Bullying A Dragon / Fan Works

Those who attempt Bullying a Dragon in Fan Works.

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Crossovers

• In The Bridge (MLP), Grand King Ghidorah causes pre-Heel–Face Turn Starlight Glimmer to antagonize Godzilla Junior into a confrontation. Despite him being in the form of alicorn sized unicorn with barely any magic knowledge, he still has Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, two decades of combat experience, and most of his powers even if they are toned down. And she does so by kidnapping, terrifying, and imprisoning his pupil. The result? Starlight frantically rushing through an abandoned Our Town with a royally pissed off Godzilla literally plowing through buildings to get at her, so scared it breaks Ghidorah's mind control.
• Bring Me to Life: In chapter 16, Xander briefly mouths off to Spike, who promptly stands up and reminds him of one crucial fact; Buffy had the Initiative remove the chip in his brain, which means Spike no longer has to just sit back and take Xander's insults anymore.
• Child of the Storm:
  • Carol is targeted by standard bullies. Since she's an athletic Amazonian Beauty with considerable emphasis on the Amazonian and Beauty parts meaning that she can kick your ass with one hand, is the great-niece of Peggy Carter, the niece of Brigadier Jack O'Neill and the friend/Morality Chain of Lex Luthor, who Adaptational Heroism aside, specialises in Disproportionate Retribution and Cool and Unusual Punishment. Then there's Harry, who rapidly becomes one of her best friends, before falling head over heels in Courtly Love with her. Since by this point he's a Person of Mass Destruction with a Hair-Trigger Temper, crossing her is a bad idea. Oh, and to top it off - she's actually Peggy's great-granddaughter. The other great-grandparent is Steve, and she inherited the super soldier genes. This all also means that it doesn't go well when Dracula tries something, either.
  • This is generally averted where Harry's concerned - Snape doesn't generally bother him after Thor had a word with him (a word that carried the explicit threat that if given cause, Thor would have words with him again, and this time it would be the hammer that did the talking) and Harry can snipe back at him on the same level when he does. Likewise, most of the students are somewhat wary of him following his intermittent displays of Super-Strength and making an example of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team when finding out that a number of their members were complicit in Luna's bullying. The developing Psychic Powers only punctuate this point.
  • A Corrupt Corporate Executive grabbed Carol's bum, dismissed Harry, then called the man who intervened and politely asked him to apologise the n-word. Since this man was Prince T'Challa of Wakanda, this was a spectacular trifecta of stupid and he ended up in a groaning heap in two seconds flat.
  • Sean Cassidy's occasional antagonism of Snape would be this trope if it wasn't for the fact that Sean's just as big and bad a dragon as Snape, with a potentially greater capacity for ruthlessness when pushed. At the very least, he's capable of things that give Nick Fury of all people nightmares.
  • Peter Wisdom a.k.a. Regulus Black as Director of MI13 pushing the Ministry, steadily gaining leverage over them and moving to supplant them, would be this if it wasn't for the fact that the Ministry is terrified of Wisdom, and with good reason.
  • A group of Harry's old bullies try it with said boy, who is now only a little shorter and less built than his Dad: Thor, God of Thunder and Lightning (not Reason and Understanding). He also lives with and received combat training from Hawkeye and the Black Freaking Widow. Even without his Super-Soldier level strength, magic, and Psychic Powers this was only ever going to end one way.
  • The Red Room going after Harry in Ghosts of the Past qualifies as this, as it is directly pissing off Asgard. Which responds Old Testament style.
• In Worm/DC Universe crossover Echoes of Yesterday, Hookwolf engages Supergirl, despite knowing she had run into Lung -the most dangerous parahuman in the city- and survived; even just surviving Lung's assault means she's not to be trifled with. Now, he might have believed her super-strength wouldn't protect her from his razor metallic body-shell, but as soon as his blades shattered upon impact with her body, revealing she's not only stronger than him but also invulnerable to his attacks, he should have backed off. He did not, and he was crushed.
• Through means of Dauntless, the PRT in Greg Veder VS The World mock and belittle Prodigy and his heroic actions while commending their own importance and impact on the events of the past few days. They openly ridiculed the hero who soloed the Dragon of Kyushu and single-handedly stopped the Brockton Bay Bombings, effectively putting an end to the Azn Bad Boys and who effectively accomplishes in a matter of hours something the Parahuman Response Team hasn't managed to perform in their last ten years of operation. If Greg hadn't just undergone a load of Character Development, he likely would have unloaded on them then and there.
• The Massive Multiplayer Crossover Hasbroverse uses this in its Worldbuilding backstory to explain why G.I. Joe disbanded:
  • Cobra Commander, being based on his more competent Marvel Comics counterpart, was smart enough to avoid getting into a fight with the Decepticons. Serpentor, however, wasn't as bright and launched an attack that pissed off Megatron (not immediately. At first he was amused and quite willing to forgive them for scratching the paint job of his base. Then he learned they had accidentally destroyed some energy cubes...) enough to launch a counterattack so ferocious (including glassing Cobra Island. Then they bombed the island until the volcano erupted and sank it) that only a handful of members of the organization survived — Cobra Commander himself, who was smart enough to flee when he realized what Serpentor had done (and now lives like a king somewhere in upstate New York); a half-dozen Mooks loyal enough that the Commander took them with him; Destro and The Baroness, who left the group some point prior; and Storm Shadow, who'd had a Heel–Face Turn and likewise left the group. There's also rumors that Zartan survived as well, but there's no confirmation of that.
