A/N: First of all, thank you for clicking on my story. This story will take place in the Far Cry 5 universe, but will have a little sprinkle from another Far Cry game. I hope you enjoy what you read.

The Sins of our Fathers

"What was my father?" The words cut into her like individual daggers, each sound stabbing at her nervous system. She could only look up and blink at the man standing in front of her. She'd known this man all her life, yet the figure stood before her was like an old face from the past. She couldn't place where she knew him from. She blinked again, fixing on his familiar cold piercing blue eyes. The dilated pupils told her all she needed to know. This was rage. Hatred. Whatever her answer, they were not feelings that would be extinguished so easily. Her answer could've been put together by the most excellent poet, crafted by a magnificent author, put into song by a passionate songwriter-

"Were they right back home? Was everything they said true?" He pressed her again, taking a measured step forward. Perhaps that was the most terrifying thing to her, how controlled he was. He felt nothing but absolute hate for her in this moment...but he was in control. She gently shook her head, lowering her gaze as she propped herself up on the sofa. She had scarcely noticed the gun he held before. A precise shape of metal, designed by a steady hand for the purpose of killing. The black hole at the end of the barrel looked no more than the abyss. A prophetic vision of what she would see if he pulled the trigger. Total darkness. An incomprehensible black. She swallowed as the cogs turned in his head, weighing up what little response she had given.

The TV droned in the background. Recorded laughter sounded from its speakers.

"If you press that button, you are in very, very big trouble." More canned laughter crackled out. It was an older TV. They both wanted something better, Hell, just a flatscreen TV would've done. It didn't have to have an absurd amount of inches, or have a curved screen. Just something modern. She looked at the TV screen, smiling very softly at the sight of Friends. They both hated that show. But right now she'd give anything to watch the whole box set. The man in front of her suddenly darted towards the TV and she jumped out of her daydream.

"Fucking Friends," He snatched at the remote and promptly turned the TV off, "Answer me. Who was my father?" His tone was aggressive, yet low. He hadn't once raised his voice at her since he switched an hour ago. She studied his face, seeing the man she once loved. Her husband. His father. You are your father, she thought. She recognised the eyes as soon as her baby could open his little eyelids. Piercing blue. Huh, look at that. My very own mini me. At the happiest moment of her life, her husband's words made her stomach flip. She regularly prayed that the physical similarities were the only thing they'd have in common. Her baby did have her hair, however. Blond to the point of appearing near-white. As he had grown, the colour darkened to a standard blond. Then as he became an adult, it had turned practically brown. Though, not dark brown like his. But she had to talk about him. She had to.

"Okay, son-"

"Don't you fucking call me that now, don't you fucking dare." he barked, thrusting the pistol towards her face. She held her hands up in apology, her eyes falling to the floor. She gingerly lowered her hands and looked back up. His forearm tattoo was particularly noticeable today. Strange what you notice when your life's on the line. She let out a breath, slowly inhaling back through her nose.

"Your father was...a sick, manipulative man," her eyes were locked on his face, studying even the slightest reaction. It was bold, insulting his father straightaway, but it's what he was, "He used anyone and everyone if it took him another step up the ladder," she scoffed, "He was very good at that. He was always a people's person, getting to know them, interested in the intricacies of their lives..." her voice trailed off as her mind hovered over the memory of their first meeting. The way he smiled at her, that toothy grin. The way he spoke to her, hitting all the right notes and pushing his luck. It must've worked, though. Otherwise the man before her wouldn't exist.

"And?" The voice of her son prodded. She looked into space, blinking, thinking through what she was about to say.

"He worked out what made you tick, what you were good at. He would then use that as a stepping stone...if you knew this-this powerful guy, but you lacked confidence or finesse he'd come over and put his arm on your shoulder all 'why don't we both go and speak to him together?'. Like he was a pillar of the community. 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine'" She couldn't hold back a wry smile at the memory. It really was his strength, playing to the room. He had an aura of grandeur about him. If you needed something done, he would be the first man you went to. He made some very powerful friends this way. Some very powerful and corrupt friends.

He had not taken her eyes off her since she began speaking. He was transfixed, absorbing knowledge that he had never fully possessed. Deep down he had always known. The rumours swirled round at these high society functions he had often found himself at. Is it true your dad is involved in...you know... . His 'friends' had never really asked out right about his father. Never had he, in fairness. Well, my dad said your dad might be - and it's probably not true - that your dad might be involved in some bad stuff. It was very weird to him. He knew that these dads, who clearly loved hearsay, were deliberately polluting society with drug toting gangs. These drug lords would launder their own money and would in turn launder their daddies' money. His father had told him all about these men. Feigning innocence and naivety while the lights were on only to creep around in the dark with their mask off.

