History Main / AlwaysaBiggerFish

* In ''[[TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu]],'' it is sometimes possible to summon the god Nodens to attack whatever primordial horror is pestering you. It's clear that Nodens doesn't give a fig about ''you,'' but he enjoys going after other primordial entities.

* ''Fanfic/TheUniversiad'': The Forum's Forerunner-derived tech base is still dwarfed by several others, among them Literature/TheCulture.
* In ''FanFic/ADreamOfDawn'', Nightmare Moon has overthrown Celestia, shattered the Elements of Harmony and rules Equestria with an iron hoof. Her reign lasts about five minutes after [[BigBad Discord]] returns.
* ''FanFic/BetweenMinds'': What's worse than a [[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Combine battalion]] capturing the hero? [[spoiler: A Xenian water monster, of course!]]
* In ''FanFic/ShadowsOfGiants'', an Oodako stalks a giant squid, only to be caught and eaten by Godzilla.
* In ''FanFic/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAvengerS'', what will happen if the TSAB have a diplomatic meeting with Earth? [[spoiler: The Asgardians will join in, obviously!]]
* ''Fanfic/ServiceWithASmile'': To a small independent coffee shop like Jaune's, the international coffee chain Cafe Prime is an invincible juggernaut with unlimited resources, and there is nothing he can do to stop them from destroying him. Then Cafe Prime accidentally insults the Schnee Dust Company, a world-spanning MegaCorp with power on par with the governments. When Jacques Schnee finds out about the insult, he just muses that utterly destroying them might be fun, and orders it done with as much attention as he might spare for ordering dinner.

* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': Comes into play in the sequel ''Diplomat at Large''. [[spoiler:The Powers have their own pecking order of sorts; in chapter 4, Chrysalis claims Celestia overstepped hers by imprisoning Chrysalis in a volcano, and that as the Lady of Self-Centeredness, she outranks Celestia. After Cadance points out that Chrysalis attacked ''two'' other Powers unprovoked, ''another'' Power shows up to put Chrysalis in her place by stripping her of her status - Discord, since as Lord of Disharmony, Self-Centeredness is one of his sub-Powers.]]
* ''Fanfic/TheInfiniteLoops'':
** Many of the Loops have beings of godlike power native to the setting. The Admins who are working to repair Yggdrasil are infinitely more powerful than ''all'' of them. It's the difference between a computer program and the programmer: No matter how powerful the program, it can't actually hurt the programmer.
** Most loopers (especially Anchors, who loop the most) soon reach the point where they can curb-stomp every single villain from their home universe by themselves. When they cross over into other universes, they really get a chance to shine, as they don't have the benefit of foreknowledge but can still curb-stomp everyone. In ''Fanfic/TheMLPLoops'', Twilight finds herself in the ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' loop, where she is possessed by the Other. The Other is an unfathomably intelligent [[BodySurf body-jumper]] that is centuries old at least and has been worshiped as a goddess by an entire species. Twilight kills her in seconds in a process described as plucking the wings off a fly.
** And then there are the Original Seven, the first Anchors, who are so unfathomably old that they are stronger than ''anyone'' else. Trixie mentions at one point that Lina has a spell that sells her soul to a demon god or equivalent local entity. Lina can use it as much as she wants because she knows there's no demon strong enough to threaten her. In fact, they are so unspeakably powerful that they have to be careful not to get any stronger, or their entire home universe might crash from their mere presence.
* ''Fanfic/ForgingABetterFuture'': The U.S. Government to Tempest. Tempest might control most, if not all of Starling through their corruption of the local government, but they are ''nothing'' compared to the sheer might of the federal government. Ultimately, this is how Oliver manages to take them down, by leaning on his own connections to the federal government through A.R.G.U.S., and by working with the local FBI field office, which is one of the few agencies Tempest couldn't corrupt.
* ''Fanfic/PrehistoricParkReturnedFromExtinction'': This is practically a RunningGag.
** The first chapter has Nigel being caught between a pair of ''[[GiantFlyer Quetzalcoatlus]]'' and ''[[RaptorAttack Dakotaraptor]]'' until a female ''[[KingOfTheDinosaurs Tyrannosaurus rex]]'' shows up and convinces the four predators to beat a hasty retreat.
** A quartet of ''Mei long'' that were harassing one of the camera crew book it through the portal when a pack of ''Sinotyrannus'' show up. Hilariously, the ''Sinnotyrannus'' weren't even after the ''Mei'' - they were chasing a group of ''Chuanqilong'' who just happened to burst into the same area as Nigel, his team, and their attackers.

* In ''Fanfic/GameTheoryLyricalNanoha'', Nanoha and Fate are outmatched by one of the Jewel Seed monsters until [[spoiler:Zest]] makes his appearance by killing it in one blow.
* In ''FanFic/TheUniversiad'', the Forum's Forerunner-derived tech base is still dwarfed by several others, among them Literature/TheCulture.

