And with this final epilogue, we say good night to Tales of The Last Prime. It's been stimulating and fun to write and is my longest-running TFs fic of all. Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed, favourited, story alerted and just simply spent time reading chapters of this story.

Originally, I wasn't going to post this chapter. It was a rejected early epilogue draft. But I reconsidered and decided to put it up after all. I thought it might be a bit of a laugh and an extra bit of action, which this fic hasn't had much of overall.

After this, I think I'll be moving on to more TFA writing. In Another Time has another 2 parts to be posted and I have some rather big ideas for TFA: Glimpses in the future! So check those fics out if you're a TFA fan (In Another Time is one for the Optimus/Elita supporters!)!

And just to get word out on it, I recently made a video comparing TFA Optimus & Blackarachnia with Goliath & Demona from the 90s show "Gargoyles". Check it out on youtube and leave your thoughts on it. Add: /watch?v=QJ1GrQn_rTA at the end of the youtube URL to see it. The video's called: Parallels: Optimus & Blackarachnia and Goliath & Demona. In it, I've combined some Demona and Goliath dialogue with TFA video clips of Optimus and Blackarachnia. I've also chosen a few screenshots from both cartoon shows comparing Demona and Blackarachnia/Elita-1 and Goliath and Optimus in what I thnk are rather similar ways. If you were a "Gargoyles" fan and are a TFA fan, have a look!

In this final epilogue, the Autobots and N.E.S.T. forces are on active duty again when more Decepticons are detected in the U.S. city of Salem in Oregon. As Major Lennox and N.E.S.T. soldiers work to evacuate the roads of Salem, the Autobots are hot pursuit of some new Decepticons...

Epilogue 3: The Hunt

[Time: 8pm; Location: Salem, Oregon, U.S.A.]

Sitting in the back of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz E-Class Saloon, National Security Advisor, Director Theodore Galloway, took a sip from a paper cup of coffee. He swallowed then looked critically down at the cup. That was the last time he would buy from that particular coffee shop he decided grumpily.

"How much further to go?" he then called to his driver somewhat impatiently.

"Not much further, Mr. Galloway," the driver replied in mild annoyance, casting a glare through his rear view mirror at his impatient passenger.

Galloway returned his disapproving gaze to his cup of coffee.

Suddenly, there was an ear-piercing whistle. Then the untamed burst of an explosion shook the road up ahead. All at once, there was the screeching of several tyres and horns blaring in chaos. In a panic, the driver brought the Mercedes Benz to a screeching halt. Galloway was thrown forward against his seatbelt and his cup of coffee out of his hand. The scalding hot liquid spilt over his legs.

"YOW!" the N.S.A. cried out in pain.

Boy did that smart. But Galloway had no time to complain about it. Through his window, he saw that several other vehicles had come to a sudden stop, nearly piling into one another, and there were people stepping out of their cars and trying to see what had happened up ahead. Fire and smoke were rising from where the explosion had occurred. Some people began running from the scene of chaos.

Galloway then heard the sounds of running feet approach. He turned his head to see the forms of a few soldiers running toward him, accompanied by what looked like a little toy RC monster truck beside them. He blinked at seeing the latter. Was he seeing things? Then he recognised one of the soldiers coming right up to his door. There was no forgetting the one that had thrown him out of a C-17 cargo plane months ago.

"Lennox?" he blurted in surprise.

What was he doing here? The Major rapped against Galloway's window. He looked serious.

"Open the door!" he yelled.

"Yeah, open the door ya idiot!" a rude little voice piped up from below Galloway's car window. Galloway frowned at this. He saw Lennox look down sternly at something underneath him. But he quickly returned his impatient attention back to Galloway. "I said open the door!"

Galloway did as he was told and pulled the latch of his door. Lennox swung the released car door wide open.

"What the hell is going on here, Major?" Galloway demanded in bewilderment.

"This is a danger zone! We need to get you out of here, sir!" Lennox hurriedly informed as he undid Galloway's seatbelt and dragged him out of the car. He tossed his head up and looked over the top of the car. "Epps, the driver!"

From the driver's side of the car, Sergeant Epps was helping Galloway's driver out.

"Got him!" Epps replied back to Lennox.

"Danger zone?" Galloway began, confused, "But…"

"Hey watch where yer steppin', klutz!" the rude little voice from below shouted again.

Galloway looked down, startled, and saw a tetchy-looking Wheelie in robot mode glaring haughtily up at him.

"What's this…'thing' doing here?" he growled, pointing a distasteful finger at the little ex-Decepticon scout.

