Author's Note: Well, at long freakin' last, we're at the official last chapter of Hunted. :) Again, thank you so much for sticking with me and the story – it's been a real pleasure writing for you all. Now, without further ado, I give you chapter 16.

Disclaimer: I own… you all at Gears of War 2, as does my kick-ass brother. :D

Brothers note: I KICK ASS ON INSAAAANE MOTHER FUCKERS! :3

Er… yeah. Anywho, enjoy, and hopefully, I'll see you all again soon! :)

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John's P.O.V.

The T-1000 was dead.

John honestly felt like his heart had just stopped, or like what he'd just witnessed was an illusion of some sort. There was no way that the thing that had been chasing him, Nik, and Sarah for the past two days had just... ceased to exist the way it did. A single thumper round... Christ, if he had known that that was all it would take to really destroy the liquid metal man, John might've had the terminator use one on him sooner, and spare everyone all the chaos they'd been subjected to.

Speaking of the terminator...

Immediately, the thought had John on his feet, and running to the terminator, who was struggling to stand up. Quickly, he wrapped an arm around his guardian's beefy waist, and attempted to hoist him up. "Get up, c'mon," he grunted, the muscles in his arm straining and aching in their attempt to pull up the terminator. No matter how he pulled and tugged though, the robot wouldn't move; he was just too heavy.

It wasn't until Nik noticed, hobbled over, and wrapped her arms around the terminator's massive chest that John was able to get him on his feet. "Thanks," he said a little breathlessly once the two managed to prop the robot up against a support beam.

"Yeah, course," Nik breathed back. "No problem."

John only nodded, then shifted his gaze to the terminator. To say that he looked a little worse for wear would've been a gross understatement; he honest-to-god looked like he'd been chewed up and spit back out by a wood chipper, he was so torn up. Hell, he was barely functioning at this point.

Jesus H. Christ bud, you look like hell...

He grimaced slightly at the terminator's heavily-scarred face. "Holy shit."

The terminator simply looked at John and the expression of shock on his face, and said "I need a vacation" as dead-seriously as possible. Neither John nor Nik laughed at the comment; they both understood that it hadn't been intended as a joke. It had been a simple statement of truth - that their guardian "needed a vacation," and a damn long one, too.

The terminator then (with much effort) proceeded to limp over to where Sarah was standing, who had taken to staring down at the steel pit with a blank look in her eyes, and stood beside her, also looking down at the pit. Nik and John soon followed, and stood on the other side of Sarah.

John remained silent for a moment as he stared down at the dark clumps of metal floating on the steel's surface like leaves floating on water. He then took a breath, and asked solemnly, "Is it dead?"

The terminator nodded once. "Terminated."

It suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off John the moment that one word escaped the terminator's mouth. The T-1000 had been terminated - at long last, Skynet's lean, mean, damn-near invincible killing machine had finally been defeated, reduced to liquid nothing amidst molten steel. For a moment, the only thing he could think was that it was all over, that there would be no more nightmares, no more scrapes with death, no more fear...

Until he remembered the arm from the first terminator stuffed in his backpack.

Wordlessly, John slipped off his backpack, and withdrew the original terminator's arm. He then turned towards the terminator, his terminator, and held it up for him to see. "Will this melt in there?"

The question was briefly contemplated before finally being answered. "Yes. Throw it in."

It was enough for John. For a second, he palmed the arm in his hands, face completely blank as he did. Funny, he thought, that something so harmless could have the power to wipe us out without a second thought. He snorted as the thought rolled through his head then. Not anymore...

Without another moment's hesitation, he chucked it into the pit below him and the others with a sharp "Adios!" It hurtled through the heated air for all of two seconds, then fell into the steel with a red-orange spray and quick splash.

As soon as the arm disappeared, the terminator fixed his gaze on John. "And the chip," he added.

This time, there were no harsh words reserved for the small piece of hardware. As John pulled it out of his shirt pocket, he simply looked at it, his mind empty and his body motionless. He then unceremoniously tossed it into the pit, and watched in silence as it went up in a single flame, and fizzled away into eternal nothingness.

Good riddance.

Sarah heaved a heavy sigh of relief. "It's over," she said in a soft, breathy voice.

If this nightmare really was over, then it most certainly didn't feel like it to John. Even now, there was a heavy sense of doubt hanging over everyone's head that was as equally thick and suffocating as the heated, steel-laced air that swirled around him and the others. It couldn't be this simple, there was just no way in hell; there had to be more to this than just simply melting a damaged computer chip and a robotic arm - a LOT more.

But what is it?

It wasn't until the word "no" escaped from the terminator that John received his answer. At first, he didn't understand what was being implied - not when Nik and Sarah stared at the terminator with looks of stunned shock on their faces, not even when the robot itself said, "There is one more chip, and it must be destroyed also," and tapped his damaged skull with his finger.

Face stoic, the terminator picked up a remote, and handed it off to Sarah. "Here. I cannot self-terminate," he told her. "You must lower me into the pit."

The moment those words were said, everything finally made sense to John. It was the terminator. He was the final chip, the final piece.

No... No, this can't be right...

