Grant stepped out from the dark blue shadows; a silenced assault rifle clutched in his hands, barrel pointing ominously at both of them.
He eyed the two agents with cold fury, his gaze pointing acidic daggers behind his grey-green irises. His body was hunched into a firing position, a sharpshooter's stance that spoke of composure and skill. His well-built body still loomed over them, tense but controlled, nerves heightened to an almost erratic degree in their presence.
"You changed weapons," Cole stated plainly to his former colleague and friend.
"Save the pointless observations," Grant shot back icily. "This is just a continuation of what we started on Delmarva. Nothing more."
Ardarius's brow furrowed. "Then what about that little present you sent us on Eden Prime? Or does firebombing not count for you black ops types?"
"There're other ways of killing a man; I would hope the two of you know that. I'll admit that you've been surprisingly more resilient than I expected. Thankfully, it appears that recurring skill of yours isn't going to do you much good now."
"And yet you haven't killed us already," Cole replied. "Why?"
Grant's face darkened sullenly at the question. "Maybe it's because I want to remind you how much I trusted you, how important my new mission was and how vital you were to it. We could've been unstoppable, Cole, we could've brought real change to the Galaxy. We could've made a real difference in people's lives, more than what the Alliance ever could."
"And you walked away from me, without even listening to what was being offered to you. You and that 'morality' of yours, always trying to make yourself out to be the good guy. Once you found out that my employers weren't the stuffed shirts back on Earth, you turned your back on me like I didn't matter. And you and I both know it wasn't out of any virtue or duty you have to those people. It's something baser than all that: compensation."
"You try to make yourself out to be the hero, when in reality, you're the farthest thing from it. All those witnesses you 'roughed up' to get answers, the unnecessary casualties that were taken, things I covered up for you to keep you on duty and out of a mental ward? Those will never go away, ever. And trying to hold yourself as this amazing paragon of loyalty doesn't make you a better person out of it. It just makes you a liar."
"So yeah, maybe that's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet and splattered you all across this floor. Because I realize I'd be killing a sick man in the process, someone why might not even understand that what he's done is wrong. I know what my orders are and will follow them to no end, but that doesn't stop me from wondering if you should be dumped off at the nearest insane asylum instead."
Cole's teeth grit together, palms tightening into fists, eyes glaring fire back at the automatic weapon aimed straight at his torso. With venom dripping from his words, he responded at a snarl: "You promised you'd never talk about that."
The other human shrugged. "Things were different back then. And your current partner deserves to know the truth about you, in its entirety."
"You know I've gotten better. I've changed, damnit!"
"Really? Then how much unnecessary violence have you committed since we last work together? How many bodies were broken? How many lives were taken?"
Cole was silent to the stir of questions, prompting Ardarius to lean over to him with concern and fear. "Cole...what's he talking about?"
"I've gotten better…" He hissed back at the other human, ignoring Ardarius.
"How many, Cole?! Tell me how many?"
"One!" The smaller human screamed back, the end of his word punctuated by a distant explosion from somewhere in the ship. "It was one person, okay? This spindly batarian Blue Suns merc, barely old enough to even be considered an adult. Ardarius was there to see it and everything. I lied to his face to try and ignore what happened, even though we both knew what I did."
He looked to the sandy-plated turian, casting him a pleading look as he spoke. "It's...hard to stay in control sometimes. I'm not right in the head; I realize that. But I've been doing my best to keep these feelings in check for as long as I've been old enough to understand them. It's never been easy, but I still try regardless."
"By staying in a job that gives you a license to kill?" Grant cut in. "Be honest, Maxton, if you wanted to stop this, you'd have turned in your badge a long time ago. And I'm not sure if it's that convinced virtue of yours or enjoyment in what you do, but if you were serious about changing your ways, you would've gotten out of this line of work."
Grant flipped a switch on the weapon and steadied his aim at the two agents. "I take no pleasure in killing you," he said with a glance to Ardarius. "You seem like a good man and a talented operative. It's unfortunate you had to be paired with my former partner."
"And as for you Cole," he looked to the ANI agent in question. "You've made a bad series of choices that led you to this moment. It's never anyone's intention to be in the wrong afterall. But still, if it's any consolation, this is strictly business for me."
"You're lying."
The burly human shrugged. "So what if I am? You've done it plenty of times before. Now," Grant reached to the nose of his assault rifle, switching on its ominous red laser sight. Swaying his perspective slightly, he angled the beam directly at Cole's forehead. "Time to finish it."
What happened next almost seemed to happen in slow motion for all three individuals, events halting to a trickle of their normal speed, actions sluggishly progressing in a slackened progression of movement.
Grant's trigger finger coiled around the assault rifle's firing lever, the first of an intended volley of rounds erupting out of the barrel in a single explosion of white cascation. It was only after the first bullet left its home chamber that an explosion rumbled aggressively from above, jostling all three men and throwing the weapon's targeting skyward, into the immaculate ceiling.
Cole, seeing his single chance, charged towards the now distracted Grant, clearing the short distance between them in a rapid pumping of arms and diving into the air with both palms outstretched. A look of maddened anger and determination was written across the human's face, only increasing as he barreled into Grant at full force.
The assault rifle began its descent to the floor, falling gradually to the ground until finally clattering against it, a trail of gray vapor sizzling from where the single bullet had been fired. That shot in question, careened harmlessly past Ardarius's utterly dumbstruck face, watching in shocked awe at just how close the deadly projectile was to grazing his skull.
He as well was made aware of the two humans stumble to the floor, arms wrapped against one another, feet kicking frantically against the ground, each wrestling with an impassioned fervor that was reserved only for mortal combat. In the utter brutality etched across each man's expression, Ardarius could tell that only one of them would be walking away.
"Ardarius!" Cole howled at the top of his lungs, struggling to stay atop the brutish Grant. "Get down to the engines! I can handle this! Go!
The turian didn't need to be told twice. Bolting from the room without a look back, he ran off into the deeper labyrinth of maintenance tunnels, the wisping aura of mass effect beams providing illumination to his sprinting form.