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fang-wolfsbane · 3 years

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Transformers Generation One: A Seeker's Triangle: Chapter 03: Discovery

“Hey Zett, haul your ass up here and get this job done!”

“Yessir! Be right there!” Zett Oakwell called up to his superior, or at least that’s what the man seemed to believe himself to be. Waiting until the big, burly man moved out of sight, Zett kept his lips pressed into an all too friendly smile he had years to practice into perfection. The moment he lost sight of the man, so did his lips lose their form.

A sigh rattled through Zett’s ribs, his hand reaching up to rub his palm against his diaphragm, trying to quell his true thoughts on the man who barely paid him the minimum wage for working on the construction site their company had been asked to clear. It didn’t help that they were the only two on site either. Everyone else had claimed that they were all ‘too busy’ to help with the clearing. He hoped they all got some form of pain in their backsides as karma for leaving him as the boss’s sole lapdog.

Looking around the site, Zett took a moment in to get a good look at the small beach that had been used as a dump by the locals. He could feel his hand curling into a fist as his anger swelled up once more. There were plenty of trashcans around the city, yet people still chose to walk along this very beach and just let their refuge flitter to the ground without a second thought.

Zett wasn’t an eco-warrior, or any kind of activist, but it still pained him to see how little humans thought of the only inhabitable planet they had. Talks about travelling to distant planets to live on them instead had crossed over the radio a couple of times when he walked past the boss’s office, overhearing all the excited chatter about the possibilities. Sure, send humans to another planet so that they can destroy that one as well. Those had been his thoughts. No one had asked his opinion on the matter, so he never gave it, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have an opinion either.

Personally, he felt like no one ever really bothered to talk to him unless they needed something. That’s the way it always was. At home, at school, and even at work, so he simply chose to keep his mouth shut and pick up whatever he passed, throwing away the trash the cause of the problem chose to ignore.

The sunlight bounced off the slow approaching waves, lapping ever so gently at the shore as if tentatively testing its safety. The sight of a small crab scuttling in the distance was at least something that brought a smile to his lips. It almost looked like the crab was trying to play a game of tag. Nature’s refuge workers his teacher had said during a field trip when he was in the seventh grade. Zett took his hardhat off in respect for the crustacean, the same sunlight bouncing off his neck-length black hair, before turning on his heel and heading towards the boss’s temporary base of operations for the hotel they were tasked to build. Another refuge for the litterbugs too lazy to walk a couple of steps to the nearest bin.

“You wanted to see me, boss?” Zett asked upon entering the office, his brown eyes scanning the room. There wasn’t really much to look at. A wooden desk painted blue in the corner with a heap of bills for equipment, a cold cup of coffee and a pen verging on the edge of toppling off the side. The chair that was supposed to be nearby stood off to the side, acting as something for his boss to lean against as he studied one of the blueprints plastered against the wall. A quick once over told Zett that it was for the seventh floor. He hadn’t bothered to ask how tall the hotel was going to be. He only cared about how much they would get paid by the end of it.

If the pay-out were as good as he was hoping, he’d have saved up enough to put in a deposit for his own place once he graduated from high school in a couple of months, possibly scraping by with his sloppy grades. As long as he passed and could move out, then he was happy. Everything else could wait.

“Yeah. You don’t mind working extra shifts, right?” his boss asked, not even having the decency to try and look at him as he asked. Coming from the man before him, Zett knew it wasn’t a request as much as an order. If he refused, it would simply be cut from his check, not that he’d receive any extra payment for saying yes in the first place. Zett made sure to hide his curling fist on the inside of his hat, flashing a crude gesture to the otherwise rude man.

“No sir,” Zett hummed, forcing his lips into that same, earlier, all too eager to please smile that he hated so much that he felt like he could hurl at the mere thought of doing it.

“Good. I need you to work overtime tonight. Get this area clear by tomorrow morning so that the boys can get started. We’re behind schedule as it is.”

‘We wouldn’t have fallen behind in the first place if ‘the boys’ had bothered to show up in the first place,’ Zett snapped back, mentally of course. No way in hell was he going to keep his employment if he dared point out the reason for their falling behind. At least this way, he wouldn’t have to worry about going home and getting chewed out by his poor biology class test results – if his school bag had been left undisturbed where he had taken to hiding it beneath his bed.

“Sure thing.”

“Good. Remember to lock up when you’re done.” And just like that, the boss dismissed him, already grabbing his own jacket as he hurried out the door towards his waiting car. Watching the rear lights of the old clunker turning the corner, Zett waited a couple of seconds before slamming the protective headwear into the sandy floor beneath himself as hard as he could, sliding his hands through his hair shortly after as he screamed his frustration to the distant sky, his seemingly only companion as of late. A million stars, none of which probably even knew his name, much less about his existence. It made him wonder if anyone – any thing – knew that he too, had a life. At this point, there was no chance in hell.