All of a sudden, white noise seemed to erupt everywhere as John stared at the terminator, and his stomach gave a panicky lurch. No, he couldn't have heard what he thought he just heard. This had to be some big mistake, a clusterfuck. Maybe the terminator was delusional (if that was even possible), or part of his CPU had gotten damaged while he was fighting off the T-1000. Yeah, that had to be it! He couldn't actually be serious about destroying himself, could he?

Unfortunately, the look on the terminator's and Sarah's face begged to differ. Suddenly, John wanted to throw up.

Holy shit, he's serious.

"No... No..."

The terminator looked grimly at John. "I'm sorry John-"

"No! No, stay with us! It'll be okay!" Vainly, he grabbed at the terminator's jacket, fingers digging into the tattered piece of clothing. He wasn't gonna let him go anywhere - not if he - and Nik a brief moment later - could help it.

The terminator gave both John and Nik another grim-faced look. "I have to go," he said quietly.

"No! Don't do it, please don't go!"

"Please, you can't leave us!" Nik squeaked, voice trembling and eyes shiny with unshed tears. "Stay with us, please! Don't leave us!"

"I'm sorry." With a quick shimmy of his shoulders, the terminator shrugged out of John and Nik's grasp, and went to grab hold of some chains hanging over the steel pit.

Seeing as his first attempt at salvation had failed, John tried another tactic. "No, wait! Wait, you don't have to do this!"

Again, the same "I'm sorry," and again, the same "Don't do it! Don't go!"

For a moment, the terminator was speechless; he simply stared down at the pit he was about to die in. As he stared, Nik approached him, attempted to reason with him. "It can't end here," she said to him, her words heavily laced with despair. "It can't end here! You can't do this! You can't end it here!"

He only blinked. "It has to end here."

NO!

John couldn't take it anymore; in desperation, he threw himself at the terminator, and tried to pull him away from the edge of the pit. "I order you not to go," he snarled hoarsely. "I order you not to go! I order you not to go!"

He slowly looked up at the terminator. As he did, tears slowly began to run down his face. Why did this have to happen? The T-1000 was dead! Everyone was safe, alive! Why the fuck couldn't he see this? Why couldn't he see that they needed him?

Why couldn't he see that John loved him, that Nik loved him? To lose him now... God, the thought alone was enough to torture John. He didn't want this - he didn't want it AT ALL.

Silently, the terminator reached out, and touched the tip of his finger to a tear rolling down John's cheek. "I know now why you cry," he told him in a gentle, sad voice, "but it's something I can never do."

Through blurry eyes, John stared at his guardian. Then, he suddenly rushed at him, and, burying his face into his torso, wrapped his arms around him in a tight, desperate hug. For a moment, the terminator, slightly startled by John's actions, stood frozen on the platform. Then, he slowly pulled the shaking child close to him, and simply held him, silent as he listened to him cry.

A moment later, the terminator felt something press softly into his chest; he realized it was Nik when he glanced down, and he realized that she, too, was crying. Closing his one good eye, he pulled her close with what remained of his other arm. This was not going to be easy for them, his death.

A minute passed before he pulled away from the two teens. When he did, he turned to Sarah. Silently, she held out her hand, an offering of peace, thanks, and camaraderie. The terminator paused, then grasped her small hand with his own, and shook it. Friends at last, the handshake seemed to say. Friends at last.

He then retracted his hand, and resumed his slow walk to the edge of the platform - the slow walk to his own death. As he stepped onto the large steel hook hanging over the pit, he looked at John, Nik and Sarah, and softly bid them "Goodbye," all too aware of the tears running down the faces of the two teens, and all too aware of the somber, gloomy look on Sarah's face.

Wordlessly, she pressed a button on the remote, and began the terminator's slow descent into the steel pit.

Not once did the terminator's eyes stray from the three standing above him on the platform; and though John wanted to turn away, he kept his eyes solely on the terminator.

It felt wrong to John - so wrong. After all he'd done for him, after all he'd done for Nik, the terminator didn't deserve to die. He'd saved their lives; why couldn't they save his now?

He wanted to say something, tell his mother to stop. Why should he die for me? Too many people have died for me!

But the words never came. And so the descent continued.

The terminator now hung a few mere inches above the pit, so close to the steel that it looked like he was standing on it. And then, one foot submerged and flared up, then the other. Soon, he was slowly being engulfed in flames and molten steel.

The tears that had been falling down John's face now seemed to fall faster and harder, and his chest lurched up and down as he struggled to breathe. He was truly in a nightmare now; his guardian - the closest thing he had to a real father - was leaving him. He was never coming back.

As he watched the terminator sink lower into the pit, John reached out, and grabbed Nik's hand, squeezing so tightly his knuckles turned white. This was it - this was the last time he'd ever see the terminator.

In his last moment, the terminator looked up at John, and gave him a thumbs-up. Then, he sank to the bottom of the pit, and disappeared from John's sight forever.

And John, utterly grief-stricken, turned to Sarah, buried his face in her shoulder, and sobbed.

Goodbye.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Okay, good news and bad news. Good news first: I just realized I actually have one more chapter left after this one for Hunted. I originally wanted to write more for this chapter and THEN be done with it, but I can't exactly do that without it becoming a huge chapter-zilla. So, the other half will be its own chapter. Woot! :) Bad news: The chapter after this one WILL be the last for this story. :( That said, I'm happy I have one more left in me for this story! :) Anywho, R&R, and stay tuned for chapter 17! :D