  • A few others survived, including Overkill. Who reunited some of the survivors to create a new COBRA and launched an attack on West Point. This is after the Earth Defense Command, born of the GI Joes, the Oktober Guard, and other special forces from all around the world and equipped with weapons based on Cybertronian technology, had all but wiped out the Decepticon. Cobra Commander pointed out the stupidity of this attack:
    "I mean seriously, fifty people, some tanks, and some BATs? Did his hard drive crash or something?"
• In How To Drill Your Way Through Your Problems, Lagann and Bakuda do this LITERALLY when facing down Lung. In the true spirit of Gurren Lagann, it works like a charm.
• I'm Nobody: A group of very drunk Humans, Turians, Batarians, and Vorcha attack part of the Normandy crew plus Namor Drack while in a bar for "hurting their friends". The crew tries to warn them (even pointing out that their friends are lucky they didn't get killed) but they don't listen so... the result was quite predictable.
• The Infinite Loops: Many non-looping villains are prone to threatening their looping foes, even though they are highly outclassed. Oftentimes, the loopers don't really bother to crush them.
  • Nightmare is a special case, as without the loops, he would be the dragon. However, due to how long it took for him to start looping and still believing in his power level, he has made a habit out of bullying dragons, which generally doesn't end well, to the point where he, while Awake, was killed by two stronger Loopers (Marx and Susie) simply because he didn't realize that taunting them was a bad idea.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
  • During the 'Paint Can Incident', Sara and the rest of her Gang of Bullies pushed Chloe to the point that she violently retaliated. Rather than being put off by this, they simply switched tactics, continuing their mockery and making Chloe ever more miserable.
  • Faced with a pissed-off Parker backed by the Unown, Sara continues insisting that Chloe deserved to be tormented.
• It's Always The Quiet Ones: Snape tries to attack the Wrackspurts with Stunning Spells even when it's clear that conventional spells can't hurt them. His attempt to Avada-Kedavra the biggest one only makes it angry and results in him getting eaten.
• In Justice, for the Alternate Timeline, Vandal Savage's first response to the Straw Hats appearing on Earth is to kill one of them (Luffy). This causes the others to decide to destroy everything, leading to the destruction of Savage's empire, which by this point spans the entire globe. By the time the Justice League arrives in this new timeline, Europe is basically gone, and America is little better off, and they are getting an idea of just the sort of people they are hunting for back in their original timeline.
• Last Child of Krypton: Gendo taunts and even threatens Shinji several times… even though he knows he is Superman. Later events proved that it was NOT a good idea.
• In The Last Son, Graydon Creed and his Friends of Humanity constantly antagonize Superman, the Justice League, and the X-Men, thinking they can defeat the heroes, when in truth, their chances of success are less than zero, and they really should be thanking their lucky stars that Superman and his allies are not the vicious monsters they want everyone to believe.
• In Legacy of the Enginseers, after Taylor/Mechanicus demonstrates she has weaponry that can easily destroy a mid-sized city, there's many people that think they can browbeat her into doing their bidding. Special mentions go to the Slaughterhouse Nine (whose leader Jack Slash thought he could either kill Taylor or make her join his group) who get massacred over the course of three days, and the Triumvirate, who thought they'd be able to put her under "protective custody" after her inventions killed Leviathan.
• Lampshaded by Xander in Lex Luthor's body in Lex Marks the Spot when he notes that for all he's put Superman through in the belief he's a menace, even Mother Teresa would have clocked him one by now.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Mass Effect Fusion Fic, Mass Effect The Equestrian Equation, this is basically why you do not want to pick a fight with the ancient Equines, or their modern-day Equestrian descendants. Basically, their instincts are to offer a Last-Second Chance to a potential threat and then utterly annihilate them if they refuse to back down.
• Schlatt has the audacity to call God a "dumbass" in Chapter 2 of Mirai SMP.
• Lampshaded in the Death Note and The House of Night Crossover NoHoper when the other students begin to shun Light and he takes to reading Stephen King's Carrie. You can imagine how things are going to go. Lampshaded again by their literature professor Penthesilea:
  Prof. Penthesilea:"…Carrie as you'll soon find out, warns us of the danger of underestimation, of messing with the wrong person and not treating everyone with the respect they fully deserve. While this may be tempting for some, it will be an insult to the one you abuse, and may end in your untimely death."
• My Huntsman Academia:
  • Cardin Winchester does this throughout the story. First he tries to pick on Velvet, an upperclassman who could kick his ass any day of the week and only doesn't because of her own self-restraint. Then he and the rest of CRDL try to take on Katsuki and get their asses kicked while Katsuki walks away with a couple of bruises. After that, he tries to pick on Izuku, only for him to send CRDL fleeing with One For All: Full Cowl and beating Cardin into the floor without taking more than a glancing hit.