Lennox looked back somewhat grumpily at Galloway again.

"'Wheelie' here is going to get you to safety, Mr. Galloway," the Major answered firmly and unsympathetically.

"Safety. Safety from what? What exactly is…," Galloway began.

"No time to explain!" Lennox interrupted, "Just listen to me! You need to follow Wheelie here. He'll lead you out of the danger zone to somewhere safe."

Galloway glanced down again in disgust at the little foul-mouthed ex-Decepticon.

"I am NOT following that little pile of scrap metal anywhere!" he stubbornly declared.

Wheelie looked up at Lennox in an annoyed manner.

"Can we just leave him here to burn?" he asked hopefully.

Ignoring him, Lennox grabbed the N.S.A. roughly by his shirt collar and pulled him toward his stern sweating face.

"If you want to live, Mr. Galloway, you will follow Wheelie out of here!" he threateningly ordered. He gave Galloway a rough shove. "Now get going!"

Wheelie transformed back into his toy RC monster truck mode.

"Yeah, get a move on ya moron!" Wheelie snapped impatiently.

"Why you obnoxious little…," Galloway angrily started.

"Just shut up and run!" Lennox barked at Galloway, pointing away for emphasis.

Grudgingly and grumbling, Galloway followed behind the little toy truck as he drove away. Lennox took off down the road to search for any other people still in their cars.

Nearby, the sounds of roaring engines zoomed by.

Along a road a short distance away, the trio of Arcee sisters, in motorbike modes, were in hot pursuit of a car and another motorbike, two Decepticons.

"Ironhide, we're leading them your way!" Arcee informed down her com-link.

"We're ready for 'em," Ironhide's gruff voice acknowledged back over the com-link.

"Never had this many fembots chasing after us," exclaimed the motorbike Decepticon, laughing.

The three Autobot sisters transformed simultaneously and drew up their firearm weapons.

"Get over yourself, Decepticon!" Chromia snapped back. She fired a shot dangerously close behind the motorbike Decepticon.

"Don't overdo it, Chromia," Elita One cautioned over their mental link, "We're supposed to lead them to Ironhide, trap then take them down together."

"What's the matter, female Autobots?" the car Decepticon taunted, "Can't keep up with us?"

A black GMC Topkick pick-up truck and a green Hummer vehicle suddenly appeared in front of the two Decepticons. They skidded sideways in surprise and came to a stop just before hitting the other two vehicles. The Topkick and Hummer transformed into Ironhide and Ratchet, armed with glowing canons and buzz-saws respectively. The Decepticons also transformed into robot modes a second later. The Arcee trio came up behind them. The two Decepticons were boxed in between two sides of Autobots.

"Blasted Autobots!" snarled the car Decepticon, "Should have known you always like working as a team."

Ironhide raised his spinning arm canons.

"Got that right, punk!"

With startling speed, the motorbike Decepticon attempted to rush forward past Ironhide, but Elita One reacted faster. She threw herself into the air above the Decepticon and brought the razor hook-lined wheel weapon of her left arm slicing down across his head. The motorbike Decepticon dropped to the ground, spurting sparks and energon from his split head. Elita One landed neatly in front of Ironhide.

The car Decepticon, attempting to take advantage of the distraction caused by his motorbike partner, fired blasts from two weapons at both Arcee and Chromia and at Ratchet on either side of him. The Autobots managed to avoid the blasts by sidestepping and wheeling away. But before the car Decepticon could make his escape, Ratchet brought his buzz-saws right down on the Decepticon's shoulders, chopping his arms clean off. They fell with a clatter to the ground, along with the weapons they had been holding. Chromia and Arcee took aim with their blasters and fired. Their shots brought down the car Decepticon. He dropped to the ground twitching and sparking, energon bleeding from his gunshot wounds.

"Darn it!" Ironhide grumbled, "I didn't get to fire off a shot!"

Chromia rolled up to him and patted him on the thigh.

"You'll get another chance, hot stuff." She winked at him and rolled away.

Ironhide's mouth plates came up in a smirk as he watched her.

"Sideswipe," Ratchet called down his com-link, "how are you doing on your end?"

They all jerked in surprise when another two offline Decepticon bodies were thrown down amongst the first two that had been brought down. Ironhide and the others looked sideways to see a triumphant and cocky Sideswipe and Bumblebee, Sideswipe with his arm blades stained in drying oil and streaming energon and Bumblebee still carrying his smoking plasma canon. Coming up behind them were Jolt and the Twins.

