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It has been a long two year trek, but Trevor’s army have finally arrived at their destination, the city of Seaside. Trevor uses his geiger counter to see that the city and surrounding area have 100 rads per hour, with the various radiation spills around Seaside being up to 1500 rads per hour. Explains why no one lives here, but doesn’t explain why this city is so radiated in the first place.
Regardless, Seaside is a good place to settle down at, with all the intact buildings they can have as their homes, with how while Normies would die if they stayed, Super Mutant don’t have to worry about radiation.
Trevor’s army starts work on making Seaside into their new home. Mutants claim houses for themself, basic barricades are built on the edge of the city, and workshops are built to make weapons or other important things. Progress is going fast, the Super Mutants decide to find a building that could be a townhall where Trevor will live and work effectively. Worldmark hotel is big and near the center of Seaside so it will do. With the townhall set up, homes set up, barricades completed, workshops and farms producing food and weapons, Trevor’s army is ready to look outwards.
Trevor sent the few intelligent mutants as scouts to explore the area. The first thing they noted was a tribe who called themselves the Harts; they worshiped male deer, believing their antlers were sacred artifacts. Second was a group of raiders farther south called Cannoneers; they have a howitzer that if repositioned, could strike at Seaside and cause alot of damage. Thirdly was the most interesting; a large mysterious building to the east of Seaside. The scouts didn’t go in, but they could tell the building was the source of the radiation in Seaside.
The mysterious structure just has to be entered, and the Harts should be dealt with in some way. However, the howitzer the Cannoneers have must be taken care of first, or risk having mutants suddenly losing limbs.
Normandy with a small detachment of fifteen Super Mutants march south to the Cannoneers camp. Before they catch sight of the camp, they see twenty one Cannoneer raiders pulling the howitzer towards their new home! Naturally Normandy and her detachment go to confront the raiders. “You pull boomgun to home. Normandy will not allow you to hurt Super Mutants.”
One of the Cannoneers steps forwards. “We Cannoneers live to blow others up. I don’t know what you guys are, but you all have been living in that radio dump for a month without our permission and we have come to evict you!”
A fight breaks out. The raiders shoot first, but their guns are not powerful enough to kill anyone of Normandy’s detachment. The mutants on the other hand have much more powerful weapons, even those with giant clubs are more than capable at killing. One of the Cannoneers gets a lucky hit in and kills one of the Super Mutants, before evaporating to a mutants laser rifle. The handful of raiders left flee, abandoning the howitzer.
Normandy looks proudly at her detachment. “We won the boomgun, good job friends! Time to pull boomgun to boss Trevor.”
Marching back north with the howitzer, they place it next to the townhall where Trevor can keep a close eye at it.
Speaking of Trevor, he has one more mission for Normandy. "Tomorrow you will go with one hundred or two hundred mutants and crush the Cannoneers.”
“Yes boss Trevor.” Normandy leaves the townhall to spread the news.
Tomorrow morning, the Cannoneers see hundreds of Super Mutants marching to their camp. They run to grab guns, get into defensive positions, and prepare ambushes. Gun shots are heard all over the camp, as small skirmishes occur all over. Sometimes, Cannoneers jump a mutant and kill them. Other times, mutants kick open a door and kill everyone inside in seconds. And once or twice, a full on battle occurs, with Trevor’s army winning. Building after building is cleared out, pushing the Cannoneers out of their camp. There were a similar amount of Cannoneers as mutants in Trevor’s army, but now over half of them are dead, with only fifty eight dead Super Mutants in comparison. With the raiders fleeing to the wilderness, Trevor orders his army to dump toxic waste all over the beach, radiating the camp just as much as Seaside.
Dealing with the Harts was alot less violent than with the Cannoneers. The tribe was weary of their new neighbors, but they were willing to talk with Trevor. So here he is, sitting in front of the Hart chieftain, who goes by the name Oisin and who doesn’t like being described as a man or woman.
Oisin has a specific question for Trevor. “The lands your village lives on are cursed. The ground and air is filled with poison that slowly kills anyone who gets too close. And yet all of you are doing fine. How come?”