  • Junior hires Pyrrha, an internationally famous fighting champion, as a waitress and proceeds to try and grope her. The scene immediately cuts to the aftermath of the fight, which ended with Junior getting shot in the spine and his club in flames while the police question them about what happened.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku Midoriya is secretly Kryptonian, but he accidentally put Bakugou in the hospital when they were four-years-old after a fight between them resulted in Bakugou getting tossed through a concrete wall. As a result, everyone knows about Izuku's Super-Strength and stays far away from him to avoid getting hurt. Bakugou continues to antagonize Izuku and calls him "Deku" out of frustration because of Izuku's refusal to apply to U.A. out of fear of a repeat incident. The bully then proceeds to blow up Izuku's Hero Analysis notebook, prompting the young alien to grab his aggressor by the collar and effortlessly throw him into a wall (but not enough to cause actual harm) before walking off in a huff. Their classmates lampshade it.
  Unnamed Student #1: Man, sometimes it seems like you're asking him to kick your ass.
  Unnamed Student #2: Why do you keep antagonizing him, anyway? You know the guy can punch a hole straight through your skull.
  Bakugou: Fuck off.
• Implicitly explored in The Night Unfurls, to the point of deconstruction. As per Kyril, "history is rife with the few who stand against many. The weak going against the strong". In hindsight, it is tempting to dismiss those who antagonise someone far more powerful than them as morons, but reality is not so simple.
  • The confrontation between Olga and Kyril twists this trope via perspective. Olga, the Dark Queen, has a dreaded reputation In-Universe as an adept Lady of Black Magic, and she knows it. Therefore, when the doors of her throne room open, revealing a lone man who have come to challenge her, Olga believes that she is the "dragon" and the man is the suicidal "bully". The kicker is that said lone man is actually the Good Hunter, whom the audience, not Olga, knows to outclass pretty much everyone in terms of might. It is until the Hunter shows Olga what he is capable of that she is forced to acknowledge that she is severely outmatched and that Kyril is the "dragon" not to be messed with.
  • The assault on the Black Fortress may come across as this, since the Black Dogs' strategy is a surgical strike to the Dark Queen, despite knowing that she is more than capable of burning them to a crisp in one go. There are a couple of caveats to this way of thinking, namely, a) both sides are at war, and going for Olga is crucial for achieving victory should they succeed; b) the presence of One-Man Army Kyril makes this more viable. Besides, Vault figures out a potential exploit — holding her beloved servant hostage to force her to surrender. The plan works.
  • A straight example occurs in Chapter 6 of the original has a bar patron grabbing Sanakan's buttocks. Keep in mind that Sanakan has a big-ass hammer hanging on her back, which says a lot about the kid's strength. That patron has his head slammed into a wall for his troubles, which gets him killed.
  • This is a very common occurrence for the Hunter, considering the sheer amount of foes who dare to fight/antagonise him, only to be inevitably dispatched in the end. From the looks of it, all of those people would fit at least one of the following: they are dumb (e.g. orcs), they are mindless husks (e.g. mutant Elite Mooks), they are fulfilling their duty (e.g. guards), they underestimate him (e.g. anyone who says he's Just One Man), and lastly, they overestimate themselves. Many characters, including the Hunter himself, have lampshaded that Kyril's foes really don't understand who they are fighting against.
    Kyril: When a man or woman thinks themselves invincible you show them how wrong they are. You destroy them without hesitation, without remorse or pity.
  • And then there are people who provoke Kyril and not get killed, like Chloe and Claudia. They manage to get away from it because Kyril is not a bloodthirsty psycho, and he is patient enough to cooperate with them instead (not before reminding them of their place, of course). There's also how they do have a reason for this other than "plain stupidity" (e.g. their protectiveness towards their respective liege ladies).
• The Watchers Council continues to plot against Kara Summers in Not In Kansas despite knowing full well that she's Supergirl. After they try to assassinate Giles, Buffy, and herself, Kara has to be talked down from simply killing everyone involved and/or trapping them in the Phantom Zone. Instead, she turns over evidence of their massive list of crimes to both the American and British governments. To insure the governments don't simply sweep everything under the rug, Kara informs the President that she's legally Empress of the Universe.
• When Kim returns to school after the events of chapter 1 in Nothing is Impossible, Bonnie takes a moment to razz Kim over 'being a danger to the other students'... until Kim asks her if it's wise to provoke someone who, by Bonnie's own admission, might be dangerous.
• The "Old Friends" vs The New Friend has Katsuki Bakugou and his cronies trying to bully Izuku Midoriya yet again as he plays with his new friend. The catch is, Izuku's new friend is the Adorable Abomination Half-Human Hybrid Pintsized Powerhouse Erma, who has Mind over Matter, Intangibility, Prehensile Hair, among other powers, and considers horror moves funny. Bakugou should probably consider himself lucky he just got curbstomped and chucked into a pond.
• In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, Aria T'Loak is guilty of this when she steals a starship from the Trans-Galactic Republic, who, by the way, sent the Reapers running with their much-more-advanced technology. Lampshaded later by an N7—she calls the crime lord's actions "a monumentally stupid set of decisions." Said N7 is aware she is also risking this trope by insulting Aria, but in an aversion, nothing happens.
• Platinum Pirate:
  • In Chapter 16, when Lucas first meets with the Franky Family, they laugh him off even after recognizing him as the newest Warlord because he's still just a teenager. They threaten him, prompting Gardevoir to immobilize all of them with Confusion. The whole time, Lucas never raises his voice and is trying to be polite.
  • In Chapter 21, a literal example when, upon seeing Giratina, Blackbeard immediately thinks that he can capture it and use it as a living weapon. When his fight with Ace and Sabo disrupts Giratina's fight with Lucas, Giratina disabuses him of that notion, sending him flying a mile or two away and straight into a Navy ship.
