Author's Note: UGH. This fic kicked my ass. I am most displeased but hopefully someone out there will enjoy it. It was a request that went badly but I was going to finish this come hell or high water. It's done now. Better or worse, here it is.

Question: What would happen if TFA Shockwave met G1 Shockwave?

Better than You.

Shockwave looked over his orders, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction. As conflicting as his motives were, it was amazing just how often the two factionfs made life easy for him. Ultra Magnus was requesting he take a visit to one of the small colonized moons that had recently received a new space bridge. His mission was simply to update their computers and be sure that they could send him information should they encounter problems.

Apparently Megatron had a new group of Decepticon loyals stationed near this moon. With a well timed visit, he was certain he could get them into shape and into a fully operational squad.

His optic glanced up at the sky, antenna twitching slightly in displeasure at the growing amount of static and lightning in the air. There was a rather large ionic storm growing and threatening to cause all sorts of issues.

While eager to complete his orders on both sides, he was not too thrilled about having to leave his delicate instruments behind where they could easily be scrambled by the random bursts of ionic waves and power overloads. As high as the tower was where he worked, he may as well short circuit his equipment himself before he left.

With a heavy sigh, he made his way to the space bridge. Hopefully his secretary would be intelligent enough to at least keep his lab from spontaneously combusting.

The technician greeted him happily and attempted small talk. Autobots were such a naïve trusting bunch that never thought twice about the large bright blue optics that smiled back at them. It was pitiful at best.

In reality, Shockwave could easily have sent one of his underlings to go on this mission. It was beneath him to even contact the moon base himself, much less make an appearance. Yet his spark thrived at the prospect of actually being face to face with a fellow Decepticon again. It had been so long since he'd been able to freely be in his true form that he was starting to feel claustrophobic.

"Let's get going, Tech. I have a lot of work to do." He waited impatiently in front of the gate as it started up.

Somewhere behind him an alarm went off and the technician was starting to panic, waving at him and yelling something about unstable particles and power outputs.

It occurred to him that the ionic storm could be scrambling the signals; but it was too late, he was already stepping through the gate.

Staggering out of the gate, Shockwave was relieved to find that he was still in the observation tower. The last time there had been a gate mishap, he'd ended up halfway across the galaxy.

"Tech! What went wrong? Is the linkup still functional?"

His large blue optics widened as he realized that the room, while still holding the basic layout, was not the same. It was lined wall to wall with computers and lab equipment.

Even more alarming was the size of the cannon now pointed squarely at his chest.

"INTRUDER. Surrender now or be destroyed. You are now the prisoner of Shockwave, Guardian of Cybertron and loyal servant to Lord Megatron!"

"…..who?"

The owner of the cannon stepped forward, filling his optic with a familiar welcome purple color.

"Do not play coy with me, Autobot! Surrender yourself immediately and you may be spared immediate termination."

"Look….Whoever you are… I do not have time to deal with your delusional visions of grandeur. I must return to Cybertron. I have orders from Lord Megatron himself!"

"I said SURRENDER!" The cannon shot at his feet, sending out a surprisingly powerful and familiar blast.

His red optic narrowed as he turned to face the Decepticon fully. As far as he was aware, he was the only mech, Autobot or Decepticon, who harnessed this particular brand of weaponry. He had designed it himself ages ago.

Quickly transforming to his regular form, he looked up at the larger bulkier mech and responded by quickly using his size altering abilities to even out their height. He wanted to look this mech in the optic.

"I am Shockwave, Decepticon spy for Lord Megatron and currently acting under direct orders to remain in disguise as the Autobot Longarm, intelligence officer to the Autobot elite guard. I am currently on a very important mission and will not allow myself to be distracted by your idiotic delusions. You will state your designation, your mission, and our current location. You will then start up that space bridge again and send me back to Cybertron. If you do not comply, I will be forced to contact Lord Megatron and report on your treason!"

He was starting to feel unnerved by this other Decepticon. His design, while appearing older and outdated was obviously a much earlier mold of his own form. As far as Shockwave knew, he was the only Decepticon that was still functional with his particular protoform mold and design.

The larger mech looked amused, though it was hard to tell with his lack of face. "Contact Lord Megatron?" He stepped aside and pointed at a computer console. "Do it if you can, Shockwave. I have been attempting to contact him for the past four million years."

They stared at one another for a moment before Shockwave pulled out his own communicator. "Shockwave to Lord Megatron! Do you read me? Come in Megatron. This is Shockwave. There has been a glitch in the plans."

Static greeted him on the other end. "It must be the ionic interference. There was a storm before I left. He keeps in close contact with me almost daily."

"I find that hard to believe. Megatron never contacts me! And I am his most useful servant."

"….Which is why you appear to be alone on Cybertron with hardly any supplies and haven't been contacted in four million years."

The larger mech practically bristled, his antenna quivering in rage. "I am guardian of the whole planet of Cybertron! Megatron entrusted ME to this task."

Again, they found themselves looking each other over. It wasn't hard for either of them to start to understand what had happened. The younger mech appeared to have landed in a much more depressing dimension where he was far older and far more neglected and diluted than Lugnut.

After several hours of calculations, estimations, and arguing, they finally figured out what had gone wrong and what it would take to send the younger one back to where he belonged.

Unfortunately, this would require them to wait twenty-four hours before the next ionic storm could be configured with just the right wavelengths to match up to Shockwave's own dimension.

Till then, they had nothing but time on their hands. Awkward time.