"...If you wanted answers about what happened in Asia or Europe or wherever that bastard worked, I don't have them," he was jerked back into reality, "He never was truthful with me. He didn't tell me a thing about what was going on. All I knew was what to do if the inevitable happened." The inevitable. His death. That's what all the passports, driver's licenses and offshore accounts were for. He had never questioned his father's true identity when the money was pouring in during his youth. Times were different now. It had been over half a decade since they fled and made a new home for themselves. In fucking Montana, "I'm sorry, Dale. I don't have the answers." He mulled over her words. She had mentioned she didn't have the answers a few seconds ago.

"I gathered that," Dale said, licking his teeth behind closed lips as he thought. He let out a long sigh, "Then what is your use?" She stared at him a moment, the question echoing around her head before it finally landed.

"What is my...my use?"

"Yes, your use, what is your use?" This avenue of questioning stunned her and her mouth hung open, words stuck in her throat. She couldn't believe what he just said. He raised his eyebrows slightly as he leant in, "You'll catch flies like that." She shut her mouth, her eyes wider than they had been before. A silence hung in the air. A thick, tense silence.

"I'm your mother, Dale." The silence was broken. Dale stood unmoved, expecting a longer and better answer. His head slowly shook.

"No," he muttered, his head still shaking, "You stopped being that long ago. That stopped when we got on the plane-three fucking planes to get here." His gaze left his mother and looked out of the window she was sat under. A luscious green dominated the landscape. Tall trees, expansive hills and commanding mountains. It was picturesque. It would look lovely on a postcard. Within the small valley, the town of Missoula went on with day to day life. Cars monotonously drove up distant roads, passersby addressed one another with muffled greetings. The tranquility of it all was mesmerising when he first arrived. The bustling city life was the life he was used to, it was the one he was born into. Missoula, for all the good it had, just wasn't him. It never would be him.

His attention returned to his mother. She was the reason why they were here. Regardless of what happened to his father, she had brought him here. The back end of nowhere. It was isolated, sure. The chance of running into danger from their past was close to none. This was the result of his father's work finally catching up with him. One of many contingency plans he had in place. Despite all the options she had, she still managed to choose wrong. His grip tightened on the pistol. Her body taut.

"Did you even check to see if he was alive?" Mother and son held a look. Her eye twitched, a layer of water coating her eyes. She blinked them out and a tear ran down her right cheek. Then her left. Dale bit down on his tongue, holding back emotion himself. He didn't want sadness. He wanted anger. "Did you?" He knew the answer. Tears broke into a sob and she buried her face into her hands as she wailed. Dale had to remain fortified. His tongue hurt. Pain helped the hate.

"You see, boy," Dad began, "Castling makes your King safer. It makes your Rook stronger." Dad gestured to the centre of the board, "One of your best soldiers can now affect the game properly. He isn't stuck." Dale was enthralled. Many of his dad's lessons came through the game of chess. It was a recent thing that had started a few months ago, just after he turned 16. Dad described it like a rite of passage. You could learn a lot about someone through their first ten moves in chess, he'd say. Dale always thought it was cliche. He played games with his friends and 'thought' he could work them out. He agreed that you can test a person's intelligence by what their first ten moves are, but not what type of person they are, nor what skills they possess.

"With my Rook being central, I can be more aggressive. I can take control of the board, force you onto the defensive, with one piece. Because of that, I can bring more of my pieces into play, make your moves reactive rather than active. I can make you dance to my tune." His dad loved being in a winning position. The arrogance dripped off his words. When they first started, their games were often over quickly. Because of the way his dad played, Dale was always tricked into thinking he had a limited amount of moves he could make. He felt backed into a corner, ignorant to the fact there were no walls behind him. He was learning, at least he thought he was. He hadn't ever beaten his Dad yet, but recently had got him down to eight pieces. Dad told him he let him play an aggressive game to see how beneficial it was. He had compared it to a puppet and puppeteer once. The way he would get tunnel vision as soon as the Rook was central.

"Everyone's looking at the puppet dancing, how fantastic it looks, how well it's painted. You always remember the puppet and not the puppeteer. But you can see the strings. You know there's someone pulling them, making the puppet dance and move. They are controlling their every move from the shadows. I fucking love puppet shows."