• A (near-)literal example from Rise of the Galeforces: Yes, Ludlow, we know you were the one responsible for turning Violet into a T. rex. But wouldn't it have made your life a whole lot easier if you had, you know, treated her more nicely? Surely, there wouldn't be any possibility that she could have gained the motivation to fuck him up on an astronomical scale — which, predictably, is exactly what she does.
• In the Jackie Chan Adventures and Teen Titans crossover A Shadow of the Titans (by the same author as Queen of All Oni), Kitten, after having been stopped nearly effortlessly by Jade in the Tournament of Villainesses (Jade used heat vision to blast away Kitten's energy whip and then picked her up with the Rooster Talisman), proceeds to insult her! The evil teen insulted Jade's outfit and appearance (the appearance part in multiple ways), her power set, and was starting to say that Jade was so ugly that that was why she wasn't in her original dimension, they had kicked her out (she didn't finish, but it's clear what she was saying), before Jade's Berserk Buttons were fully pressed and she unleashed a Dragon Talisman blast that nearly killed Kitten, giving Jade a My God, What Have I Done? moment (as, unlike the others Jade had met, the evil blonde was not Made of Iron). And this was AFTER Jade had offered Kitten a chance to surrender!
• In Ship of the Line: The Death Star, Senator Kinsey tries to bully the Scoobies into surrendering the titular ship to him on trumped up excuses. Not only are they in control of the Death Star, but they just used said ship to utterly crush a Goa'uld invasion force, where their only difficulty was needing to rescue SG1 first and wanting to capture some ships intact for Earth to study.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Many people try to strike or hurt Asuka -who in this story is Supergirl- despite knowing she is invulnerable and her powers can destroy them in a split-second. In an omake, Touji tries to blackmail Asuka after discovering her Secret Identity. He realized it was a stupid idea when he saw her grinning and cracking her knuckles.
• In Warframe/Worm story Space Ninja Summer Camp, Shadow Stalker attacks Taylor after Taylor has obliterated two Nazis and beaten Stalker herself easily. Later Taylor points out that, being such a staunch proponent of the "Survival of the Fittest" dogma, Sophia should have known her actions were very stupid.
  " Now, I felt conflicted on how I should handle her. I did hit her kind of hard, twice, but I healed her the first time. If she really did subscribe to the Survival of the Fittest, she should've known better, right?"
• In Stardust, Dr. Vahlen's cold, provocative attitude when testing the cooperative Twilight Sparkle's abilities is really not the smartest one to take when she herself notes that X-Com couldn't hope to build anything that would stand up to Twilight's telekinetic blasts. Several characters note how stupid this is for the supposedly-bright scientist, and once Vahlen finally looks past her Freudian Excuse for her hostility, she also realizes how foolish her behavior was
• Sudden Contact: The Salarians tried to establish diplomatic contact with the protoss, but made an offhand and threatening remark to them - especially led by Fenix. The results had the Salarians beaten into a retreat and the protoss reinforcing their blockade on the Koprulu sector from Citadel space (but only to prevent further violent incidents).
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Bitsy tries to get under the Kingpin's skin by repeatedly intimidating and insulting him, his weight, and his family. Her fate is already sealed by the time he asks her whether she would rather have an open or closed casket funeral, and she ultimately decides on the latter without realizing what's about to happen. He gives her a Slasher Smile and then wastes no time beating her into a bloody pulp off-screen with little to no effort.
• At the beginning of Tales of the Otherverse, a mutant hater taunts Kara until she runs out of patience and throws him in the ocean. After she hauls him back to the pier, the man, who should know better for now, continues to taunt her. Fortunately for him, Kara chose to ignore him again.
• Task Force Ball Z: The plot is that after hacking Red Pharmaceuticals's email and finding out about Gohan and his allies, Amanda Waller assigns Task Force X to assassinate him, which they do by kidnapping Videl and fighting him and Piccolo even after knowing they're a powerful Half-Human Hybrid and alien respectively. However, this is because the emails portrayed Gohan and his friends as a threat to Earth due to the Red Ribbon Army's bias, and after Gohan and Piccolo defeat the Boxed Crooks, Bulma reaches out to Waller to tell her about the truth of her friends and Red Pharmaceuticals, which leads A.R.G.U.S. to pull the heat off Gohan and send Deadshot to assassinate Carmine for both his crimes and the deception.
• Invoked in Thousand Shinji. The Eldar and Ork gods gave Shinji and his family their power and knowledge under two conditions: they were to free their races and to not bully them. Shinji promised that humans would try to not be assholes to Eldar or Orks, but if either race was stupid enough to pick a fight with humans knowing that they couldn't win, he'd not be responsible for the consequences.
• In the Temeraire and Assassin's Creed fanfic Trade Winds, whenever Desmond's fighting skills become known on any of the ships where he's seen action, his shipmates immediately start distrusting him and making remarks that compare him to a demon or the devil, which leave him isolated and with no friends or anybody to talk to- his narration makes it clear that he's not too happy about it. After he has his grog cut for his first fistfight with his shipmates aboard the Allegiance, early into a seven-month voyage, he threatens the other parties in the fight that he'll kill them and throw them overboard if they jump him again. They have no trouble believing him.
• Universe Falls: In the chapter "Strong in the Real Way", the Manotaurs make the mistake of trying to chase Sugilite off their territory. She just winds up throwing a boulder at them, and the Manotaurs immediately realize they're in over their heads and run back into the Man-Cave.