Trevor clears his throat. “As you can tell we are not human. We are Super Mutants, all of us strong and tough, with most of us unfortunately also being intellectually challenged. Mutants of all kinds are immune to radiation, so the ‘poison’ at Seaside doesn’t hurt us at all.”
Oisin mumbles to itself. “Radiation. That’s what it's called.” It looks back at Trevor. “What will our relationship be?”
He puts a hand on his chin. “My army can make weapons, nothing fancy, but if you are interested then I wouldn't mind trading for some food. We have built farms, but we aren’t good at farming and we need to eat alot to sustain our massive bodies.”
Oisin shrugs. “Getting weapons stronger than spears and bows could be important. It was nice talking to you Trevor, goodbye.”
Trevor nods and leaves with the few Super Mutants around the Hart village. One of his soldiers asks, “What do we do with these Normies boss?” Trevor replies to the soldier. “Use guns to sell. Not shoot.”
Now there was one place left to deal with. The large building that could be the FEV laboratory. Trevor sends out the scouts again to take in every detail, no matter how small. One of the details are this, the radiation spills come specifically from a piece of wall that was eroded away by some chemical, they conclude that the waste disposal room had corrosive liquids that melted the wall and allowed radiation to seep to Seaside. More importantly, the scouts found the door that will lead inside.
Trevor and a few other mutants enter the building and are in awe of the laboratory, the entrance is beautiful. Taking a look at the proud sign above them, they read what it says, MRL, Seaside Marine Research Lab. This large building called the MRL has to have FEV. Trevor and his soldiers continue further in, past the medical room, past the office with a broken computer, to an elevator that’s somewhat hidden and unimportant looking, (which means it has to be important) Using the elevator and traveling down, they make it a far more interesting zone. There's obviously the computers and storage, however Trevor’s interest is picked by fish tanks. The tanks are filled with cephalopods, Trevor has never seen a squid or octopus before, so seeing so many of them is a bit overwhelming. Speaking of overwhelming, there are so many tanks and cephalopods, there must be tens of thousands of squids and octopuses! How have they even survived this long? Glancing around, Trevor spots tubes attached to the tanks. So whoever built this lab designed it to auto feed and clean.
The next interesting room was filled with Rad-X. Except this Rad-X was special, instead of lasting one or two days, this stuff lasted forever, if the research papers were to be believed. Unfortunately the pills had side effects even worse than super stimpaks, and the prama Rad-X was apparently stupid expensive to make.
Moving on from the cephalopods and special Rad-X, they continue looking through the MRL, finding random rooms. Until they go inside the second biggest room and see something that brings a smile to Trevor’s and the other Super Mutants' faces. They found several vats of FEV! They immediately celebrate, they have done it, they have found a way to make more mutants. Trevor orders that they go back and tell everyone the good news.
Upon hearing that there’s FEV, everyone throws a party, they have a way to sustain themselves! After a few hours the Super Mutants calm down to hear footsteps. Someone shoots at them, but fails to land a hit. Some mutants spot who shot at them, finding out they are Cannoneers. It doesn’t take alot to subdue them, apparently only one of the Cannoneers had a gun, the rest were going to do what? Fist fight Super Mutants?
Well these raiders did come at the right time, because they are going to be dipt in FEV, starting with the man who shot at them. Dragging the raiders to MRL, they kick and scream but can’t stop themselves from being dragged to the vats. Trevor recreates how the master dipt humans excitedly, making sure he does it right. The first raider is hung over the vat of FEV and lowered down, submerging him completely. After a minute, he is pulled out.
Except, it’s a disaster. Instead of him becoming a Super Mutant, he’s horribly mutated and dead, much to the shock of Trevor. What happened? We followed the instructions perfectly! There are nine other Cannoneers left, so Trevor decides to continue dipping and get it right this time. But no, all the others also failed to transform as well. All of these failures can only mean one thing. “The FEV is bad!” Yells one of the Super Mutants, with the rest some joining the anguish.