** In the fifth part of the ''Extinction Curse'' adventure path, ''Lord of the Black Sands'', the players are teleported to the Black Desert, a vast cavern deep BeneathTheEarth. Soon after they enter the desert proper, they're scripted to be attacked by three purple worms -- a somewhat challenging but not especially dangerous by that point in the adventure. In the third round of combat, however, the legendary vampiric shoggoth Iffdahsil bursts out of the sand like a vision from a nightmare, instantly devouring all surviving worms as it enters the field. Notably, Iffdahsil doesn't attack -- it's more bemused at the auras the players gain earlier in the story -- and serves chiefly as a reminder to the players that they're treading in a realm ruled by beings far beyond their power and comprehension.

* ''Machinima/GamingAllStars'': [[spoiler: [[VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant Doshin the Giant]]]] serves as this to [[VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay The Great Mighty Poo]], arriving just in time to dispatch him (With his foot in ''The Ultimate Crossover'', with a boulder in ''Remastered'') before rescuing Donkey Kong and his team.

** While escaping from Kong's lair Ann runs into a pair of the crocodilian monsters, Foetodon who spot and chase her down, she tries to hide in a hollow log, which prompts one of the Foetodon to tear at the wood to try to get her. Only for the creature's eyes to suddenly wide and it to scream in horror as something drags it out of the log and kills it scaring off the other one, after Ann runs out of the log to avoid getting attacked by a group of giant centipedes in it, she comes face to face with her [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyJob unintentional savior]] who then proceeds to [[FromBadToWorse chase her down]]: Vastatosaurus Rex.

* A quartet of ''Mei long'' that were harassing one of the camera crew book it through the portal when a pack of ''Sinotyrannus'' show up. Hilariously, the ''Sinnotyrannus'' weren't even after the ''Mei'' - they were chasing a group of ''Chuanqilong'' who just happened to burst into the same area as Nigel, his team, and their attackers.

** The heroine hides from a pair of the crocodilian monsters, Foetodon, in a hollow log, and it tears at the wood to try to get her. Only for the creature to suddenly scream in horror as something drags it out of the log and kills it, after Ann is scared out of the log by a group of centipedes in it, she comes face to face with her [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyJob unintentional savior]] who then proceeds to [[FromBadToWorse chase her down]]: Vastatosaurus Rex.

** The heroine hides from a huge carnivorous lizard in a hollow log, and it tears at the wood to try to get her. Suddenly it stops, and she seems safe... until ''half'' the same lizard is seen dangling from the jaws of a ginormous ''V. rex'', which just bit it in two.
** In one scene during the extended cut, the film crew is attacked by a swarm of large aquatic centipedes while rafting down a swamp. All the centipedes abruptly retreat at once, and after a moment of discomforting silence, the rafts are now attacked by a [[SeaMonster gigantic predatory fish]] which rams the makeshift boats to splinters.
** Kong himself is a near constant example of this trope in the first half of the movie, as he repeatedly kills a number of animals that are trying to eat Anne Darrow.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': In "[[Recap/PokemonS1E46AttackOfThePrehistoricPokemon Attack of the Prehistoric Pokemon]]", Ash, Pikachu, and Team Rocket are stuck underground with some recently-awoken and very grumpy Omanytes, Omastars, Kabuto, and Kabutops. After some back-and-forth battling, the ancient Pokemon have them on the ropes when they suddenly look around in a panic and flee. Ash wonders why they're running. [[GiantFlyer Cue]] [[PrehistoricMonster Aerodactyl]].

* In ''LightNovel/KumaKumaKumaBear'', the protagonist Yuna is escorting a group of young students from a monster academy. What should have been a peaceful, week-long field trip/practical test to a remote village becomes dangerous when goblins suddenly appear in the roads and endanger human lives. Yuna quickly finds out the reason: [[spoiler:they were running from the ''much'' larger and dangerous Black Tigerwolf.]]

** Over the decades, the WorfEffect has hit Galactus pretty hard. If you want to show your new cosmic threat is serious business, let him smack Galactus hard enough that he feels it. But the two main Bigger Fish Galactus has encountered over the years are the Beyonder, who ran roughshod over the whole Marvel Universe in ''Secret Wars II,'' and Abraxas, who it turns out is a ''multiversal'' threat held in check by the energies absorbed by the planet-eating of every Galactus in the multiverse.

* ''Literature/TheButterBattleBook'': An ArmsRace between the Yooks and Zooks, where both sides are feuding about [[SillyReasonForWar whether to butter your toast on the top or bottom]], sees them go from whips to slingshots to catapults to guns to bombs to mega-bombs, with the Zooks frequently one-upping the Yooks' weapons until it reaches an AmbiguousEnding with both sides involved in a MexicanStandoff...