Babylon 5

• The Dilgar War:
  • In their one combat encounter with Earthforce, the heavy cruiser Persephone and her six fighters (of an outdated model that is about to be phased out for the new model) took down fifteen Dilgar ships between light cruisers and destroyers plus fighter support before charging at Jha'dur's flagship when the rest of the Dilgar fleet showed up and their jump engine was damaged. The Dilgar knew Earth Alliance already had a huge standing fleet that included ships that made the heavy cruiser look weak, and was building up. To reach the Vree Empire (that has already tried to stop their advance in the League), they have to choose between attacking the Markab, allies of Earth (and Earth Alliance made clear that attacking them would be an act of war), or the Yolu, more powerful than the Markab but isolationist and tactically incompetent: the Dilgar Warmaster Council voted to attack the Markab with a 5-4 majority (Jha'dur and the other competent Warmasters voted to attack the Yolu). Less than a month later, Earthforce has annihilated Jha'dur's veteran fleet (Jha'dur herself barely escaped with her life twice, first when her ship was in the firing arcs of fifty Earth dreadnoughts and then when Earthforce decided to finish the routed Dilgar fleet with five times the number of surviving Dilgar ships in nukes), and one of the other competent Warmasters is dead.
  • The Dilgar have a policy of attacking warships from neutral governments to make reparations and have an excuse to stipulate an alliance. While the policy had worked with the Narn, it failed miserably with the Earth Alliance. Yet, they kept it in place and hoped to get the chance to try it with the Minbari. The same Minbari that in a dozen years would utterly defeat Earthforce with little losses. Jha'dur had the sense to question the wisdom to try it with someone they knew was isolationist and incredibly powerful, but was ignored again.

Castlevania (2017)

• In The Devil Does Care!, every moment where Trevor and Dracula are involved usually has Trevor antagonizing Dracula in some fashion while Dracula barely acknowledges his contempt.
  Quick as a viper-striking, the boy darted around her and launched himself at Dracula. Just as quickly, the vampire caught him by the scruff of his neck and swung him into the air, held like a disobedient puppy.

Danganronpa

• Danganronpa: Academy of Discontent:
  • Although everyone knows that Peko is capable of murder, that doesn't stop some of them from antagonizing her. Special mention goes to Miu and Hifumi for trying to start confrontations with her. Miu also takes it a step further by insulting Gonta for being willing to associate with Peko, despite Gonta being the strongest boy in the academy and could easily strangle her if he weren't a gentleman.
  • This action leads to Kokichi's and Hajime's death because Kokichi mocked Aoi for bringing Sakura back from the dead, even though Sakura, who is the Ultimate Martial Artist, was present and was established to be greatly protective of her Aoi.