One year has passed since then, and a little over three years after Trevor’s army fled California. Not much has happened, Cannoneer remnants pestering Seaside, the Harts trading food for weapons, they really liked how much more proper they are then what wastelanders would make. And of course the occasional Super Mutant lamenting about how the defective FEV doesn't work.
One day Trevor gets a message from the Harts, saying how they are holding some Ghoul captive. He doesn’t get how this is important, but he has nothing better to do. When he arrives he sees a Ghoul tied on a chair, with Oisin standing next to him.
It speaks to Trevor. “Greetings Trevor, how was your day?”
He shrugs in response. “Nothing special. Now what’s so interesting about this Ghoul.”
Oisin begins explaining. “This Ghoul is named Hanover, when he came to our village he said was one of the original scientists working in the ‘MRL’, the building that spilled the radiation!”
Trevor takes in the information and decides to talk to Hanover. “So. Hanover, huh? Well I'm Trevor and I would like you to explain who you are and why you are here.”
Hanover eyes him. “I already said who I was, but as for why I'm here, it’s something personal in the MRL, so I can't tell you.”
“Would you be willing to tell me if it was just me, you, and a few other Super Mutants inside the lab?”
“...Sure.”
Oisin buds in. “I never condone violence, but just like us Harts buying weapons, avoiding fighting just because can be a really bad choice.”
What it said isn’t wrong, but being peaceful wasn’t what Trevor was going for, he wanted Hanover to tell him what he knew about the defective FEV. [Speech] “The MRL has experimental Rad-X that lasts forever. If he was able to remove the side effects then your tribe would never have to worry about light amounts of radiation again.”
That peaks Oisin’s interest. [Succeeded] “Ok fine, you can take the Ghoul with you. Just have it so that when he shows us his ‘Forever Rad-X’, me and my tribe will judge him.”
Trevor unties Hanover, then takes him to Seaside, after which with a group of the two of them and the other intelligent Super Mutants, go inside the MRL. The group go to an elevated platform overlooking the cephalopods.
Time to question the Ghoul. “Now that we are here, can you tell me about your ‘something personal’ now?”
Hanover sighs. “I came back to complete the work that was never finished. You have seen the FEV vats right? Well those vats were just one week or two away from being done!”
Trevor talks to himself. “Just a week or two from being able to create Super Mutants.”
Hanover looks at Trevor in confusion. “Super Mutants? What were you trying to do with the FEV?”
“Trying to do!? I dipt ten humans in the vat and instead of creating Super Mutants, it killed them horribly!”
Hanover gets an aah face. “It didn’t work because this FEV wasn’t designed to do that.”
Trevor does a double take. “This FEV wasn’t supposed to make mutants?”
Hanover nods. “Well it was still technically supposed to make mutants, but well… Let me start from the beginning. The original purpose of FEV was to create super soldiers, ‘Super Mutants’ as you call them. This top secret lab tried to use FEV to make super marine life.”
Hanover continues. “At first we tried to make super smart dolphins, as spies or troopers or whatever. When the dolphins were exposed to the Forced Evolutionary Virus they grow an arm on their forehead. Unfortunately, the arm always extended into their brains, making them braindead. It was sad that they, couldn’t lend a hand!”
The Ghoul bursts into laughter, while Trevor facepalms. Eventually Hanover continues again. “We tried with orcas, sharks, and big fish. The results were different, but no more promising. We got the idea to try with Squids and Octopuses, but the bombs dropped before we could do testing. I had to run away for my safety, and only now can I begin again.”
Hanover’s explanation puts Trevor in deep thought. “You can complete the work on the FEV. However, you need to make the special Rad-X in here not have any side effects, i did make a promise to Oisin.”
Another year has passed since then, making it four. And Hanover has spent most of his time working on the special Rad-X. He is not happy with working so long on something he didn’t want to do, so long in fact that Trevor is starting to agree with him. Luckily, the forever Rad-X is finished and ready to be delivered.
