- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if Elfangor and Loren raised Tobias?", the Fangors may have no morphing ability, but they're proficient with guns.
- Parting the Clouds: In a world of mind-controlling slugs, auto-healing shapeshifters and ultra-strong alien robots with perfect hologram capabilities, the Star Defenders survive by... being kinda good at gymnastics.
- In "What if Tom was never a Controller?", Tom helps out the Animorphs by being a sniper using stolen Dracon beams at first.
Crossovers
- In Avenger Knight, as per usual Batman has no super powers, but through his intelligence, equipment and fighting ability he is more then capable of pulling his weight with the original six Avengers, in addition to fighting and defeating enhanced individuals like Killer Croc and Poison Ivy.
- The Boys: Real Justice: Batman has no powers but can still put the fear of God into the likes of Homelander and Stormfront.
- In Supergirl (2015)/The Flash (2014) crossover Call Me Kara, the two main characters are a Kryptonian woman and a faster-than-light man supported by too-many-to-count highly-trained martial artists and fighters: The Arrow, the Black Canary, Batman, Red Arrow, Alex Danvers (later Valkyrie), Nyssa Al'Ghul, Katana...
- Child of the Storm:
- Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova, and Carol Danvers prior to her super soldier heritage being activated and her temporarily becoming the new Green Lantern), every single one of whom can kick all of the ass without explicit superpowers. Bruce Wayne (who needs no explanation) also appears a couple of times, though he is still a teenager and not (yet) Batman.
- Uhtred is this by Asgardian standards, to the point where Sif picked him out to be her protégé (though it should be noted that as an Asgardian, even without any special powers, he's still a One-Man Army by Earth standards, and so zigzags this trope).
- Ezri Dax has fought alongside Pokémon a few times in Intelligence Factor, even though she's a Human Alien with no combat superpowers.
- The Night Unfurls: Any named, non-mage character amongst Kyril's Men of Sherwood count. Examples include Bergen, a regular Drill Sergeant Nasty; Indriga, a normal Army Scout; and Roland, a guy with an axe. These people have no magic, no Alien Blood, no absurdly cool weapons, and no "enhancements" of any sort like the five superhuman Hunters, yet they all contribute to the war effort by being part of a company that emphasises good tactics and high morale.
- Oni Ga Shiku Series: In a world where 80% of the population is born with superpowers, but using them against other people or even using them in public in general is illegal and gets you hunted by the police, the various organized crime groups across the world usually recruit people who don't have them at all. Characters like Kiryu, Majima or Saejima are the epitome of Charles Atlas Superpower, having physically trained themselves to the point that they achieve speeds or perform feats of physical strength that are impossible by most people who do not have the appropriate powers - for example Majima is so fast he leaves Speed Echoes behind. Izuku, as he trains and grows older, is easily able to take down gangs of people double his age and reach speeds that are noted to be "unnatular without a quirk" thanks to his Training from Hell. He's even able to pass the physical portion of the UA entrance exam - which is mass fight against robots - on nothing but his physical merits.
- A Possible Encounter for a Phantom: Kim Possible has no powers and doesn't rely on the anti-ghost technology that Danny Phantom uses, but she's skilled enough that she can fight on par with a few ghosts. Danny is pretty interested in her thanks to that.
- Snake Eyes in Transformers: MHA so far is one of the few heroes in the world to be a part of the twenty percent population of the world to not have a Quirk and yet is still proven capable of taking down both Villain and Decepticon ass.
- MECH in this iteration is an Anti-Magical Faction that consists mostly of Quirkless individuals and as a result use advanced technology to combat some of the top heroes of the world.
- Agent Fowler of Sector Seven is also Quirkless and is also a highly-skilled government agent capable of handling intense situations out in the field.
- Despite his insistence on being a normal guy, Xander Harris kills a dozen Chitauri in Vacation means Chaos
all while grumbling how much easier things would be if he had his axe. - Witches Rangers and the 141: The elite operators from Modern Warfare are hopelessly outclassed by the Neuroi, but still manage to run medevac missions to save downed Witches using only modern small arms and sheer grit. They barely survive one encounter with a ground-based Neuroi by expending most of their ammo and resources, which finally hammers home for just how ineffective conventional warfare is against the alien invaders.
- Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse: Arguably, the entire Kamikaze Pirates crew counts. In a world of wacky Devil Fruit superpowers and bizarre anachronistic experiments in Bio-Augmentation and cybernetics, they take on the Grand Line with nothing but martial arts training. Even their Devil Fruit users are all Zoan-types, widely considered the most boring and vanilla of the three Devil Fruit varieties. The most exceptional member is Dyna, a Robot Girl in a Steampunk Super Wheelchair patterned on a Spider Tank, followed by Miriam the giant shark-girl and Penelope the skunk-girl. Of the human martial artists, it depends on how one judges "Normal" given they all come from a world where Supernatural Martial Arts is the norm. The closest of them to a true Badass Normal is Nabiki Tendo... and even she eventually becomes an Empowered Badass Normal by eating a Devil Fruit that gives her the powers of a vampire.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Despite being neither a Kaiju (like Monster X, Ghidorah, Godzilla, Mothra, Thor and Rodan), nor a Bone Singer with hereditary psychic powers (like Vivienne, Madison Russell and the Chen sisters); one of Alan Jonah's mercenary mooks named Tejada is skilled and competent enough to keep herself and several other people alive, holed up in a makeshift underground barrack for days on end with no food or water while superpowered, part-Ghidorah humanoid zombies close in on them.
- Hermione's parents, of all people in Knowledge is Power. They may be Muggles, but they're deadly with firearms.
- In The Paths Diverge Natasja combines this with Chef of Iron by attacking Dumbledore with a cast iron skillet and a marble rolling pin when he tries to take Harry from her, knocking out Bellatrix Lestrange with a baking sheet and throwing a barbecue fork at Voldemort.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- In LXG 2: Above & Beyond, Tom Sawyer manages to destroy a Martian tripod practically by himself, armed with a standard gun; Mina and Quartermain were present, but Mina just provided a distraction and Quartermain only helped topple it after Sawyer scored the fatal shot.
- Rise of the Last Villain: A villainous example in Izuku, who manages to go toe-to-toe with multiple pros, severely wounding Aizawa at the USJ.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Equestria's First Human:
- Connor, the human who ends up in Equestria is beat up by a pair of traitorous royal guards, and still has the strength to take down a ragtag group of rebels with makeshift weapons alongside Spike, and then he overpowers and defeats Hellfire-the Big Bad and a deranged unicorn stallion powerful enough to slay a dragon- singlehandly.
- In the sequels, he still qualifies as an Earth Pony, an example being able to survive a battle with Queen Chrysalis who at that point was strong enough to defeat Princess Celestia.
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls:
- The human Maud Pie has no spiritual powers and can't even see Hollows. This doesn't stop her from beating the crap out of them.
- Derpy isn't far behind either. She's strong enough to lift a ceiling beam with one hand and pick up a person with the other. Then with little effort, she took down a Cragadille, a creature that both Quincy and a Fullbringer in training had troubles. With a Frying Pan. Guess those defense lessons finally come in handy.
- Friendship Is Magical Girls, despite being — as the title says — a Magical Girl story, has a couple of examples of this:
- Rarity starts off as captain of the school Judo club, and is shown to be more than capable of kicking ass even before becoming a mahoushoujo.
- Likewise Applejack, who is a powerhouse even before joining the team. Best shown when she mows down large numbers of the Infestation swarm with just her fists and some Improvised Weapons.
- Lightning Dust is a villainous example. In a setting full of demonic monsters, magic users, and ninjas, all she's got is some Le Parkour skills. And she's still able to hold her own against the mahoushoujo.
- Harmony Theory:
- Dark Action Girl Charisma despite being literally born with what is essentially a Blood Knight cutie-mark, is just a normal, if mentally unbalanced pegasus, who's only unique ability is her "talent" constantly telling her the best ways to kill anypony in her immediate area. Yet, she is so badass she used train griffins and is more then capable of handling enemies several times her size and strong enough to kill her in one blow. She is so feared that she even earned herself the nickname "The Ass Kicker" and is said to be invincible in a fair fight. It really says something, that in a cast of heroes consisting of a skilled magic user, resurrected heroes who are far stronger than modern ponies, a griffon, and dragon, they still have to fight dirty to beat her.
- Though not as big an example as the above, Detective Hard Boiled, who despite having a degenerating condition that seriously weakens his magic and no unique powers directly relating to combat, manages to keep up with the other and take out Mooks just through intuition and police training.
- Tales of a Junk Town Pony Peddler has Prodigious Peddler, an earth pony in an After the End pony-land. He survives by cold pragmatism and Clint Eastwood levels of badassery. Like Talking Your Way Out from being shot by slavers.