Death Note

• All You Need Is Love:
  • Averted by Naomi, who wants to stay on Light's good side in case Light ever remembers he's a serial killing mass murderer, but L plays this completely straight with his continual harassment of Light.
  • Also Duck and Mello:
    Naomi: Now, Duck, you and I have already had a talk about provoking mentally unstable individuals...
• In A Cure for Love Matt fearlessly antagonizes Kira. It ends about as well as you can expect.
• In Fever Dreams, when Rem starts helping Light with his schemes, the taskforce assumes that Kira is more powerful than they thought... and so, logically, L and the taskforce pester Light more than ever before.
• Lampshaded in The Prince Of Death when Naomi hits Light (who in this ficverse has become a literal God of Death) and L fearfully thinks in his Internal Monologue that she might as well have struck The Grim Reaper in the face.
• From That Epic Plan:
  • Beyond mocks Light and his "faggy journal" and upon meeting Ryuk:
    Beyond: So, you're ...a god of death?
    Ryuk: Yup.
    Beyond: Hm, you're ugly...
  • Also there's this exchange between Light, Beyond, and L:
    Light: What the hell are you doing?
    Beyond: Checking.
    Light: Checking what?
    Beyond: Whether you still smelled like...you know.
    Light: Seriously, what's wrong with you?
    Beyond: So many things.
    L: You two are sort of retarded...
    Beyond: I know you are but what am I?!
    L: More retarded.
• In To Feel Alive Light hits the Shinigami Ryuk with a wet towel. Ryuk mostly just finds it amusing but he does get even by striking him back with his wing.

The DCU

• In Adventures of a Super Family, the first super-villains fought by Superwoman are just some idiots who think their expensive toys can beat someone who can lift mountains.
• In The Day After You Saved the Multiverse, the local crime syndicate has just gotten wind of the existence of a kid with Superboy powers operating in their territory. And instead of declaring "pack up and move out of town" time, the unnamed Boss gets his parents kidnapped to get him off their backs. One beatdown later, the crimelord decides to get off his back.
• Funeral for a Flash: After Barry Allen was sentenced to prison and left to go to the 30th Century, the Rogues were in tears. Who was going to fight them and put them behind bars now? Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master decided to go and pester Batman, despite Weather Wizard warning them not to antagonize him. Unfortunately, they did not listen and Batman ended up beating them down several times.
  That was the biggest bummer Mark Mardon had seen in all his days, outside of those trips to the joint. Who was going to take up where Flash left off?
  Boomerang and Mirror Master had tried their luck with Batman. He'd warned them against it. Did they listen? Hell, no! They got their butts handed to them, Boomy more than once. Served 'em right.
• In the Dark Mark Fan Verse, Hellsister Trilogy's Superman decides enough is enough, and he makes an unofficial visit to Lex Luthor's cell to tell his arch-nemesis his antics would no longer be tolerated. Luthor laughs at him, and Superman proceeds to beat the crap out of his old nemesis.
• Kara of Rokyn reveals Pre-Crisis Lex Luthor didn't realize who he was antagonizing until Superboy tossed a meteor back into orbit.
  Nasthalthia Luthor: But he had the beaker the antidote had been in in his hand, and he was waving it around in front of Superboy. Just kinda to tease him. Superboy just sucked in with what was left of his super-breath, and busted the thing all over his mouth and got the last drops of it. He got up, shoved Lex back, grabbed the meteor and went outside with it. Lex looked out his window and saw him haul off and throw that thing. It had to have weighed over a hundred pounds. And it didn't come down. That's when Lex really started to realize what he'd been tangling with, because it didn't come down.
• In Nelson's Wake Up Call, Nelson sees Terry sleeping on a low wall in the school's courtyard and gets the bright idea to push him off. As soon as he touches him, Terry flips himself over, throws Nelson to the ground, and gets ready to beat the hell out of him, being currently in Batman mode. Nelson wonders to himself why he thought it was a good idea when he knows for a fact Terry could easily kick his ass. The only thing that saves him is Max talking Terry down and getting him to realize he hasn't been ambushed by one of his rogues gallery.

Discworld

• A.A. Pessimal's family saga Strandpiel mainly deals with what happens after Professor Ponder Stibbons marries a career Assassin and they become proud parents of three lively daughters. The youngest girl Ruth takes largely after her father and is meek, shy, and retiring. This, from a point of view of the school bully, makes her a natural target. Ruth puts up with it twice during a class lesson and calmly warns the bully twice. On the third attack, the bully finds her hand pinned to the table with the schoolroom compass Ruth has just stabbed her with. It takes a lot of pulling to free the bully's hand. As the Headmistress says later, contemplating who the girl's mother is
  Ruth having a proficiency with long, sharp, pointed objects that can be used for stabbing. Completely unexpected. Who would have thought it?