A random twenty year old man from the Harts ingests Rad-X pills. For a month he is monitored for any signs of side effects, (there are none) The man has been temporarily living in Seaside for a month, only being next to the radiation spills does he show signs of radiation sickness. In short, the forever Rad-X are a success, with the only problem being just how difficult it is to make more. Trevor promised Oisin that Hanover will make enough Rad-X for its entire tribe, which will be done, just after something else is done.
Hanover is hard at work on the FEV for two weeks, and he is finally done.
“What will happen?” Asks Trevor next to the Ghoul, looking down at the tanks filled with cephalopods. Today is the day that something will finally happen with the FEV besides just laying uselessly in vats.
“The FEV will use tubes to be dispensed to a few hundred of the tens of thousands of cephalopods.” Answers Hanover to the Super Mutant.
“I know that! What will happen to the squids and octopuses?”
Hanover chuckles. “Probably look just as ugly as us!”
With no time to waste the FEV is dispensed, coating the tank in a slight green colour. Rapidly the cephalopods mutate, growing arms and legs and a more humanoid body. Hanover and Trevor decide to empty the tank with the mutating cephalopods and open it up. Trevor and Hanover run to the lower floor and stand in front of the one opened tank.
Both of them observe the now fully mutated cephalopods closely. They look very human, with more similarities than differences. Their hair is made out of tentacles, black masks surround their eyes, they have beaks instead of teeth, are slightly shorter than Normies, for some reason seem to be entirely made up by teens or young adults, and some of them are somehow transforming from a humanoid form to cephalopod form and then back!? “And they are not ugly, they are actually cute looking!” Says Hanover to himself. Trevor agrees with him, these… Squidkids (ignore that half of them are octopuses) Might be the one type of mutant someone might not shoot on sight.
The Squidkids have been awkwardly staring at Trevor and Hanover the entire time. He tries to communicate to get rid of that awkwardness. “Hello, I am Trevor, a Super Mutant, the leader of an army of Super Mutants. The Ghoul next to me is Hanover, a scientist that works here. How are, uh, you guys doing?”
“Uggie.” Response one of the Squidkids.
Trevor glances at Hanover. “They are speaking gibberish.”
Hanover glances back. “No I don't think so, they are probably speaking an actual language that we just can’t understand. Can they understand us though?”
“Hey Squidkids!” All of them look at Hanover.
“Give me a big smile!” They shake their heads.
“...They don’t want to do it. But they did understand what I said!” Hanover grins at Trevor.
That’s good to know. “Listen up, all of you are homeless, probably don’t know how to survive… And naked. How about me and some other Super Mutants give you all clothes and somewhere to live?”
“Yay! Unhomeless!” They smile with an open mouth and closed eyes, while celebrating happily.
“How dare they refuse to give me! Their creator, the chance to see smiles that cute! Anything, Hanover is going to get Hangover.” He snickers while going to his office.
Finding spare clothes was a bit tricky, especially with how some of the Squidkids got really upset for some reason. Seaside has more than enough empty buildings to house everyone, though with a lack of beds for now. Lastly was how the two types of mutants were going to react to each other. The rest of the Super Mutants found the Squidkids absolutely adorable, more than willing to share. The Squidkids apparently found the Super Mutants intimidating in a good way, thinking that the Super Mutants were the coolest people around. The only problem is that Trevor, Hanover, and the other Super Mutants can’t understand a word they say.
Trevor now spends his time teaching the Squidkids English, with surprisingly good results. The Harts quickly found out about the Squidkids, instantly taking a liking to them. (probably because they are cute) Over time a squid named Mirai started becoming some sort of leader of the Squidkids. She was the one who learned English the fastest and at some point started to give orders to the other Squidkids, even to the point that the Squidkids are starting to organise themselves, much to the Super Mutants surprise, who thought they would just do whatever they said.
“You can understanding me?” Eventually, Mirai said the first sentence that Trevor understood, which made him proud.
“Aquarium should being bar.” After three months of being a mutant, Mirai came to Trevor’s office with a strange request.
