our cause."

            Jack's heart sank once more and he finally gave into the fact that everything was truly lost.

            "We need Doak," Salvatore said, "We need him to recharge Hyaku. As you know, without that recharge, the strongest of the StarRock soldiers will die within the next 12 hours. Now I want to know where Doak is. He's somewhere in this building, and I know you know. Now you'll tell me or I'll have Vince submit you two to the 100 cut torture that the Cartel gave to him.

            Jack's spirits rose slightly, but surely. Dr. Doak wasn't captured. He was somewhere in this building hiding. Without him, Hyaku would die, and the possibility of taking back the building would increase 1000-fold. If he or Tommy could get out of the room and beat the Destroyer soldiers to Doak, there might still be hope.

            "Fine," Tommy said, "If I tell you where he is, I want in on this."

            Jack turned to Tommy with a look of hatred. "What are you doing?"

            "Jack," Tommy said, "I know this whole thing sucks, but I'm not going down without a good reason."

            "Tommy... don't do this..." Jack said.

            "Sorry, Jack," Salvatore said, "I told you Tommy was too much like me. Okay Tommy, you've got a deal. Tell me where Doak is, and I'll let you two go. I'll send you on a plane to some island where you wouldn't have to live under my New World Order."

            "Deal." Tommy said. "He's in a secret storage room on the 6th floor. Go into my computer and access the Kasen Corp. schematic mainframe and type in DIRE. It'll open up the storage room to surveillance and access. He's hiding in there with the technology to boost up Hyaku. I just want a helicopter out of here when it's all said and done."

            "Why, of course, Tommy," Salvatore said, as Vince put down his AR53 to hack into the computer system.

            Jack couldn't believe Tommy gave in so suddenly it seemed too sudden As Vince seemed to be finished typing in the password, the computer exploded. Tommy had tricked them into typing in the computer's self-destruct password. Maria, Salvatore, and Vince flew into the glass window. It shattered and the three of them seemed to fall out. Jack and Tommy flew back too, but Tommy picked up Jack and brought him behind a pillar. He pressed some controls and a revolver popped out of a compartment in the wall.

            Jack and Tommy hid behind the pillar as they checked to see if the others were fallen to their deaths. Vince was hanging onto a glass shard jutting from the bottom of the broken glass. Maria was screaming as she held onto his leg, dangling over the Liberty City streets.

            Salvatore was still behind his desk, and came up with his own revolver. Tommy ran out from behind the pillar and brought up his revolver. Jack peeked his head out and watched Salvatore's revolver shoot at Tommy once. Tommy fired a shot a millisecond later before his torso spurted blood. Jack looked over to Salvatore, whose head exploded from the impact of the revolver bullet. Tommy hit the floor holding his stomach grunting.

            "I told him I'd be the one to kill him," He smiled at Jack, writhing from the pain of the bullet in his stomach.

            Jack went to help Tommy, but Tommy gave him the revolver.

            "Jack..." Tommy coughed out blood, "Go check if Vince is still hanging on. If not, take him out. I'll be alright... go."

            Jack took the revolver and ran over to the window. As he ran past the desk, he noticed that no one was hanging from the ledge and Maria's screaming was no longer heard. At first, he assumed they had fallen out, until Vince came around from behind the desk and grabbed the revolver from Jack's hand.

            As Vince and Jack struggled for control of the weapon, Jack pummeled Vince toward the open window. They hit the floor and Vince's head protruded from the ledge. They continued to wrestle for the revolver until Jack counted five shots had been fired from it since Vince first attacked him. Jack let him take it, and Vince pointed it at Jack's face and it clicked empty.

            Jack punched Vince in the face, but Vince flipped Jack over and now Vince was holding Jack's neck as Jack's head hung out the ledge. Suddenly, Jack saw arms grab Vince from behind to pull him off. It was Maria, and as Vince pushed her off, Jack kneed Vince in the groin.

            Vince yelled in pain and his grip on Jack's neck eased for a second. Jack took that opportunity to push Vince back up. He charged him into the desk, and Jack smashed Vince's head into the desk as hard as he could.

            He saw Vince reach into his ankle sheath and pull out a knife. He swung it at Jack, and Jack jumped back before it could slice him. Vince took a few more swings, and one finally cut Jack in the chest. Jack held his chest in pain, but caught Vince's wrist before the knife came down on his head.

            The two of them struggled with the knife in the air. Jack tried to hold the knife from getting to him, but Vince was far stronger because of StarRock enhancements, and Jack fell to his knees, overpowered by Vince.

            "NO!" Maria ran over to them. She tried to wrestle the knife from Vince, and Jack could see that she was torn watching the two of them fight. Despite the dangerous situation, he wondered whether Maria faked her feelings for him, and if she really did love him.

