History Main / TerminatorTwosome

* ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable: The Gears of Destiny'' has WellIntentionedExtremist Kyrie Florian jumping back in time to retrieve an artifact that could help her scientist father save their dying planet. IdiotHero Amitie Florian then jumps back in time to stop her, since as said father mentioned, interfering with the time stream could lead to even worse consequences than the destruction of their already evacuated planet. [[spoiler:In addition, the both of them are also RidiculouslyHumanRobots]].

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In Comicbook/{{X-Men}}, Cable came back in time to prevent the future he grew up in. Stryfe, his [[EvilTwin evil clone]], then came back in time to stop him -- not so much because he was hugely enamoured of their home era, but rather because he lived to screw with Cable's life. Oh, and then Cable's evil adopted son came back as well...
** Slightly less directly, Bishop originally came back in time hunting a group of time-traveling criminals, but then decided to use his new location to protect the X-Men and prevent his home timeline. The criminals he was hunting don't seem overly concerned with this.
*** He only joined the X-Men after he had killed off almost all the criminals he came back to find. The leader of the survivors was a recurring villain for several years.
** And then there was the Legionquest story, which culminated in Professor X's evil son (yes, this is something of a recurring theme for the X-Men) traveling back to the 1950s in order to kill Magneto before he becomes powerful. An entire ''team'' of X-Men go after him. Between them, they screw things up even worse.
** Current X-Men storylines have Cable jumping into the future to protect a girl he believes will become TheMessiah, while Bishop wants to kill her because in ''his'' original timeline she becomes an AntiChrist.
** Also worth noting is the fact that, hilariously, Cable seems to react to every single piece of legislation worth mentioning in any comic with the assumption that it's the first step on the way to his horrible future. CivilWar ''alone'' contained at least three separate instances of this.
*** To be fair, he's from the year 4000. He clearly has no idea what he's talking about...ever.
* IronMan and [[FantasticFour Doctor Doom]] for some reason do this often. They wound up in Camelot once, and another time they inverted the trope by traveling to the future. Often, though they end up [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]] and working together to get back.
** And again in Bendis' MightyAvengers. It helps that both Doom and Stark have ''nothing'' to gain from changing anything in the specific past periods they enter, and both would rather keep the present they have. Seeing as it's dangerous to fuck with reality and all that.
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** Well, sort of. While "Demon with a Glass Hand" is recognized as one of the inspirations for Terminator the settlement was actually over claims that Cameron had ripped off another Ellison Outer Limits episode, "Soldier", which would fit this trope if the second half of the twosome didn't wait until the end of the episode to show up.

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[[folder: Film ]]

* Happens in ''BackToTheFuture Part II'', when Marty and Doc travel back to 1955 to undo Old Biff's tampering with the timeline.
* At the end of ''[[{{Ptitle6do5gv7z}} 2009: Lost Memories]]'', Saigo and Sakamoto end up in the past struggling to avoid or ensure the assassination of Ito Hirobumi.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

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[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

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* A two-episode arc from the '90s ''Series/{{X-Men}}'' cartoon involved Bishop traveling from the BadFuture to the present day, attempting to prevent the outbreak of a mutant plague. His actions backfire, however, and result in the deaths of the X-Men and the complete extinction (rather than just decimation) of mutants--so Cable comes from an ''even further'' future to stop Bishop.

** You've also got the more basic variety in most time travel episodes. First it's Bishop and Nimrod, then it's the Cable and Bishop thing, then it's Bishop and Fitzroy, then it's Shard and the various agents of Apocalypse (though they're from the present, Apocalypse is the version from Cable's future.) [[spoiler: In the end, the BadFuture is NOT prevented, but at least they always managed to stop those who'd make it any worse.]]
* Replace individual with faction and this was the plot of the third season of ''BeastWars'', when it turns out Megatron's plan to go back in time to destroy Optimus Prime didn't go as completely off the rails as initially thought.

** The show's main plot has shades of this as well: Kiva and MEGAS are sent back in time ([[{{Understatement}} a bit further back than expected]]) and the Glorft commander followed her.

[[AC:{{Anime}}]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

** In TheSarahConnorChronicles, another evil robot is sent back to kill John Connor as a teenager, and a reprogrammed robot who [[RobotGirl looks like a cute waif of a girl]] is sent back to protect him. Over the course of the series, other robots and human resistance fighters are also sent back.

** The first sequel plays it straight, with Austin following Evil into the past.
* Likewise, ''Time After Time'' has H.G. Wells traveling into the future in pursuit of Jack the Ripper.
* ''{{Timecop}}'' features Jean-Claude Van Damme as, well, a Timecop who travels to the past to apprehend criminals who threaten to change the timeline.
* ''{{Trancers}}'' When an evil psychic goes back in time to present day Los Angeles, Jack Deth is sent back to stop him.