Godzilla

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
  • Guard B-04 viciously verbally taunts the Vivienne Graham half of the human-Ghidorah Two Beings, One Body on a recurring basis, for no other reason than shits and giggles. Viv and San eventually end up killing him.
  • In Chapter 4, Alan Jonah has one of his Mook Lieutenants deliberately attempt to provoke the hybrid to anger by relentlessly hurling increasingly vicious taunts at Vivienne. When said soldier finally goes too far on her, San takes over the wheel from her and he shuts the guy up permanently — and mercilessly.

Harry Potter

• This happens literally in 3 Slytherin Marauders when a Death Eater attacks a dragon that has befriended Harry Potter — he gets his Just Desserts, though the dragon later complained that he gave her indigestion.
• In Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Wizards, Dumbledore keeps trying to control every aspect of Harry's life after 1) betraying Harry and leaving him to rot in Azkaban and 2) Harry has unlocked God-like powers.
• Discussed in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Quirrel's first rule for being a successful dark lord is "I will not go around provoking strong, vicious enemies." He notes that history would be very different if Hitler had followed that rule.
• In Seventh Horcrux, Harry Potter is accidentally possessed by a portion of Voldemort's soul when the killing curse rebounds. Then he is placed in the care of the Dursleys, who promptly treat him like in canon. That does not last long, as Voldemort/Harry promptly remembers how to use wandless magic and begins terrorizing them.
• Princess of the Blacks:
  • After brutally murdering the Dursleys, Jen thinks to herself they really shouldn't have abused a child capable of rewriting reality on a whim.
  • Baron Samedi reveals to Jen that the youngest of the Perevell brothers tried to order him around. The only reason he didn't kill all three immediately is he found creating the Deathly Hallows so they'd kill themselves more amusing.

How to Train Your Dragon

• A literal example in The Dragon King. On their first flight, Marva forces her riding dragon Persephone to break off with the group where they end up in the nest of a sleeping Screaming Death. Somehow Marva gets it in her head that the best way to deal with the giant dragon is to yell at it and throw a stick at its eye. If it wasn't for Hiccup, her chances of surviving this encounter would have been very slim.
• A Thing of Vikings: Wulfhild implies that the reason why Einar and the other vassals issued their ultimatum - as well as planting insults towards Hiccup, Berk, Wulfhild, Ruffnut (who is now their queen) and Magnus - is because they are worried that Berk will eventually decide to strong-arm them with a Curb-Stomp Battle, and they've just shown what dragon riders can do to a conventional army.
  Astrid: With this sort of shit? Funny way of going about it. What moron thinks that the best way to keep from being attacked is to insult the threat?

The Hunger Games

• Checkmate (Anla'Shok): President Achlys learns the hard way that when punishing and threatening victors for acts of defiance, it really pays to make sure they have enough sense of self-preservation not to do something about it. When she arranges for a friend of unhinged and anti-authority District 4 victor Tang to die in the arena, he breaks into her house one night and tries to kill her husband, with Mags having to pull a pragmatic Save the Villain rescue (Tang killing Achlys or her husband would bring massive retribution down on the districts) that forces her to kill her first ever victor.
• In The End of the World series, during the events of "The Golden Mean": In Chapter 25, President Snow sends peacekeepers to arrest Haymitch and a few other Rebel mentors, only for some of the other mentors to grow alarmed at their weapons, vague explanations, hostile manner, and how they've cut off all the phones to the outside, leading to a fight breaking out with all sorts of improvised weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
  Haymitch: What happens next has nothing to do with the Rebellion. It happens because Snow has forgotten one simple fact: everyone in this room is a victor. Cornering victors is a universally bad idea.
• The Victors Project: President Snow really enjoys tormenting the victors for any real or perceived slight throughout the story (reaping their children and siblings, starving their districts, and using them as Sex Slaves). By the time the second Rebellion breaks out, he has about 2/3rds of the most deadly people in the nation (more if you count the ones who didn't live long enough to see that) baying for his blood.

Invader Zim

• Gaz's Horrible Halloween of Doom: Despite knowing what Gaz is capable of from firsthand experience, Iggins still mocks her for the fairy princess costume she was stuck with and tries to extort an ego-stroking from her (getting on her knees and telling him he's the better gamer) in exchange for telling her where to find the house giving out a very rare candy bar she wants. Unsurprisingly, she Neck Lifts him into submission, and after getting what she wants from him, throws him down the street.
• Gaz, Taster of PTSD: Despite knowing what Gaz is capable of, Torque still thinks it's a good idea to mock her trauma from the pork-tasting incident by presenting her with a pig's head with an apple in its mouth on a tray, saying it looks just like her. This ends with him having the tray shoved up his ass and the apple so far into his mouth he can't close his jaws.