- The Pony POV Series has several, but the one that stands out the best is Patch from the 7 Dreams/Nightmares Gaiden story. After she Took a Level in Badass in her quest for the Shards of the Rainbow of Light, she becomes an Action Mare capable of taking on a full grown dragon and freaking Grogar by herself and winning. The only 'superpower' she has is an extremely slow aging process caused by the Shards. Besides that she uses guns, and when those die out, a sword.
Persona Franchise
- Hours 'Verse:
- Dojima, Nanako, Shinya, Sojiro, Takemi, and Iwai all put up a good showing against the Shadows during the final battle of Butterfly Cascade despite not having Personas.
- Zenkichi manages to overpower and destroy Akane's Cognitive Mona with his police training and only a little supernatural support from Futaba.
- Poké Wars:
- Samurai, a Pokémon trainer who lost his Pokémon early on in the war. Yet, he is more than capable of holding his own in a fight against them with only his katana.
- Lt. Surge counts. He was able to hold off a group of Electivire and Scizor with only a combat knife.
- Don't forget Tracy. He held off pokemon from Oak's ranch with nothing but a lead pipe and sleep deprivation.
- Several of Coeur Al'Aran's works:
- The Unseen Hunt: The hunters in this AU are basically like their namesake in Supernatural: powerless humans who've Awakened (become aware of the Grimm world, which in turn enables the Grimm to interact with them), and who make it their job to defend humanity against the creatures; minimizing more Awakenings from occurring, and killing the Grimm with mundane weaponry and strength. Some notable hunters include Ozpin, Velvet and Yang. Exceptions to this trope include Ruby, Jaune and Weiss, all of whom are part-Grimm by the story's ending.
- Not this time, Fate: Sapphire Arc persuades her father Nicholas to give her physical huntsmen training, even if he won't unlock her Aura, so that she'll be capable of defending herself and her family.
- Arc Royale: A couple of the summoned alternate Jaune's are physically muggles who haven't even unlocked a Semblance but can still go toe-to-toe with their more powerful counterparts and the other cast-members. These include Xiong, a crime boss Jaune with no combative ability who dies laughing triumphantly in Cinder's face after he scuppers her schemes.
- Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda:
- Jason Vaugn: While he does have the ability to control corrupted red panda spirits, this isn't all that useful in combat. However, he still manages to fight Xia Lee in her red panda form and live.
- Howard Mitchell also qualifies, as he fights Xia, and later Mei, on top of a moving train with nothing but the weapons he has on hand.
- The PCA, in general, are able to take down giant red pandas like Mei with only their weapons and military training.
Unsorted
- Alex from Adventure Time fanfic, Alex (MovieVillain). She's a nerdy human girl who acts as Marceline's opponent in the election for the position of Vampire Queen. Despite that, she can take on the Vampire Queen herself with her laser pistol and lightsaber, as well as her blocking skills.
- The world of Anonymoose's Monster Girl Saga contains Physical Gods and superhuman monster girls, but human beings without any magic can still be a credible threat. Good examples are Nerick (a terrifying juggernaut who takes Laven's attacks - including having a statue dropped on him - and keeps fighting, only being defeated by Vee) and Malco (who holds his own against the enhanced Aaron, the latter being capable of effortlessly slicing through armored soldiers).
- Eric from Blizzard Storm definitely fits this trope, as he is able to go up against Angels and Demons and win.
- In the Massively Multiplayer Crossover fic Blood and Revolution, Saitou (from Rurouni Kenshin) is interacting with, fighting with, hunting, and working to control or integrate youkai, vampires, incubi, and kami, all while refusing to get any supernatural upgrades himself.
- In A Bridge Once Broken, Natasha. Super Weight of 1 in a story that has Norse gods, fantasy gods, the Hulk, (several) Asian-type dragons, eliatropes, shushu, freakin' enormous robots and a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. Thinking on her feet and some serious audacity (as well as careful picking her fights) gets her far. Clint Burton, on the other way, does more brooding than actual work.
- This gets deconstructed in Cinders and Ashes: the Chronicles of Kamen Rider Dante with Shindou Hanamori. With his set up being the replacement for Hoshi, a skilled boxer, and capable of taking on mooks on his own, he seemed deadset to be an expy of Kazuya Taki but with enough realism in place to set him apart. However, he's still a squishy human being set against powerful monsters. His first fight (with the Volcano Belt) showed how mentally unprepared a normal person actually would be when fighting and killing monsters, his second fight, while slightly better, barely has him make a dent in anything and got wounded in the process. His third fight was much better but fared no results, and he ended up getting killed by a Kaizo-Majin for his troubles. The only character he managed to beat was Yudai via a surprise clock to the head.