***

Hours of hauling trash from one end to another had Zett sweaty, moody, and frankly, tired. A church bell in the distance told him that it was three in the morning. By this time, the headlight he’d wrapped around his forehead had lost its life, and of course his boss hadn’t bothered to leave a spare behind, so Zett continued working in the dark, knowing fully well that in a couple of hours he’d be forced to work alongside the same men who left the grunt work to him. The only comfort he gave himself was that he’d probably earn a couple of muscles from all the heavy lifting. The small bulges in his arms acted as reassurance.

He had been warned, multiple times before, about paying attention to where he was walking when doing his work, so the moment his foot hit something hard, Zett only had enough time to yelp out his surprise before crashing face-first into something solid.

A crunch of bone informed him that he’d officially broken his nose, his salt-stained hands flying up to try and cover it before the bloodbath begun. He knew it was an overexaggerating on his part, but it still hurt. For the first time in eighteen years, he’d broken something that most guys his age hurt during physical fights. He nearly laughed at how lame his excuse would be if someone cared enough in the hallway to ask why his skin had turned purple and blue. If he were lucky, he could convince them that he’s gotten it the same way as most guys his age tended to break their bones. Maybe he’d even be lucky to impress Miss Perfect, Carly.

He didn’t quite know why she was the one he wanted to impress, chalking it up to his DNA telling him to be the typical kid falling for the most popular girl at school only to be ignored like a poster from the drama club requesting new members. He nearly felt giddy at the thought of finally, possibly one-upping that other guy that always hung out with her. Spike… something. He didn’t know much about him, except that he had some association with robotic aliens from some other planet. Maybe those aspiring astronauts had some point to their Earth-eviction plan.

The first couple of months after the robots – Autobots, if he remembered right – no one could stop talking about them, until everyone got used to their existence. Sometimes when walking past a car parked off on its own, even he attempted to strike up a conversation with it in the hopes that it would respond. It never did.

Groaning, Zett pushed himself out of the salty water, keeping his hand pressed to his nose, trying to ignore how sensitive it was. Looking down, Zett leaned in for a closer look to see what he had tripped over. It was definitely something big, painted black with green streaks and purple markings. He frowned, leaning in for a closer look. From what he could see, it looked like one of those giant Autobot robots. Although this one seemed to be, well, dead.

How long had it been laying here? From the gleam of the armouring or whatever it was that they called their… skin, it seemed the robot had been abandoned. Sliding his hand up the side, he felt a couple of bumps and dents. Whoever this robot was, they sure had seen better days. From what he could feel, it felt like a female version. That alone was enough to cause his cheeks to heat. The closest he’d ever gotten to the females of his own species was talking to one of them with an occasional glance at their cleavage or other… assets when passing them by. Who knew that his first time touching any kind of female would be a robot? Not that he would tell anyone about that.

“What happened to you girl?” Zett asked, as if expecting a response. The head seemed to hold some kind of helmet that flowed into cables that he supposed was their version of hair. A visor like the ones that firefighters wore on their helmets covered where he figured her eyes were. Did Autobots also have eye problems? A pair of wings jutted out on either side, making him think that she had probably transformed into a plane or something similar. Judging from her slim figure, probably a jet. From what he could see, there wasn’t any rust, luckily.

The best course of action was to probably to talk to Spike at school and tell him about his discovery. Even better, he could go to Carly’s house and tell her personally. The grin that had appeared on his face at the thought fell. Not only was it way too early in the morning to drop by for a ‘casual visit’, he didn’t even know where she lived in the first place. He sighed once more, turning himself around as he sat down on her leg, running his free hand through his hair.

“Just can’t get a break, can you, Zett?” he asked himself, staring at his reflection in the water that wasn’t even visible. He frowned, kicking the back of his heel against the leg. So much for finding a giant robot that he couldn’t even use to impress the girl he liked.

A soft whirring sound buzzed through his ears, causing him to sit up. The robot wasn’t radioactive, was it? His head slowly turned towards the robot’s face, her visor lighting up into a soft red glow as a pair of even redder eyes locked onto him in what he instinctively knew was a warning.

“Oh boy.”

#Fanfiction #Transformers and tagged A Seeker's Triangle #Carly #Chapter #Generation One #Spike Witwicky #Starlit Meadow #TFG1 #Transformers #Transformers Generation One #Transformers Generation One A Seeker's Triangle #Zett #Zett Oakwell #A Seeker's Triangle

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