AN- Primeverse. #11.
Smokescreen glares at the mech standing before him. Tall and thin with night-black plating, he looks like a wraith that just stepped from the underworld. The Decepticon merely watches him passively; frame slightly crouched and bat-like. Soundwave did not have much of a reputation when Smokescreen trained in the Elite Guard. He was mostly viewed as a silent, mysterious shadow in the background, never garnering much attention or fame. There were rumors that at one point Soundwave was a gladiator, but looking at him now, Smokescreen couldn't quite see that. A mere breeze looked as though it could bowl him over.
Smirking, Smokescreen chalks this one up as an easy victory, knowing that this mech was Megatron's comm.s officer. "Alright creepy, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way!" No reply comes so he grins and transforms is blasters into existence. "Hard way it is then." He charges forwards with a yell and bolts of energy spitting everywhere. To his great surprise however, Soundwave either dodges or deflects every bolt that comes his way with a fluid grace that even Arcee would envy. With lightning speed, Soundwave ducks, kicking out his long legs and catching the rookie in his midsection. He flies backwards, hitting the ground hard on his sensitive wings. A gasp of pain leaves his throat before he staggers to his pedes. Watching through bleary optics as Soundwave approaches, he just barely has time to react before the tentacles hit him. They grab his chest plate and flip him over onto his front. Landing with an ooph, the tentacles pressing him into the ground, he tries to fire at his attacker, but to no avail. Soundwave kneels down next to him and tweaks a wire in his door wings, sending him crashing into painful oblivion.
"So as I fell, I saw this car fall by me. I wondered why a car would be falling when I realized that Megatron had thrown one of his own guys off the ship and he couldn't fly!" By now, Smokescreen is back at base, surrounded by the other bots and kids as he tells his adventures on the Decepticon warship. The others had cringed at his almost torture, laughed at Knock Out's wall hanging, and cheered him on as he made his high altitude escape. The story was slightly embellished here and there of course, but Smokescreen would never admit it. One thing however, was bothering him. "Hey guys, do you know where Soundwave learned to fight like that? I mean, I thought he was just Megatron's Communications Officer, but he creamed me."
Ratchet answers from his place by the monitors. "Soundwave was Megatron's first and most loyal follower. He was a gladiator before the war. One of his matches was against Megatron. Even though Soundwave lost, Megatron was impressed with his skill and allowed him to live saying that such talent would be wasted with his death. Ever since, Soundwave has followed him with all the loyalty he possesses."
A new respect for the dark mech blooms inside of Smokescreen. He had fought against a mech that even Megatron had said was highly skilled. Out of curiosity he asks, "how close was Soundwave to beating Megatron?"
A pause then Ratchet answers, "he almost defeated Megatron. By the end of the match, both were heavily wounded and almost dead on their pedes. Only one other has ever come that close to defeating Megatron: Optimus."