- Code Prime: Sayoko is able to stand her ground against the Decepticons without a Knightmare of her own. To note, she's able to decapitate Frenzy by herself, and later aids Bumblebee and Arcee in killing Springload.
- Gwenith Cousland and Theron Mahariel in the Dragon Age fanfiction Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns qualify, although the latter's very sharp hearing could be seen as a Charles Atlas Superpower in its own right. Of course, seeing as how everyone else, especially Kallian Tabris, either came with or gained some power or another over the course of the story, it is unclear if this status will last for the human noble and Dalish. Leliana and Zevran still fit perfectly though.
- Brad, the main character of FREAKIN GENSOKYO starts out this way, taking on a handful of fairy maids (who have as much strength as humans, based on Ha-chan) with nothing but a cast iron plant-hanger and a flail made of women's underwear.
- A lot of people in Supergirl (2015)Future Shock, but the standout goes to Susan Vasquez. When The Mole, upon hearing that a trained military officer says she can be handled, tells him to go ahead and try, he's wearing Power Armour and still doesn't think he can handle her. He's right, as it turns out.
- BlackDragon6's Ranma ½ story Guardian features a character named Ken "Snake" Yakata, a Jewish gun nut who is routinely billed as the most deadly fighter in the Department of Abnormal Phenomenae Containment with the sole exception of Ranma. This is in spite of the fact his other officers are: a powerful psychic psycho capable of cutting the heads off powerful vampires, a superhuman capable of going toe to toe with cyborgs and the worst boss enemies in the Resident Evil series, and a bloody Zergling. All Snake has is a shotgun. And lots and lots of firepower. (The man somehow have a working ICBM silo in his house)
- To further emphasize the extent of this, it should be mentioned that Snake terrifies every single one of his fellow officers, save Ranma. To an extent, anyway. They know he can't shoot them and thus they feel somewhat secure around him, but around his evil clones they are terrified.
- In the spin-off Millenium, during one encounter, the DAPC's captain have a threat index of 5 while the Sailor Senshi got a 4 .Snake? A solid 10.
- Many in the Horseshoes and Hand Grenades stories. Aside from Riderman, one of the prominent ones is Jun Shigeno, whose response to a Voodoo King Serpent is to punch him in the face and then slap it with the arm of a wooden mannequin (It Makes Sense in Context, honest) while giving him Armor-Piercing Question after Armor-Piercing Question regarding how he and humanity weren't so different.
- In Incarnation of Legends, Kojiro lacks a falna, and so only his skills to fall back on when battling the superhuman adventurers. Despite this, he's able to keep up with and even kill low-level adventurers with ease even before reobtaining his Monohoshizao. Bell tries to be this, but without the godlike skill of his mentor, he has to act carefully to make a difference in a fight with adventurers.
- General Ty Jun from Kyoshi Rising; the man who invented Chi Blocking. He is the only Non-Bender who has ever faced Avatar Kuruk in a fight and won, and routinely trounces Kyoshi in their sparring matches.
- Last Child of Krypton: Kaji, AKA Batman. In a world where teenagers pilot giant robots and have super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability or can create energy constructs using their willpower, he is a completely normal human who is skillful enough to beat super-powered adversaries.
- Balian of Ibelin in The Chance Encounter series. While he has been rendered immortal, this only seems to prevent him falling ill or indeed ageing. He also fights alongside Achilles, Legolas and Will Turner (during his "undead captain of the Flying Dutchman" period) and holds his own easily. When he is briefly turned evil by dark magic, he even forces LEGOLAS into retreat. He also takes on many of King Richard I's soldiers at once and wins, with the King's spymaster not sure if the King (who was a noted warrior himself) would survive a head to head confrontation. Oh yes, and he wades through HELL ITSELF to save his dead-by-suicide wife, taking on Satan and...mostly getting the crap beaten out of him actually, but he stood up to the ultimate evil and survived!
- Author Avatar Art of the Mass Effect self-insert Mass Vexations eventually becomes a good Soldier-class unit within Shepard's squad. He never got any of the genetic implants that most soldier-class units get in the Mass Effect universe. He also Took a Level in Badass considering he had never fired a gun in his life before entering the Mass Effect universe.
- The protagonist of Middle Of Nowhere arrives in Fereldan as a middle-aged and dinged up Army sergeant. He relies on his wits and only just survives his first encounter with some live darkspawn, but levels up over the course of the story. Still, he does lament not being "an all-powerful mage."