No! You are my precious baby! “The idea of a pub is not bad, but you are too young.”
Mirai huffs. "Birthday one week ago. Me is twenty three!”
Trevor tries to find another reason why the Squidkids shouldn’t drink, but can't find an excuse that’s not blatantly desperate. “Fineee. Will we turn the Seaside aquarium into a pub.”
“Yes! Inkopolis bar is reality!”
Inkopolis, that was what the Squidkids called Seaside, even after reminding them that it was called Seaside. After transforming an extra few thousand cephalopods into Squidkids, there were alot more of them then Super Mutants, so many in fact that the mutant populations combined is just as high as the pre-war human population. That means that the Squidkids now took full responsibility over farming, (even doing a better job then the Super Mutants) were the majority in construction and crafting, (doing a worse job due to them within strength seven on average, which is still nothing compared to Super Mutants) And some of them are even fighters. Sure Super Mutants are alot better at fighting, but a well trained Squidkid with a gun is more than capable at handling normies.
Some other quirk of the Squidkids is that they love being ‘Fresh’. (apparently why they were so upset with wearing rags.) They want to be real fancy and stylish, much different to the Super Mutants who don’t really care about being ‘Fresh’.
When leaving the now opened bar with a drink in hand, Trevor sees some Squidkids run up to him.
“What’s up?” He says to one of them.
An Octoling speaks up. “We farm and only have Inkgun. Cannoneer attack with grey bat! We stop her and shoot Inkgun to, uh, hu, humi, humiliate normie. But normie die of rads!”
Trevor raises an eyebrow. “The Cannoneer died of radiation despite not being anywhere near Seaside or Cannon beach? How could that happen?”
The Octoling moves their Inkgun towards him. “Maybe, ink is rads?”
“Well I don't know if you're right or not, but I bet Hanover can help us find out.” They go to the MRL.
“My god! This stuff sure is radioactive!” Shouts Hanover while studying the Ink. “This here ink can kill a normie in three minutes! The Harts that have the forever Rad-X would survive, but they would be in rough shape, good thing you kids shoot ink all willy-nilly!”
The news surprised Trevor. Up until now, he and the other Super Mutants thought that the Squidkids ink was useless against anything that wasn’t another cephalopod. Turns out that Hanover and Trevor couldn’t notice the inks' lethal aspects because they were immune to it. Trevor will have to reconsider Inkweapons as more useful than he originally thought.
“I should tell Mirai that using ink in combat isn’t such a bad idea. Where is she anyway?”
[Sneak] When Trevor goes to the bar to get a drink, Mirai carefully makes her way through Inkopo-i mean Seaside! to the one Super Mutant she knows won’t rat her out. Normandy, the Super Mutant that is loyal to Trevor, however also respectful enough to Mirai that she wouldn't keep any secrets from her. Now entering Normandy’s house, Mirai will learn the secret that Trevor has kept from the Squidkids for months.
“Normandy happy to see you Mirai!” She greets the Inkling by hugging her.
When the hug breaks, Mirai gets down to business. “Trevor hiding secret from us Squidkids. Woulding really like to know!”
Normandy gets confused. “Why would boss Trevor hide from you? What Normandy help with?”
“What is sex?”
She gets flabbergasted. “Boss Trevor hide that from you!? Normandy tell you everything. Sex is fun with person you love, only person you love! Have sex in bedroom alone, no else hear, no else see. Ask person you love if they want sex, if no then no sex. Sex great fun, take comics to learn sex.” She hands Mirai old comics with normies on them. The cover art isn’t any special, but it makes her feel… Something.
She can’t wait to show and tell her fellow Squidkids what she has learned! (without Trevor knowing of course!)
Three months turn into a year. Mirai can now speak English perfectly, while the rest of the Squidkids are more than capable at communicating. Life has been going well, the Cannoneers have stopped attacking, Hanover has made enough Rad-X to the entire Hart tribe, and it is five years since the Super Mutants fled California. (that last is actually are kinda sad.)