            Vince kept trying to kick her off, but she kept trying to keep the knife from puncturing Jack's face, where it was getting extremely close to. Suddenly, Vince seemed to be ready to give the final push to kill Jack, when Maria pushed Jack out of the way and it sliced deep into her stomach.

            Vince froze in place and Jack likewise was sprawled on his side watching Maria clutch her stomach with a knife embedded. Her lips quivered and her eyes showed signs of shock. She slowly fell back and lay there silently. She looked down at the knife in her stomach, then looked to Vince and Jack.

            Jack exploded in anger and jump kicked Vince, who was still in shock from stabbing Maria by accident. Vince fell back and slid over the desk. He got back up, but Jack jumped up on the desk and stomped on Vince's face and he tried to get up. Vince jumped back up, but Jack slugged him in the face as hard as he could.

            Vince spun around and hit Jack with the back of his fist. Jack was knocked backwards and leaned against the desk looking at Maria on the floor, beginning to bleed from her wound.

            Jack, in a rage, pushed off from the desk and kicked Vince in the throat. Vince caught Jack's leg as it retracted, and he tried to twist it. Jack jumped off his other foot and used the momentum of Vince's leg twist to kick him in the face. Jack fell to the floor and kicked Vince in the knee.

            Vince grabbed his leg in pain and crouched down. Jack tried to kick him in the face, but Vince blocked it. Jack retracted his leg quickly, and kicked Vince in the arm. Vince struggled back up to defend himself as Jack unleashed a fury of punches and kicks. Vince blocked every hit, but Jack relentlessly put all his anger into the fight.

            Jack could feel Vince's shins and forearms getting weak from every hit. Eventually, Jack broke through and hit Vince in the face once more. Vince came back with a kick to Jack's chin. Jack fell back in a daze from the impact. Vince was too strong to fight, but Jack shrugged off the fact. Jack came back, bringing his fast back down on Vince's face.

            Vince punched Jack back, and Jack returned that with another punch. The punches went back and forth about three times. Vince went to hook Jack in the face again, but Jack ducked it and tripped Vince, elbowing him in the back of the neck. Vince hit the ground, and rolled around to see Jack jump on him and pound him in the face.

            Jack was on top of Vince, crazily punching him in the face repeatedly. He kept reminding himself that the StarRock Project enhanced Vince, but it only prompted Jack to hit him harder. Once Vince seemed to be losing consciousness, far after any normal human should have, he suddenly regained a fighting spirit and was roused up again.

            Jack cupped him hands together and smashed Vince's face again. He yelled in a primal manner as he kept pounding at Vince's head over and over again. Eventually, Vince seemed to pass out, but Jack continued to hit him until he could barely bring his arms up for another punch. Jack's hands and Vince's face were bloodied, and blood was spurting into Jack's face and clothes. Vince's face looked as beaten as it did when the Cartel tortured him.

            Jack's heart and body were weary and he gave one last punch. He rolled to his side and looked at a dead Vince lying there. Jack breathed heavily, but remembered that Maria was still there. He ran over to Maria, who was now swimming in a pool of her own blood. Jack kneeled beside her and looked at her up and down and sadness overwhelmed him. Despite her betrayal, she was one of the only people he really cared about and there she lay dying.

            "Jack..." Maria said, "I... I'm sorry..."

            "How am I supposed to know what was real and what wasn't?" Jack asked.

            "Everything we both felt together was real, no matter how much I meant or didn't mean it"

            "So how much did you mean it when you fooled me into believing I could trust you?"

            "You might have been fooled most of the time but you still loved me and I felt that so I loved you back just the fact that you loved means a lot you loved me even though it was all a lie and because of that you turned it into truth... I love you, Jack... you deserve better... that's why I don't mind leaving you now because I can leave knowing I showed you what you were capable of..."

            Jack wanted to respond, but he knew she was dying, and he couldn't do anything about it. He felt so helpless and began to hate everything because he couldn't escape the fact that he really did love someone, and now she was about to die...

            "Remember what I told you..." she said weakly, "every life is a mirror.... every broken promise shatters that mirror... I can look at my life and safely say its shattered... maybe that's how they'll measure me in the afterlife... how shattered my life was... how many promises we've broken ...I don't even know who I am anymore because of all the lies... but you were lied to... but you were vigilant in everything you did... I don't know how you got this far... but I do know that I can see your reflection clearly... you're destined to fight...

            "I just hope, that even though Liberty City is shattering... that you can put the pieces of your life together and live it better than any of us can... I told you... I didn't' want to lose you to the city, even though the plan was to force you into... but I have a feeling the city needs you now... live your life better than any of us did... you can still redeem yourself" She coughed out blood. "Whatever you've done... it can be undone if you stop all this... undo what my father has done..." She gripped Jack's hand tighter and she coughed out more. "Promise me you'll do what you can..."