- Of Sheep and Battle Chicken:
- Garrus Vakarian is called out as this by Admiral Ahern when training Shepard. He notes that Garrus lacks Shepard's biotic advantages, has no cybernetics, and is still a better shot than her with almost any weapon he picks up. Later subverted as extreme injury forces Garrus to accept cybernetic enhancements.
- Admiral Ahern himself is another case. A fairly old man using nothing more than generic light armor, an old pistol, and a cheap omni-tool hack he stole from a Batarian goes up against Shepard; a biotic Vanguard wearing Spectre armor and armed to the absolute teeth in a live-fire training match. He proceeds to kick her ass in under a minute with absolutely no difficulty.
- Jason Shepard of Sailor Moon: Legends of Lightstorm has become this due to an unknown event that made him lose his status as Lightstorm. Although his body retains some of its properties, such as agelessness, his powers are gone. Technically, his loss of transformations has given him the ability to unleash a small burst of stinging energy, but this is a result of his transformations malfunctioning, rather than an actual power. For all intents and purposes, his body is human but that hasn't stopped him from being one of the deadliest men alive. He has been seen to fend off multiple Negaverse drones with his staff, grapple gauntlets, and explosive shuriken. His pain tolerance is legendary, and he has consistently been seen to stand up to even the toughest of Negaverse enemies, including a two-bodied Zoisite. In fact, his skill is so great that considers slaughtering entire squadrons of humans armed with rifles to be "training".
- Slayer and a Half: Rachel Giles has trained to fight vampires since she was five, and has been hunting them in Sunnydale since she was ten. By the time of chapter 11, the Master sees her as just as much a threat to his plans as Buffy herself, and sends the Three after both of them.
- A few in Spider-Man Evolution, most notably Daredevil and Moon Knight, both being able to kick Spidey and Black Cat's butts without the use of powers. Similarly, both Kraven and Silvermane, both completely normal people in this story (the latter being past his prime as it is) and are capable of tossing Spidey around when they faced him the first time around. Both MJ and Detective George Stacy are also notable during Chameleon's hotage takeover, MJ basically goes around knocking out mooks with a frying pan and ends up saving the day, while George Stacy beats up an armed mook who threatened his daughter without any weapon himself.
- The trope is discussed in The Superheroics of Haruhi Suzumiya. When Haruhi and Izuku talk about how they plan to become Heroes without Quirks, Haruhi brings up that characters like Batman and Iron Man usually fit people's perception of this trope, but don't actually count because their genius-level intelligence puts them above being "normal".
- Jenna Zan Arbor of Star Wars: Lineage has no touch of the Force whatsoever, but that doesn't stop her from running rings around the heroes.
- Tuxedo Kamen of Sailor Moon fame manages to pull this off in this chapter of Takamachi Nanoha of 2814 (keeping in mind that this is the rose only version of the character) when he goes toe to toe with Signum using a sword-cane. To put this in context, Signum and the other Wolfenkritter had previously managed to stand up to the combined forces of every other character, including some big names like the Sailor Senshi, Negi Springfield and co., Sakura Kinimoto and Syaoran Lee, Nanoha, Fate, Yuuno and the combined might of the TSAB and Superman. Yeah.
- Tatsu no Houho from the Tamers Forever Series is shown to be able to take on several ultimate level digimon with nothing but a katana.
- In the Transformers fic, They Just Don't Care Anymore, the character Alien spends a lot of time being criticized as a minor character who won't get to do anything important and will inevitably be the first to die when a horde of undead attacks... until a horde of undead actually attacks. In a Moment of Awesome, she announces that she's sick of being called a minor character, whips out a pair of kukris and single handedly takes down everything in her path, after which she proceeds to throw a guy into a quarry because he annoyed her.
- Dr. Watson in The Vermillion Problem is quite capable of holding on his own, whether against vampires (either blood-drinking or flesh-eating) or skinchangers or both. May have something to do with being an army doctor. Irene Adler also counts.
- In Wonderful (Mazinja), the Wonder Masks and Sentinel Suits created by Taylor grant powers to non-powered, normal people like her friend Emma (who becomes the heroine "Wonder Star").
- In The World of the Creatures, Brendan Anderson is just your average, 19 year old English Major. And yet, through his combination of heart and smarts, he's able to stand toe to toe with the likes of Buffy Summers, Batman, and the Doctor.