Mirai said that she and the other Squidkids have something special to show the Super Mutants. Trevor, and Hanover. They enter a specific building their weren't allowed in before.
When inside, they are greeted by Mirai. “I’m so grateful that i can speak humanese perfectly, because i got alot to tell you guys!”
“Humanese, wait until you encounter someone who doesn’t speak English.” Comments Hanover.
“Whatever, follow me!” Mirai guides them to a corner that’s hidden by a privacy curtain. “Are you three ready?” “Yes, we are ready.” After taking a peak and asking something, Mirai pulls the curtain, allowing them to see something truly amazing.
Laying on a bed is an Octoling woman, with an Inkling man standing next to her. And in her arms is an Inkoling baby.
“What is that?” Asks Trevor, Hanover, and the other Super Mutants.
“We having beautiful child.” Answers the Octoling and Inkling at the same time.
Mirai walks in front of them. “Ok so, you all are probably wondering why there is a baby Squidkid all of the sudden?”
They nod firmly. “Trevor, don't get mad, but nine months ago I talked to Normandy about what sex was, and she told me that it is something two people who love each other do for fun. I couldn’t do it myself because my boyfriend was squeamish, however those who did have sex told me that it was one of the best things they did!”
Trevor would have scolded her. Except he is waiting for her to continue. “After a few weeks however, alot of the females started to get sick, feeling nauseous and throwing up. And after that they started to get fat! Obviously we rushed over to the MRL medical room to see what was happening.”
Hanover facepalms. “Damn it! I spent that whole day being drunk at the bar!”
Mirai glances at him before continuing. “To our shock, the females were growing new Squidkids inside them! Imagine that, literally creating life! We weren't sure what was going to happen, so we set this building up to prepare for anything. And that’s everything, an Octoling and Inkling are now parents to a baby Inkoling!”
“I think me and Hanover and everyone else need to leave.” Trevor moves Hanover and the other Super Mutants out of the building. After which he calls all Super Mutants to the townhall immediately. In an hour, one thousand Super Mutants show up and are waiting for what Trevor will say.
“I don’t know how else to say this. The Squidkids are not sterile.” Trevor watches as the crowd goes wild, they can’t believe that the Squidkids are able to reproduce.
"It's true, go to the Squidkids and you will see a baby mutant.” The crowd starts heading towards where the pregnant Squidkids are. Meanwhile Trevor and Hanover sit still, simply taking in the news themselves.
Hanover decides to break to silence. “We are actively witnessing history aren’t we? Slowly transforming the tens of thousands of cephalopods remaining at the MRL, combining that with child birth, Seaside or I guess Inkopolis will have a much bigger population than pre-war. Actually, Inkopolis will be one of the most populated cities in the wasteland! And we are seeing it in real time!”
Trevor hums. “The reason why my army looked so hard for FEV was because we mutants needed FEV to make more of us. However, now I know that Squidkids can procreate, we mutants can fulfill the Master's dream of building a mutant civilization. Also i don’t think all Squidkids will stay at ‘Inkopolis’, they will most definitely settle at Canon beach. The only question being what silly name they will give Cannon beach.”
Hanover chuckles. “I don’t know the Master, but from what I heard of it, I'm not sure the Master’s plan was to have Woomys and Veemos naming cities on the Oregon coast Inkopolis and Splatsville.”
“Splatsville… That’s a good name, we shall rename Cannon beach to Splatsville!” The Ghoul and the Super Mutant turn in surprise to see Mirai smiling at them.
Trevor recovers first. “Mirai! Are the Super Mutants being respectful?”
She nods. “They go in one at a time and observe the baby Inkoling at a distance.”
Trevor stands up, walks over to the Inkling, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Listen kid, you should be the de facto leader. I know I'm stronger and more experienced and more intimidating, but you should be the leader. Know why?”
Mirai isn’t sure what Trevor is getting at. “Why?”
"Because you represent the Squidkids, the future of Mutantkind. You have the potential for greatness, and I'm proud of you for that!” Trevor lifts her up and hugs her.