Skip's POV
These things... They don't give up, do they? As I and my dad catch our breath after a long-fought battle against the infected, one of them bit on my arm but I seem to remain unaffected. I recorded down my notes on how we thought about them, including one that attacked us with its biomass and a brain separate from its body.
After fighting one of them that floated without his legs, I used the camera to figure out a weakness of that monster. I pinpointed several of the ways in how to fight them, but-
"Son, we need to talk. Right now!" my father asked me.
"Yes, sir," I said
"Don't give me, 'Yes, sir' with me, I wondered about your earlier response when I brought up the subject for you having a girlfriend," he said.
Dad, please... Not now. This is not the time or place for the discussion.
"I meant what i -"
"Don't lie to me, you have shown no interest in women. Are you hiding a secret from me?" he accused me of hiding something.
"I am not hiding anything from you!" I bellowed while getting to his face.
"Then tell me this... When the others were teasing you, I saw uncomfortable you were with the whole thing. You had a thing for men?" he said to me.
What? How did he get a hold of that information? The only people that knew were Joe, Jenny, Sakura, Victor, Elizabeth, Jaycee & Bass. But I noticed my Dad will not let the matter drop regardless of what I do, so I might as well tell him.
Interrupted!
"There you are, discord!" It's that man sends his cronies after us. "Do you think you can evade us forever?" I clenched my teeth as it attempted to penetrate my mind.
Thankfully, I have trained to fight and resist mind control attempts. Never thought I have to do for real in this case...
"Your mind is powerful, Mr. Fozen..." it saw that I can resist its mental attacks. "Truthfully, you are not that weak to our urging, sugarpie!" it spoke to me as a woman.
"Hah! I... I am not... interested in women." I said, struggling against the pressure. "You don't get that I am into men! Not the woman, I am not aroused!"
"That is okay, sweetie..." it turned into... No... Bass? "The One will accept you and embrace who you are regardless of your desires. We embrace all of it."
I clenched my teeth tighter. It fully intends to break my mind, it expects me to give up and join their hive mind.
"Have you told your father, my beloved?" it asked me. "It seems to me, you love your secrets more than me..." It mocks me for the last time!
I'm fighting to see my beloved again... I'm fighting to see that our surrogate wife gives birth to a healthy baby boy... I will ... Stare... Death... In... the face...! I stood up, fighting its attempt to break me, charging up out of the power I got in me.
"My love... you would strike me?" the fake Bass asked me. "I am your husband and you belong to me!!"
"You would have... fooled me if you were the real bass!" I said while dispelling the illusion to see the real enemy before me.
Thankfully, I did enough research using the research camera function that allows me to pinpoint my enemy weaknesses. It also showed me techniques and methods to fight them effectively. The Sorcerer, however, can use magic spells in its arsenal, I need to have to use its cubes to attack me and then give a tremendous jolt. Resist mind control has also come in handy to repel mental attacks since I knew the sorcerers would try to attempt this.
"Die, Discord!" it raises arms to summon its cube, I wasted no one fire a powerful bolt of energy to bounce off from the cubes. It would attempt to defend itself from being fried to death.
"Nice try, Discord! Now-" It got hit in the head with one of its cubes... Dad!
"Motherfucker! You can tell your brothers & sisters that we not are joining their happy cult and to stay the fuck away from my family!" he took one of the astra cubes...
"My brothers & sisters will-" *Got slammed by an astra cube*.
My dad wasted no time bashing the creature's brains out. He didn't hesitate to use the astra cube to kill it until it became a pile of mush. He wanted to make sure it won't come back from the dead, which I applaud him, that's my dad!
"Now..." He said between breaths after beating the infected to death. "You were saying about research?"
"I'm gay..." I mumbled.
"What's that?" he said.
"I said I'm gay, Dad! I am in love with Bass Welton and we got married years back. Elizabeth and the team knew about it, even my 'Girlfriend' Jaycee knew." I confessed.
My father stood there angrily shaking his head, clenching his teeth on how he could have known since I hid this under his nose.
"I did not tell you because-" he turned back to me furious, I was expecting him to punch me.
"You son of a bitch..." he said as he gets closer to my face. "You are my son, I would have accepted you as you are. You could have told me long ago instead of hiding this from me!" he said.
"Dad i-"
"The rumors back at the Military Academy. At first I thought they were rumors. Then you have a girlfriend, but she was your beard... "
"She is going to be our surrogate wife, Bass and I are starting a family and Jaycee agreed to it, Dad," I said
"Father, huh? You could have said, 'Hey, I am a Gay man is in love with another man' or at least invited me to the wedding. You had me assumed that you were shy around the ladies and your reactions were clear when the female members of our team made you uncomfortable." he raised my hand to stop me there "And no, I am not some Homophobic bastard who start bitching & moaning that he had a Gay son in his midst." he said it. "You are my son and that part will not change."
"Wow! I should have asked or spoken up about it," I said, realizing that I didn't need to have hidden it from him. "Okay, Dad, sit down. Here is the research data about the Infected we had faced so far." I motioned to my dad.
Now we know the enemies we are facing and how to deal with them, Millie has given me her research camera on my holo-journal before she died, as it would become handy to know about our enemies to give ourselves a fighting chance against them.