Hour 1:

"Why did you feel it necessary to remove one of your hands and reconfigure it into a cannon? One would think that two hands would be far more useful than one. Especially for a scientist of your nature…"

"We are in an energon crisis! We do not have the materials required to simply build a side cannon that required such a specialized energy output! I'm glad that you feel that you have the resources to waste."

"At least I have a far more useful ability than to simply transform into a large immobile cannon."

"For your information, my leader, Lord Megatron, transformers into a large immobile gun."

"He is clearly inferior to my leader, Lord Megatron then! He can at least transform into a more logical helicopter mode."

"You will not insult my leader while you inhabit my dimension! If you insult him one more time, I will lock you in the brig for the remainder of your duration here. I have important work to do!"

"Yes… The holograms…. Clearly that is… important work that must not be delayed should we ever be attacked by an army of gargoyles."

"Perhaps you would make yourself more useful back in the main room monitoring any incoming transmissions. I have work to do."

"Yeah sure. 'incoming transmissions.' As if anyone ever contacts you."

Hour 4:

"Longarm! I am sending out my morning report to Lord Megatron! Prepare the satellite!"

"My name is Shockwave!"

"I am the original Shockwave. I refuse to give you a designation that you have not earned. As your superior model, I out rank you. To prevent any confusion, I have decided to refer to you in all my reports as your under cover name."

"You do not out rank me! I am a Prime back in my universe! If you're going to go by my undercover identity, I am Longarm Prime, head of the elite guard intelligence on Decepticon activities! I out rank you!"

"We are not in your universe. This is my station, my planet, my rules. I out rank you. You will respect me as a superior officer and I expect you to follow orders."

"Very well, Shockwave. I will play by your rules. Even if I am the superior model, the newest upgrade, and equipped with technology that isn't from the dawn of our race."

"I will have you know that it is my choice to stay this way in order to conserve energy! We can't all go around hiding with the Autobots and accepting their handouts!"

"….Oh would you look at that? Your satellite seems to have lost its antenna. **CRUNCH** Guess you'll just have to be delayed in your morning report."

Hour 7:

"Who or what is Soundwave?"

"You will desist looking at my personal log at once! That is highly classified and confidential material!"

"This hardly looks like it should be classified. Now answer the question. Who is Soundwave?"

"He… He is Lord Megatron's most trusted communication's officer. He is most loyal."

"…He sounds like a Lugnut."

"I can assure you that he is Not a Lugnut."

"You don't even know who Lugnut is."

"Soundwave is not a Lugnut. He is… You would not understand. You are far too young and arrogant to comprehend such logistics."

"…Is that why nearly half your communication logs are to and from Soundwave?"

"I think you have had enough computer privileges. You will stay out of my logs from now on!"

Hour 12:

"What was that? Who just attacked us? I thought you were alone here!"

"THAT was a Femm."

"….WHAT?"

"Surely you must have such things where you are from. You know… Female Autobots."

"….That… That was not natural!"

"I would really rather not talk about it…"

"We must have taken a hundred shots at her each and we didn't even come close to hitting her! Does she have some sort of force field?"

"No. No she does not."

"She took all your energon! Does she do this often? How did she even get in here? What happened to your security?"

"How about you go check on that while I attempt to find a universe that does not have Femms."

"…I'm starting to really hate this universe…"

Hour 16:

"So you're telling me Starscream is not only still alive, but he's Megatron's second in command?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I'm working under the theory that Megatron feels it best to keep Starscream tightly under his gun."

"And these 'seekers'. They are copies of Starscream?"

"Not really… They are the same model but definitely not as treacherous. …Though they certainly aren't trustworthy either. So your Starscream cloned himself? Is he really that ingenious?"

"I wouldn't call him ingenious. More like desperate. Doesn't matter how many of them there are, he's still inept."

"Agreed. Tell me again about the time Megatron killed Starscream."

Hour 23:

"The storm is almost here. If we time this just right, you will be able to return to your own universe."

"Would you like to hear the recording of my Lord Megatron's speech again while you work? I find that it is inspiring and increases my work potential."

"My Lord Megatron is far superior to yours and his oratory skills far surpass all other mechs in this universe or any other. My leader just happens to have not had the time or cause to give such stirring speeches as of late."

"…Is that a yes?"

"….Just play the recording!"

Hour 24:

At long last both mechs watched the storm roll in and powered up the space bridge. "This is it. It should send you back to your correct universe on Cybertron. It was… fascinating to meet you."

"Yes. It is good to know that a mech of your caliber should be my alternate universal self."

"I will certainly inform Lord Megatron of such a thing. He will be pleased to hear that I am loyal to you in other dimensions as well."

They stood in silence for a moment, taking the opportunity to size one another up for the last time. It was quite clear that both felt that they were the better mech and both felt that it was good to know that their situation could have been a lot worse.

At least they weren't the other one.

After transforming back to his Autobot disguise, Shockwave nodded to his older counterpart then entered the bridge at the signal. He felt the familiar sensation of his sensors alerting him to strange energy readings and at last stumbled out of the space bridge back into a familiar room.

Several science officers who had clearly been working tirelessly trying to figure out what had happened looked up in alarm.

He ignored their concerned questions, simply stating that he needed to go recharge and that he was fine.

In truth, all he needed was a secure line to a familiar face that would call him by his rightful designation and tell him that he was in fact, the better Shockwave.

"Lord Megatron! This is Shockwave, reporting in!" Sadly, he could practically feel that in another universe, the exact same words had just been uttered by his other half.

Some things just never changed. He took some comfort from the whole ordeal though. At least he was the better looking one.