"Didn't even get a dent," Sideswipe replied smoothly.

"Yeah, easy for you to say, Mr. I'm-so-cool-with-my-blades!" whined Skids, a resenting expression on his face.

Mudflap whacked the back of his green brother's head.

"OWW!" Skids cried out.

"Shut up, Skid-mouth!" Mudflap scolded.

Skids was about to retaliate when Bumblebee shot both brothers a hard glare. They ducked down quietly. Not taking his optics off the argumentative duo, Bumblebee proceeded to retract his plasma arm canon.

Arcee approached the four deactivated Decepticon bodies and regarded them thoughtfully.

"We've detected quite a nest of Decepticons here," she commented, "For deca-cycles after the Fallen's defeat we had nothing, then suddenly now they reappear."

"Megatron may be making a move again. We should treat this as a potential warning," Elita One advised, rolling up beside her red sister, "But this has been good hunting."

Jolt looked down at the four Deception bodies on the ground as well.

"So's this all of 'em?" he asked.

The sound of an incoming missile startled them suddenly then. Before they could react, a large explosion blew the group of Autobots in various directions. They landed heavily, scattered around the road. Stunned and dazed from the explosion, they looked up as a large shadow descended over them. They gaped. A behemoth of a Decepticon that was of a similar double-wheeled design to Demolisher from their Shanghai mission over two years previous loomed menacingly over them. Several charging canons emerged from the giant Decepticon's body.

"Autobots," the giant Decepticon boomed, "I give you termination!"

The helpless Autobots prepared themselves for the end.

Instead, they watched in amazement as two Decepticon jets came crashing down into the Demolisher look-alike, screaming. The impact of the Decepticon fliers against him caused the giant Decepticon to reel back. The two jets rebounded off him and slammed into the ground. Smoke rose from obvious heat damage on the bodies of the jets that exposed sparking Cybertronian circuitry within them.

Appearing out of a ball of blinding light and with a thundering boom, a glowing figure soared down from the sky.

"Optimus!" a relieved Elita One cried out.

Illuminated wing blades swivelled downwards and brought the masked Autobot leader to a hovering stop above the giant Decepticon. The Autobots watched in awe as Optimus held out a hand and, with unseen forces, seized the Decepticon that was six times his size. Then, fisting his hand and pulling it roughly sideways, he caused the giant Decepticon to topple onto his side, gripped by the Prime's invisible telekinetic powers. The road concrete cracked as the full weight of the Decepticon behemoth smashed down into it. The grounded Decepticon giant glared aggressively up at the hovering Prime above him.

"You cannot defeat the Decepticons!" he roared in fury.

Optimus brought his arms back, burning with radiant blue veins, and his hands began generating globules of blue energy. His optics flared like miniature white suns in the night. His voice rumbled like travelling thunder.

"We shall see."

His energized hands shot forward and he fired. It was a devastating and breathtaking sight. A beam of incinerating pure blue energy pierced through the head of the toppled Decepticon giant. His huge body twitched once then lay still. Bright blue energon leaked from the smouldering hole blown through his head. The watching Autobots gaped in astonishment for a second time that night.

Optimus Prime subdued his burning energies as he lowered himself down to his rising Autobots. He surveyed them for damage. They seemed functional with minor external dents and scrapes on their armour, though they were looking from the giant offlined Decepticon to him with stunned and wary optics. Uncomfortably, Optimus tried to avoid their stares by turning toward Elita One who was still leaning on the ground and offering his hand to help her up. She accepted it with a small smile and he pulled her upright onto her single-wheeled leg.

"Nice shot, Optimus," Ironhide commented slowly, his optics still fixed in mild shock at the smouldering head of the giant Decepticon, "Guess those new powers of yours are going to be very useful."

Optimus gazed down at his gently glowing hands thoughtfully. Then suddenly, the Seeker Silverbolt's voice came through on his in-built head communicator. He raised a hand over his left audio receptor, listening intently.

"Lord Prime, we have another Decepticon signal west of your position."

Optimus dropped his hand down to his side and turned back to his Autobots. A serious and commanding light shone from his royal blue optics.

"The hunt is not yet over. Roll out, Autobots!"

The Autobots transformed into their vehicle modes and began driving away. The last Prime spread his vibrant blue wing blades and took to the air. He plunged like a shooting star into the darkness of the night sky. An old and weary thought whispered again through his mind:

"And so the war continues..."

As they had done many times before, the hunters went in search of their next target.

End.