It felt like he was being smothered to death.
When he was Starscream one of the Cybertron Academy's punishments was to force you to transform and keep you in that mode in a room almost the size of a coffin until they decided you'd had enough...or if you lost your mind.
("Lost your mind?" Where did THAT phrase come from? He should have thought 'your mental circuits burned out.' He HAD to get out of this body!)
Dr. Arkeville felt something hard and metallic pinch at his skin as it grabbed him and yanked him out of subspace. AIR! PAIN!
Starscream glanced awkwardly at Skywarp and Thundercracker's suspicious glances. "Where did THAT thing come from?" Thundercracker demanded.
"None of your business!" he snapped. "You have your orders; stop that truck! Now leave!" Once they took off, he returned to the task at hand. "I can see me-Optimus-approaching. ETA: three hundred astro-seconds," he hissed, placing down Dr. Arkeville in front of the machine before reaching in for the other body.
Dr. Arkeville immediately dug his toolkit out of the growing pile of things Starscream was pulling out of subspace. "I have a lot of junk," he commented wryly.
Although there wasn't too much the larger mech could do, he was someone surprised and pleased that he could identify a couple of the mechanical problems and that Dr. Arkeville did what Starscream would have done. He hoped that when he was Prime again he could start toying with something mechanical. Maybe that old blaster he never figured out how to fix-
"Starscream! Starscream, come in! It's Skywarp! Head's up, Prime and that weirdo scientist are coming!"
"Why couldn't they hold them?" Dr. Arkeville demanded, sighing. He was only half-finished, maybe.
Starscream reached for a blaster that didn't exist and nearly panicked. "How do you shoot these things?" he yelled, tapping his null rays desperately.
Oh, for- "Let the impulse squeeze it out!"
Starscream missed the first time, causing Prime to veer off to the left and Perceptor to leap out of the passenger seat and transform. "Save the human!" Prime called. "I'll take care of Starscream!"
Dr. Arkeville didn't like where this was going. "Starscream! If your trinemates aren't here, that means they are DOWN! DON'T CALL FOR BACKUP!" The real Starscream would be derided for doing such a thing, and while Dr. Arkeville didn't see a multitude of options, Prime needed to be held back and Megatron was the LAST thing they needed.
Starscream hesitated. "Blast these stupid wings!" he muttered, trying to fire his null rays and missing again.
Optimus had been surprised to find that Perceptor wanted to help him with his mission. He considered objecting and ordering him back to base for about a millisecond and realized that he liked the idea of a friend coming with him.
Said friend was quite useful when it was time to take out some bad guys. Prime didn't know how to fight as well as he should and hiding behind a scientist got nothing accomplished until Roller tweeted something about using the trailer's cannon to blast them out of the sky. This Prime could do THAT. Thank you, hunter father who made him learn how to shoot as a child.
Besides, Perceptor came in handy when it would be time to "save" the human. They could NOT switch the bodies back, and a witness that would attest that yes, Prime did everything he could before the human died would be most useful. The boom box Autobot radioed, claiming that Megatron was on his way and that they were coming to provide backup and to The Pit with his protestations. Optimus didn't see a multitude of options, Starscream and Dr. Arkeville needed to be held back and Megatron was the LAST thing they needed.
Starscream came at him from the sky and rolled on the ground with him, bending a wing in the process and it looked like it didn't tickle when he bent it BACK. His concussion blasts at close range weren't much of a pick-me-up either. Now Prime had to fight with only his left arm working. Starscream moved awkwardly, tripping over his own feet.
"Starscream! FIGHT HIM!"
Megatron! Optimus dodged Starscream and apparently a nasty blast from the arm cannon and started sprinting towards the space bridge, where Perceptor was-helping?
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Prime bellowed. He couldn't hear Megatron, but a foolish shoulder glance showed that he and Starscream were hilariously trying to trip/kill each other in mid-air to get to him first. Starscream got a head start and the whirr of jet engines were closing on him and he was going to lose this footrace in about two seconds. He was SO CLOSE!
Starscream was yelling for his nulls rays to SHOOT him already, Megatron was yelling back at him, Dr. Arkeville was rushing his operations and snarling at Perceptor. With the last of his strength Optimus launched himself forward and roared over all of the yelling for Perceptor to grab the human, he was about to destroy them all! Hurry!
Slipping through Perceptor's faltering hands, Dr. Arkeville rolled to a switch and pulled it.
ZAP!