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[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''TheSarahConnorChronicles''. See above under "Film".
* ''QuantumLeap'', in later seasons, features an [[EvilCounterpart Evil Leaper]] who tries to undo the positive changes in the past wrought by Sam Beckett.
* ''TimeTrax'' is a variation. The hero was sent back into the past to retrieve several escaped criminals who escaped to the past with the help of a MadScientist. This trope applies since the MadScientist himself also escaped into the past, and several times his schemes in the past threaten to change the timeline, and the hero must stop him.
* This was the central idea of ''TruCalling'', though by the time it was revealed that this was the case and the conflict between Tru (change the past to save people) and her counterpart (keep this past the same and let people die) properly introduced the show was on the verge of being cancelled, so the idea was never fully developed.

* The whole concept of the oft-mentioned Time War in the new series of ''Doctor Who'', with the Time Lords themselves waging war against a galaxy-spanning Imperial Dalek fleet. The war was so big, most other species were too technologically underdeveloped to even notice.

[[AC:VideoGames]]

* Played with both ways in ''DarkCloud 2'': Emperor Griffon, who resides [[spoiler:10 thousand]] years into the past, is doing battle with LaResistance 100 years into the ''future.'' In order to eliminate them, he sends out his [[TheDragon agent]] into the ''present'', to destroy his enemies' settlements and erase them from existence. Enter [[RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething Monica]], from 100 years in the future, whose CosmicKeystone allows her to travel back to the present. With the help of the present-day protagonist, Max, she restores her allies' "Origin Points" and preserves future history (and, in one notable case, improves upon it.) Of course, Griffon's agent Gaspard will try to thwart their efforts....

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[[AC:ComicBooks]]

*** He only joined the X-Men after he had killed off almost all the criminals he came back to find. The leader of the survivors was a recurring villain for several years.

** And again in Bendis' MightyAvengers. It helps that both Doom and Stark have ''nothing'' to gain from changing anything in the specific past periods they enter, and both would rather keep the present they have. Seeing as it's dangerous to fuck with reality and all that.

[[AC:WebComics]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

* In ''TheApocalypseTroll'' by David Weber (of HonorHarrington fame), an alien-created [[OmnicidalManiac cyborg-modified human]] is sent back in time to destroy humanity before they develop FTL space travel. A human space-naval officer also goes back in time to stop it.

* In the ''[[BelisariusSeries Belisarius]]'' series by Eric Flint and DavidDrake, two artificial intelligences from opposite sides of a far-future war get sent back to the early middle ages, one to try and alter the timeline so the evil side wins the future war, the other to try and stop the first one, via recruiting local BadassNormal allies.

* As does one of the ''AustinPowers'' movies. When Doctor Evil returns, Austin Powers himself is unfrozen to deal with him.

* DragonBallZ: Cell and Trunks.

* In a variant on ''TeenTitans'', Warp from the far future is followed through a time-gate by Starfire from the present, and she winds up hunting for him [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Twenty Minutes Into The]] BadFuture.

** You've also got the more basic variety in most time travel episodes. First it's Bishop and Nimrod, then it's the Cable and Bishop thing, then it's Bishop and Fitzroy, then it's Shard and the various agents of Apocalypse. [[spoiler: In the end, the BadFuture is NOT prevented, but at least they always managed to stop those who'd make it any worse.]]

* JackieChanAdventures did this with a FutureBadass version of Jade and [[BigBad Shendu's]] KidFromTheFuture, Drago, in ''J2''. Future! Jade's arrival was even accompanied by Terminator-style music.

* Inverted like ''crazy'' by ''BrutalLegend''. [[spoiler: The evil "Emperor" (actually Empress, but demons don't differentiate apparently) Succoria is sent forwards in time, along with humanity's greatest warrior Riggnarok, who has sworn to slay her and is effectively her time-travel stowaway. When she reaches the future, she suffers a VillanousBSOD when she realises that humanity wins. Instead of slaying her, Riggnarok begins to feel the inklings of pity, and, well, the road gets lonely...]]

* ''{{Earthbound}}'' displays this right at the beginning of the game. Giygas chose to stop Ness while he was still weak by sending a Starman Jr. back in time to [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim kill him directly]]. Luckily for Ness, a time-travelling alien named Buzz Buzz found him first to protect him. Unfortunately, Buzz Buzz dies shortly afterward.

* In ''TheApocalypseTroll'' by David Weber (of HonorHarrington fame), an alien-created cyborg-modified human is sent back in time to destroy humanity before they develop FTL space travel. A human space-naval officer also goes back in time to stop it.

** Actually, it started as two entire StandardSciFiFleet battle groups fighting both before and after the actual time travel, but each side only had a single survivor left after all the nukes finished flying.

* ''Trancers'' When an evil psychic goes back in time to present day Los Angeles, Jack Deth is sent back to stop him.

* JackieChanAdventures did this with a FutureBadass version of Jade and [[BigBad Shendu's]] KidFromTheFuture, Drago, in ''J2''. Future! Jade's arrival was even accompanied by Terminator-style music

* The {{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/NightWatch'' features Sam Vimes and a criminal both [[LightningCanDoAnything accidentally going back in time]], and Sam Vimes has to stop him from changing history for the worse.