He hadn't realised he was pressing the barrel against her forehead. He pulled back, seeing the circular mark it left. Mascara was painting her cheekbones a sad black.

"I did what was best for us," she whimpered, holding out her hands towards her son. She wanted him to drop the pistol and hug her. She needed to be held, "I promise I'm sorry about your father. I didn't do enough-I was a coward, I was desperate to get out of there, leave it all behind." Snot slithered out of her nostrils. He had not seen her like this. She had never looked death in the face before. Her hands trembled as she looked pleadingly at her son. She held him when he was a little bundle and felt a fantastic love. A mother's love. Now she was terrified of him, what he had grown to be. More like his father than she dared to accept, "Please, son-Dale," her body seized up and she scrunched her eyes up, "Dale-" she began again, trying to find a modicum of composure somewhere within her, "-we can try and find out what happened to him-"

"Shut up."

"-We'll get the answers you want, okay, every question-"

"Stop it."

"-Please I'm begging you, give me a chance-"

"Mum!" Dale bellowed, pinning the pistol against her forehead and pushing her back into the sofa. The shock grabbed her around the throat. Her breathing was tight. Her mouth a desert. Mum. Her heart beat faster. I'm his mum. She looked to him, her brown eyes flickering as she blinked tears from her eyes. You're my son. He was confused. His teeth gritted together between parted lips. The gun was cold. So was the terror she felt. She had to be strong. For her son. But he had to be strong. For she was his mother. And he was his father.

A single shot rang out.

Dale exhaled, dragging a steady breath out from his lungs. He inhaled just as steadily. His right eye hovered a few inches behind the scope of his Blaser R8. His rhythmic breathing continued as he adjusted his grip on the rifle. The heat did its best to evaporate the sweat the direct sunlight had brought on earlier. His hands felt slightly clammy. But that was the only telltale signs of nerves he had. Or was it excitement? He was calm. In control. He had an objective, and was going to fulfill it. This was it.

The springbok had no idea of the threat that laid underneath the cover of a distant tree. The wind was blowing away from the animal. There was no chance of smelling a threat, a foreign odour. The sun was beating down across the plains, creating a dry, burned landscape. It was hard to mask the sounds of crunching grass and twigs. The springbok grazed at the turf, its ears constantly twitching, mini radar detectors. Its head shot up again as it chewed and grounded down the grass. It was a beautiful animal.

Dale shuffled into position, pressing his shoulder into the stock. The recoil from the R8 wasn't anything he hadn't felt before. He had been practising with it before the hunt. The springbok turned its attention back to eating. Dale's finger curled around the trigger and pulled it. The clap of the bullet firing ricocheted between the hills, as a stream of blood gushed out from behind the springbok's front legs. The dirt the bullet landed in scattered into the air, the earth being stroked into new directions by the breeze. The springbok wobbled, its legs jelly. Dale slowly stood up, a smile playing at his lips. The springbok's legs collapsed under the dead weight of its body. It dropped to the floor in a slump.

"Mighty fine shot, Dale, my boy," Dad beamed as he slapped Dale on the back, "Bloody good shot indeed." They waltzed over to the carcass, pride flowing through them. Dale's father let out a chortle as they stood over the body, "Gorgeous creature. Tastes even better than it looks," He laughed a loud laugh, putting his hand on Dale's shoulder and squeezing it firmly, "Let's get a photo. Crouch behind it." Dad directed, pulling out his phone from his pocket. Dale squatted down behind the body, rifle in one hand and his other hand on the animal. "Smile!"

Dale's car hummed as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He had been called into work a couple hours earlier than normal, the reason being something big was brewing. He hadn't asked questions, the urgency in the Sheriff's voice was enough. His car's dashboard came to life as an inbound call came in.

"McCaffrey." The fake surname. It had taken a fair bit of rehearsing before it became an automatic response.

"Hey, McCaffrey," It was Sheriff Anderson again, "Look, I wanted to give you a heads up before you got here." The voice wasn't urgent as it had been an hour ago. There was something else in his voice. Dale couldn't work out if it was trepidation or concern. It wasn't like Anderson, whatever it was.

"Hit me with it, Sheriff." Came Dale's response. There was a pause, before a sigh buzzed through.

