Best of MP: Terminator vs. Highlander

Sarah Connor McLeod, proud Highlander woman, is tending her sheep in the Scottish Highlands, when a hulking stranger wearing a kilt approaches.

Terminator: Are you Sarah Connor McLeod?

Sarah: I am. Sarah Connor McLeod of the Clan McCleod. And who might you be, stranger?

Terminator: I am a cyborg sent from the future to kill you. I was reprogrammed by a resistance fighter and sent here to prevent a terrible catastrophe.

Sarah: Kill me? But why? I'm just a poor Scottish peasant type person, living in the Scottish Highlands.

Terminator: You will give birth to a son who will be named Connor McLeod. He will be immortal, as long as nobody chops his head off.

Sarah: Well, that doesn't sound like a bad thing.

Terminator: Yes, but in the 20th century he will father a daughter, who will be called Sarah Connor. And she, in turn, will give birth to John Connor, who is destined to be the leader of the resistance. He will lead humanity to victory against a race of intelligent machines who are trying to eradicate mankind.

Sarah: John Connor? That's odd. My husband's name is John Connor.

Terminator: It was long believed that John Connor died fighting the cyborgs, but we have learned that he dreaded the thought of living a life without purpose after the war was over, so he fled to a more exciting time, long before the cyborgs were ever created.

Sarah: Wait, are you saying...?

Terminator: Ma'am, your husband is not really a cod merchant from Cork. He is John Connor, the leader of the resistance, who was born in the year 1985.

Sarah: No! But that means....

Terminator: That's right, John is his own great-grandfather. We believe that is how this whole immortality thing started. Something about endless recursion in the gene pool.

Sarah: My lands, that's terrible! Now that you mention it, though, it does explain some things. But wait, you still haven't told me why you need to kill me. Sure, John going back in time and marrying his great-grandmother is a little kinky, but....

Terminator: We believe that what he did caused a rift in the space time continuum. All kinds of horrible, unexplainable things are going to start happening.

Sarah: You mean like Egyptians with Spanish names and Scottish accents?

Terminator: Exactly! History itself has become unglued. When you start mucking around with chronological recursion, the principle of cause and effect breaks down. Literally anything could happen, in any order, for no particular reason. Connor could be inexplicably replaced by a younger, better looking cousin, for example. Aliens could start arriving from other planets, trying to kill him.

Sarah: ...Mario Van Peebles could show up, playing a completely unconvincing villain.

Terminator: See, it's happening already. Mario Van Peebles won't be born for 400 years! You shouldn't even know who he is!

Sarah: Remember his breakout performance in Heartbreak Ridge, when everyone was saying what a big deal he was going to be?

Terminator: Stop it! You're only making things worse. I have to kill you so that none of this will ever have happened.

Sarah: Why didn't you just sneak up behind me and kill me? Why did you have to tell me all of this?

Terminator: In my short time here in the Scottish Highlands, I have learned what it means to be human. I am no longer a soulless machine.

Sarah: It's the kilt. Put a kilt on a guy and suddenly he thinks he's no longer a soulless machine. Hark! I think that's my husband on yonder ridge!

Terminator: You think?

Sarah: It's hard to tell sometimes. He can look like at least four different people.

While they watch the man with oddly indeterminate features approach, suddenly another man, slightly less bulky than the Terminator, but also built like a bodybuilder, shimmers into existence before their eyes.

Sarah: Is that...?

Terminator: It's Jean Claude Van Damme. Cheap knockoff of the T100 series. They make 'em in Taiwan.

Van Damme: Hello, folks. I'm agent Max Walker of the Timecop division. I was sent here to investigate a disturbance in the space-time continuum.

Terminator: Everything is under control here, officer.

Sarah: What's with the accent? Is everybody in the future from France or something?

Van Damme: France! I'm from Belgium! You never heard of the "Muscles from Brussels"?

Sarah: Why do you have a Dutch name and a French accent? Who do you think you are, Mario Van Peebles?

Terminator: Belgium is a product of the rift in the space-time continuum. Belgians are a little indecisive as a result.

Sarah: You mean the Belgians waffle?

Terminator: Ha! Good one, Sarah.

Van Damme: You're one to talk, Terminator. Explain to me why you're the only terminator model to sport an Austrian accent again?

Terminator: The terminators were designed to be able to infiltrate groups of humans undetected, but the early models weren't very effective. So they gave us Austrian accents. That way, if we did something really weird, people would just say, "Oh, don't mind Karl. He's Austrian."

Sarah: Good thinking.

Terminator: I've been programmed to kill Sarah Connor McLeod, thereby preventing the rift in the space-time continuum from ever having happened. That should take care of your disturbance, officer.

Van Damme: But if you prevent the rift, then Belgium will cease to exist! I'll never become a movie star!

Terminator: Yes, and it should also prevent any number of other inexplicable events.

John Connor walks up.

John: What's going on here? That's my wife you're getting friendly with.

Terminator: Not to mention your nana.

John: You! So you've come back in time once again to finish me off.

Terminator: Not you. Your wife. And your nana.

John: Who sent you here?

Terminator: You did, John. When the future you realizes the sort of havoc you caused by having sex with your great-grandmother, you sent me back in time to kill her before you give birth to your father, thus preventing yourself from ever being born!

Sarah: But if he's never born, then he can't send you back here to kill me either.

Terminator: True.

Sarah: So by killing me, you're saving my life.

Terminator: I suppose so.

Sarah: Ok, I guess I'm alright with that. As long as I never have to sit through Universal Soldier again.

Terminator: Not a problem. The "Muscles from Brussels" will never have existed.

Van Damme: I don't feel so good.

Terminator: Oh, and this will take care of Dolph Lundgren too.

Sarah: Hmmm. I have to admit, it's tempting.

Suddenly yet another figure shimmers into existence. It is a strange looking humanoid creature, with a long face, eyes on short stalks, and flap-like ears that reach almost to its knees.

Creature: Meesuh Jar Jar Binks!

Sarah: Oh, for f---'s sake. Just kill me already.