A/N: It's 3:18 in the afternoon on a Saturday where I live, I'm hungry, I'm bored, and I'm listening to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on my mp3. Do the math, y'all.

…

"The Ponyboy Strikes Back"

…

The sky above his head burst in a navy blue blanket of stars. He did not know the hour, nor could he have known…but he knew what was to come of the evening.

The light streamed in yellow strips through the window, glowing in a neat square on the step. His brother sat in a chair in the living room, studying the paper with intense concern.

Ponyboy took a breath, then walked in, ducking his head down low. He bumped into Darry as he walked straight, unwavering in his resolve to reach sanctuary.

Ponyboy walked into the bathroom.

"Where the heck have you been?"

Ponyboy looked at him with wavering eyes as Darry swung open the door and grasped his shoulder.

"I…I went to sleep in the lot…" he mumbled.

"You what?" Darry half-shrieked. Sodapop yawned, sleepily walking into the room and to the encounter.

Just as Sodapop began to speak Darry whirled around, snapping at him; and something in Ponyboy's soul was pushed just a little bit more…

…over the edge.

"You don't yell at him!" he screamed.

His voice rang in the corners of the small room.

Darry's hand promptly met Ponyboy's face in a red stinging torrent of rage. Ponyboy buckled slightly beneath the force, his head twisting to the left and lowering to the banes of his brother's authority.

The tension among the two grew…and bubbled poisonously underneath the veils of the dark night.

All were silent as Ponyboy rose.

"Oh," Ponyboy said, wiping the blood from his mouth. "It's on."

Whipping out an AK-47, he fired off fifty-two magazines of ammunition at Darry, who tucked and rolled behind the dining room table.

"WTF?" screamed a wide-eyed Sodapop, despite the fact that in 1966 this phrase meant nothing.

"He's on the offense," Darry said. "Now, my comrade! We must quickly formulate a counter-strike to stunt his advance!"

He jammed two clips in a .50 AE Israeli Desert Eagle, cocking the hammer back. He peered around the cover. As Ponyboy paused to reload another lead magazine, he drew up the weapon and fired off all fourteen rounds, each time getting hit in the eye with smoking gold shells.

"Damn kickback," he grumbled, the gun now emptied of rounds. He tossed the barrel away, searching for a new weapon. He peered around the corner; Ponyboy already had a dirty black bandana wrapped around his head and was smoking a Cuban cigar from a newly dug trench in the living room floor.

Fumbling around in the kitchen cabinet, Darry pulled out a pair of hand-operated German chain guns.

Ponyboy ducked behind the couch as a barrage of bullets whipped past the cushion edges, spraying the entire room with a maelstrom of cotton bits.

Sodapop stared at them.

"Y'all are insane as hell, I'mma get outta here," he said, jumping out the window as a Bazooka bombed the bathroom door in response to Darry's attack.

"You shall never win!" Ponyboy shrieked, firing the rapid rounds of an Uzi straight through the ceiling. "Death to Darrel! Destruction to Darrel's terrorist regime! Long live the freedom of youth! Banzai! Banzai!"

A hand grenade sailed the air above Darry's head, consuming the kitchen in a fiery inferno.

"Try to slap me now, be-yotch," Ponyboy said.

A figure rose from the ashes and flame, emerging from steel depths pure and untouched.

Pony's eyes widened. "No…no…no…that's impossible…I KILLED YOU!"

"Not impossible, Ponyboy," Darry said. "Inevitable."

Darry looked at him; and Ponyboy groveled backwards on his vulnerable knees.

"I KNEW IT!" Ponyboy screeched, pointing a wavering finger of rage. "You're not my brother…you were too mean to be my brother…no, no, no, Darrel Curtis…"

He ripped off Darry's disguise.

"You're a TERMINATOR!"

Darry clapped in the sputtering, fiery light.

"Very good, Ponyboy," Darry said. "Indeed, I am not Darrel Curtis, but Terminator series model No. 64-07b…code-name: 'Swayze'. Objective: to find, track and permanently eliminate subject No. 564719257-0ba, code-name: 'Exasperatingly Whiny Little Brother'."

"I knew it, you scum," Ponyboy spat bitterly.

"The Swayze is not amused by your remark," Darry stated, his features blank.

Ponyboy lifted an eyebrow.

…

The battle had raged well on into the night; it was nearly dawn as Ponyboy narrowly escaped the blazing wreckage that was once a home.

"It's over," he sighed, clutching the fistful of metal that had been Darry's 'heart'. "It's over. You'll never hurt another person again...big brother."

Ponyboy collapsed in the street; and Johnny, just having wakened from his sleep in the park, spotted him, and ran over to help his friend.

"Johnny," Ponyboy moaned, his eyes half-closed.

"Oh, are you okay? What happened? Pony! Pony! Wake up!" Johnny shrilled.

Ponyboy was silent for a while. Then he opened his eyes.

"Pony? What's wrong? You're…all shook," Johnny said.

He did not respond, only glowered in the lights of the oncoming fire trucks. As he and Johnny looked onto them his answer floated through the air in a thick whisper.

"Darry hit me," Ponyboy said. "So I hit him back."

…