"This thing I called you in for, it's more serious than I thought," began Anderson, a tightness in his voice, "We've got a guy at the Office who's a Federal Marshal," Anderson let the words hang in the air. A Federal Marshal? He hadn't encountered one of those since joining the Office, "He's heading up a team from Hope County, he's got a federal warrant for that Joseph Seed guy." Hope County. Federal Warrant. Joseph Seed. Dale pinched the bridge of his nose as he digested the news.

Hope County was even less populated than Missoula County. You could probably ask everyone in the east of Montana if they had heard of Hope County and not even half of them would have. That was, of course, prior to the Seed family moving in. Their reputation started off as the usual nutjob, prepper type. Dale could use those same labels for a significant amount of Montanans. It seemed a theme in these rural areas, people who didn't trust the government and were counting down the days until the government burned the Constitution and declared war on its own citizens.

The Seeds had their own religious sect of Christianity, relating to a thing called 'Eden's Gate'. They were small time a few years back, preaching about the end of the world in explosions of fire and whatnot. Several Missoulans had gone off and joined the Seeds in Hope County, preppers happy that someone was taking their concerns and conspiracies seriously and actually lived by them. In the last year, they'd refined their image into the 'Project at Eden's Gate' and were becoming armed, like a religious militia. It wasn't a legal problem, thanks to Montana's very lax gun laws. But the legal issues arose when rumours of kidnapping and murder trickled out of Hope County. People were going missing in nearby towns, their family members swearing they had never expressed sympathetic views with the Project at Eden's Gate, nor any desire to join them. That was a problem.

"So we're going in with the Marshal to arrest Joseph Seed?" asked Dale, intentionally slowing down the speed in which he drove to prolong the conversation. He wasn't far away from the Office.

"Yes and no," Anderson hesitantly replied. Dale frowned, "I'm staying here with Nancy as overwatch, you'll be in radio communication with her throughout the operation." Operation? Where am I gonna be during this?

"And what's the yes part?" He inquired. There was another uncomfortable silence as Dale flashed a look at the dashboard. Seconds on the call timer ticked by.

"You're going in with the Marshal and what's left of the Hope County Office." Dale's brow furrowed further. This wasn't right. There was something distinctly ominous about how Anderson had described his partners. It didn't give Dale much faith.

"What do you mean 'what's left' of their Office? What's going on, Sheriff?" Dale was concerned now and was mirroring the Sheriff's tone. He could hear the Sheriff getting his thoughts in line. There was no way of sugar coating it. The Sheriff shuffled in his seat, his breath now audible over the phone.

"The Seeds and their little 'cult' ran the Office out of town. It wasn't safe to be there anymore. Some of the Office turned tail and ran, they've crossed states to get away from there," Anderson solemnly explained. These bunch of whack jobs ran out most of the Sheriff's Office? "Sheriff Whitehorse, Deputy Hudson and Deputy Pratt are what remains, you'll be working with them; Sheriff Whitehorse will lead the operation on the ground-" Anderson rattled through the information like it left a bad taste in his mouth. A voice murmured in the background, "...Federal Marshal Burke will lead the operation on the ground."

Burke was already rubbing Anderson up the wrong way. Dale scoffed. So it's going to be us four and the Marshal. Five against a cult. Dale wanted to complain, to question sending five people into the hornet's nest to arrest Joseph Seed. They had no information on cult numbers. There could be tens of them, hundreds of them. There was definitely going to be more than the five they were sending.

"Alright, sir. I'm just around the corner now, I'll see you in a minute."

"See you soon, McCaffrey." The Sheriff sounded downbeat. Dale could tell the Sheriff hated what was unfolding. He had been running things in Missoula for years before Dale arrived. This was the first time Dale had heard of an operation like this happening in Montana. Armed militias weren't anything too new in the US, that was something he found out with the research he'd done over the years. Waco was another incident that came to mind.

He pulled into the Office's parking lot and switched off the engine. He placed both hands on the wheel and let his chin rest on his chest. A new team and a Federal Marshal.

"Jesus Christ." Dale mumbled, bringing his head back up. The incident between him and his mother earlier had played on his mind. He wished it hadn't come to that. In a twisted way he was grateful for this Hope County distraction. His temper had calmed, but thinking of it again caused it to flare. He needed to get his head in the game. He'd deal with the consequences after they arrested Joseph Seed. He opened the car door, swinging his legs out as he exited. He shut the door behind him and headed into the Office.

A/N: Thank you very much for reading through the first chapter of the Sins of our Fathers. There's a lot of rust to be shed from a writing perspective, so hopefully the quality improves throughout. Next chapter will see Dale enter Hope County. -xzmy