            Jack impulsively, but meaningfully responded, "I'll kill Hyaku and take back this building. It's the only chance we have."

            "Our father..." she began to recite the prayer, and Jack prayed with her as he held her hand. "... forgive us our trespasses... as we... forgive those... who trespass... against us... lead us not... into... temp... tation... but... deliver us... from... evil."

            "Maria" Jack sadly said as she began give into death. "I love you... You take that with you to where you're going now"

            "I'm sorry... for everything..." she said through teary eyes, and began to shiver uncontrollably. "I don't want to die... oh God, I don't... please... I don't want..." She started to cry and sputter blood at the same time. She started breathing in short breaths, and soon she stopped moving and her eyes lost focus.

            "If you are sorry..." Jack whispered with his eyes closed, still holding on to her lifeless hand, "... then there is still hope for redemption... there is always hope..." his discussion in the Confessional with Fr. Patrick came back to him. "God... she's with you now... I'm still here..."

            Tears rolled down his face as he slowly put her hand down. He pulled the knife out of her stomach and some blood spilled out. He walked away from her and walked to Vince. He was still alive. He stumbled to the desk, looking at Maria, and he turned to Jack.

            Vince kneeled on the ground and nodded to Jack. He closed his eyes, and made the Catholic Sign of the Cross. Jack knew what he had to do. He walked over to Vince and put the point of the knife to Vince's chest, over his heart.

            "If what you say is true" Vince said, "Then there is still hope for me... For my sins... my repentance may be unacceptable but I still give it up because of this hope... I loved Maria... I'll take that with me. Vene Sancte Spiritus... to a hopeless demon..." At that, he nodded to Jack, and Jack stabbed Vince in the heart.

            Jack stood there silently, as Vince rolled over and died. He left three dead bodies behind him as he approached Tommy.

            "Tommy," Jack said, "They're all dead. Tommy?"

            Tommy lay there lifeless. Dry blood was everywhere, but Tommy held on to a notepad and a pen. It wrote, Hope. I'm there. You're still here. We all got hope. Tommy must have heard everything going on. Jack only hoped that Tommy was sorry for everything he'd done before he died.

            Jack got up and looked behind him. The sun had set in Liberty and it was nighttime. He could still hear the sounds of warfare throughout Liberty, but Jack didn't despair anymore. There were four dead bodies in the room with him. One of them died without repenting for all his sins, but Jack heard two of them luckily get the chance to. Tommy must have to. For that, Jack knew that there was always hope, even in the worst of situations.

            He opened the elevator and got in. There was an army of Destroyer soldiers downstairs and a supersoldier named Hyaku that could kill Jack in the blink of an eye. Jack didn't care. If there was something he could do, then he might as well go down fighting. If there was nothing, he'd still go down fighting.

            Here we go... Jack knew the impending battle was going be drastically testing, but it was not hopeless.

Meanwhile...

            "Tanner, get down!" Kang said, as he picked up two submachine guns and took down a whole line of Destroyer soldiers.

            Tanner, Kang, and only 14 remaining SWAT soldiers were locked in a giant firefight with the last group of Destroyer soldiers on that floor.

            "Farrell, move in," Tanner said.

            At that, a SWAT soldier unloaded an entire clip into the last of the Destroyer soldiers there. They all waited there checking if any Destroyers remained. Farrell was suddenly hit in the face with a bullet. Tanner looked around the wall in the hotel hallway there were fighting in. One man walked out with a pistol and began to take out the LCPD with unusual accuracy.

            "It's one of those supersoldiers." Kang said across from Tanner. "There's only one of him though"

            Several SWAT came out and threw flashbangs, but the supersoldier simply shot anyone who began to fire at him. He dodged the bullets with amazing agility. Tanner peeked out for a quick second to get a look at his face and was shocked to see who it was.

            "Kang," Tanner clutched his pistol tight, "Do you remember the Triad case from last year, when they attacked that Leone girl and that guy we paired up with 8-Ball?"

            "Jack Anderson?"

            "Yea," Tanner said, "Remember the Clan bodyguard that disappeared from the scene during investigation?"

            "Ya?"

            "It's him..."

            "Wait... wasn't he Tommy Vercetti's cousin?"

            "Kang... that supersoldier down the hallway is James Vercetti..."

            The two detectives and the remaining SWAT prepared themselves to fight the StarRock soldier, because they needed to get to the end of the hallway where one hostage was hiding. That hostage was a Dr. Daniel Doak. Little did Tanner, Kang, or any of the LCPD know that if they failed to defeat James Vercetti all hope would be lost to defeat Hyaku...