** In the BadEnding of ''Rise of the Runelords'', if [[BigBad Karzoug]] returns to the Material Plane and the [=PCs=] don't sabotage the [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos the denizens of Leng's]] plans in time, Karzoug's entrance into the world completes a ritual that allows [[EldritchAbomination Mhar]], a volcanic horror trapped and gestating beneath the mountain Karzoug's fortress city of Xin-Shalast is built on, to be born aeons ahead of schedule. Its cataclysmic birth annihilates Xin-Shalast -- Karzoug himself survives, but all his followers there perish and he is forced to flee. The side-effects of Mhar's birth alone are devastating enough to completely overshadow any threat Karzoug's plans pose, let alone what a newborn Great Old One let loose in the physical world would do, and the scenario explicitly mentions that the [=PCs=] and Karzoug may be forced to [[StrangeBedfellows ally with each other]] to face Mhar.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS6E4And5StewieKillsLoisAndLoisKillsStewie Lois Kills Stewie]]", Lois describes via flashback that she took a job at a fat camp. At one point she has to take one of the campers out of another camper's mouth ([[DontExplainTheJoke 'cause he's fat see, so he'd want to eat whatever he could]]), and then she has to pull another camper out of the mouth of the camper she'd just rescued.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S02E10KingDinosaur King Dinosaur]]'' features two astronauts trapped in a cave by a ''TyrannosaurusRex'' that is [[{{Slurpasaur}} actually an iguana]]. The arrival of a baby alligator with a fin glued on its back, and the ensuing "dinosaur" battle, allows them to make their getaway.

* In ''VideoGame/JurassicParkTheGame'', the ''TyrannosaurusRex'' reprises its role in eating raptors to the protagonists' benefit.

* In ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis2'', the ''TyrannosaurusRex'' stalking Regina and Dylan is taken down by a ''Giganotosaurus''.

** The opening credits sequence has a gag where the minions find a boss, that boss is eaten, and the minions want to serve the new creature... until that creature is eaten as well, culminating in the Minions serving a ''TyrannosaurusRex''.

* ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'': At the end of the movie, Flick deals with the grasshopper BigBad by [[spoiler:luring him to the nest of the insect-eating bird that had appeared as a giant, monstrous menace earlier in the film]].

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': It's possible for this to happen when multiple monsters are in the same area. Example: Qurupeco [[EnemySummoner summons]] Deviljho. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Deviljho kills Qurupeco.]] [[InstantWinCondition Objective complete! Returning to village in 1 min.]]

* ''ForgingABetterFuture'': The U.S. Government to Tempest. Tempest might control most, if not all of Starling through their corruption of the local government, but they are ''nothing'' compared to the sheer might of the federal government. Ultimately, this is how Oliver manages to take them down, by leaning on his own connections to the federal government through A.R.G.U.S., and by working with the local FBI field office, which is one of the few agencies Tempest couldn't corrupt.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': It's hinted that the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]] are not actually invading the Milky Way, but instead fleeing from '''[[UnseenEvil something]]''' in their home galaxy. Given the vastness of the setting, its not uncommon for two factions to be fighting only for a third to stop in and wallop one or both sides in pursuit of its own goals. In one instance, a T'au colony was about to be destroyed by a Tyranid swarm when a Necron Tomb World activated and destroyed the Tyranids. The grateful T'au threw a celebration in honor of their rescuers, only for the Necrons to turn around and destroy the T'au without a second thought.

** Point of order: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20091027184617/https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/10/26/2009-10-26_10foot_great_white_shark_bitten_nearly_in_half_by_20foot_monster_shark_near_aust.html The shark]] was still alive when it was hauled out of the water. Great whites are amazingly tough to survive a wound like that.

** Over the decades, the WorfEffect has hit Galactus pretty hard. If you want to show your new cosmic threat is serious business, let him smack Galactus hard enough that he feels it. But the two main Bigger Fish Galactus has encountered over the years are the Beyonder, who ran roughshod over the whole Marvel Universe in Secret Wars II, and Abraxas, who it turns out is an even ''bigger'' threat held in check by the energies absorbed by the planet-eating of every Galactus in the multiverse.

** In ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' storyline ''ComicBook/JudgmentInInfinity'', the incredibly powerful Adjudicator has stomped over Diana and her allies effortlessly. Before he can obliterate the heroines together with their home worlds, though, he is stopped and whisked away by his ''massively'' powerful overseers, who are not happy about being bothered by his annoying antics.

** Apparently [[Satan]] is no exception either, as shown by the introduction of the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Super Devil]].