She could not see.
She could not hear.
Trapped in a limbo of her own dwindling thoughts.
The stasis pods existed for a reason: to house the Insecticon young until such a time as they could support themselves. They opened on response to either biology, or herself. The queen of the hive dethroned by a primitive cage.
To say it was insulting would have been a gross understatement. The corners of her dark lips lifted in contempt-
Lifted.
Moved.
That was the first sign of her freedom. The second was the whirring of her optics as the pink heaxagons brightened into life. The third was the sound of fire. Crackling, popping, fizzing now and then.
Then the waft of new ash and smoke twisted into her olfactories.
She felt the finger of a flame licking against her faceplate.
Her optics burned brighter than the infernal curtains that acted as a funeral pyre.
To the last of the Primes, a stubborn spark finally extinguished.
She found his servo stuck in the debris nearby, oriented upwards in a stiff, grim parody of a wave. The paint was already peeling and the metal was searing and soft. A talon drew a line through the slowly melting casing, like a knife through butter. The grey liquid dripped off her digit and onto the scorched ground, running downwards on the incline and towards the rest of his corpse.
Other limbs were mangled and crushed, the chest caved in and dented. It was partially open, and she pulled the compartment of his chest in two. What it housed was a mystery to her, but a beautiful one. A golden sphere with a spark-like centre that still glowed with the death of its carrier. Silver handles that fit so well in her hands. One of two trophies that she would gain this day.
Optimus' head was relatively untouched, and the expression was as infuriatingly serene as ever, battle mask retracted and optics dead. So different to the heads that she usually collected...
The heads that were lost because of that repulsive human.
There would be time for him later though. Right now all that mattered was the ambience of scalding heat and encroaching fire and the head that now rested in her palm. Energon pooled from the severed neck cables and drooled out of his mouth. With a free talon she lifted the trail of energon off, leaving a scar in the process.
"You would have been the centrepiece in my collection, Prime. Right next to Megatron." She would rebuild her gruesome gallery anew. She was adaptable. A hunter, a scavenger, whatever the situation called for.
But heatproof she was not. The flames were starting to damage her armour and overheat her internals. And if that wasn't enough, figures were approaching. One large with spikes in the shoulders, the other pitifully slim and small with envious wings. The scouting party.
Oh well. She'd gotten what she wanted, and a little more on the side. She could work on taking out the rest of the Autobots, wherever they were, as well as their precious heads. The humans would make interesting pets before their decapitations. Her Insecticons would find her again. The call of the matriarch was impossible to resist. And one by one, her collection and army would grow.
From afar she chuckled as Megatron's furious roar bellowed over the flames. Prime's head tucked safely under her servo, and in her hand held the unknown Matrix.
On that day, a planet and leader were lost. Yet from the ashes arose a queen.
An Insecticon cried into the night on instinct, and she smirked at the homely sound.
Oh yes, this day was a work of art.