Jackie Chan Adventures

• In Ages of Shadow, when Alonso Gragas finally cuts his ties with Jade, he gives her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech on why he never would have loyally served her, let alone become her new lover like she'd hoped, specifically insulting how disgusting she looks. Naturally, this pisses her off to the point that she tries to kill him.
• In Queen of All Oni, despite the fact that Jade rapidly becomes a very talented and powerful Evil Sorceress, there's still a couple of times when other villains feel the need to attack her:
  • Lung captures and tortures Jade to try to break her to his will. While she herself doesn't do anything to him in response, this leads to her Co-Dragons going on a Roaring Rampage of Rescue that destroys Lung's base and results in his death.
  • Later on in the story, the spirits of the Oni Elders view Jade as a mongrel upstart whom they can steal chi from to restore themselves to life. She renders them all Deader than Dead in response.

Jurassic World

• Debra from It's not the Raptor DNA is rude and openly insults Elise, an Indominus Rex. To be fair, she does raise some good points.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In The home-trip, Flash does this every day with Peter. Not only could Peter kill him in several different ways, both of his parents are Avengers. When Flash eventually learns that Peter's parents are a SHIELD agent and a former HYDRA assassin, and that his favorite victim is on a first-name basis with the Avengers, he starts truly fearing for his life.
• letmetellyouaboutmyfeels' MCU Rewrites:
  • In New Avengers, some idiot thought it was a good idea to deliberately antagonize Wanda Maximoff despite having the knowledge that she possesses mutant superpowers. He's lucky the only thing he got in return was being told off by The Vision.
  • In Black Widow, someone calls Natasha Romanoff a whore while she is outside a courthouse for her trial. Not only is she a master assassin but she is accompanied by her boyfriend, Clint Barton, who is also a master assassin. It's a good thing that they're in public or else that guy would have received much worse than Clint flipping him off.

Mass Effect

• A lot of civilians in the Uplifted series seem to think that bullying the somewhat mentally unstable Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Hoch is a perfectly rational thing to do. Very few survive his wrath unscathed.

Miraculous Ladybug

• All's Fair in Love and War (And Turnabout's Fair Play): Lila threatens Hawkmoth, a long-establish supervillain, into making her an Akuma to get revenge on Adrien, even claiming that she'll make him regret it if he doesn't. Hawkmoth responds by giving her the Useless Superpower of empathy, which is not only useless since everyone knows she's a Consummate Liar, but since she's The Sociopath, she gets tortured feeling other people's emotions.
• Feralnette AU: Both Hawkmoth and Lila are intimidated by how Marinette has changed, as she's Stopped Caring about her civilian life in favor of focusing on her other responsibilities. Her Establishing Character Moment in the series is grabbing one of his akumatizing butterflies and crushing it in her palm while daring him to Bring It, declaring that "Every leash has two ends!" and scaring him enough to recall it. Despite this, Hawkmoth remains intent on akumatizing her, and Lila continues her campaign of slandering her good name, even while fretting about the possibility of this much scrappier Marinette coming after her.
• Spellbound (Lilafly): The Fae consider Tikki and Plagg their gods, and also hold their wielders in high reverence. But because they are The Fair Folk, their attitude to gods is to always watch them for weaknesses and try to sneak an advantage. When Marinette is outed as Ladybug and kidnapped, Plagg willingly gives Adrien enough magic to beat up a Court chief and get her back.
  Plagg: Remember this sight, Adrien. This is what the power of a real god looks like, so teach those faerie chiefs and queens a lesson in humility for me by showing them that they cannot just take everything they please. Least of all Creation's Chosen.
• In There's More Magic Out There, Tomoe Tsurugi was originally a nekomata forced to be the guardian spirit for the Tsurugi family after being blinded and enslaved by an ancestor. She was still a powerful yokai, as Kagami's father found out when he tried to force himself on her in drunken lust. Once she killed him, Tomoe used the incident to conceive her daughter Kagami and take over the Tsurugi company.
• What Goes Around Comes Around
  • The story opens with Marinette's Secret Identity being revealed to the world when Shadow Moth launches an attack on the Dupain-Cheng Bakery. Chloé promptly goes after her, demanding that she hand over the Miracle Box and all of the Miraculouses, arrogantly assuming that she can blackmail her into giving in by threatening to have her father shut down their business.
  • Come the sequel, Truth & Journalism, Marinette is well-known as a superheroine who saved all of Paris... which doesn't stop a group of would-be bullies at Francoise Dupont from trying to take her on when she interrupts their assault on Sabrina. Their leader arrogantly sneers that without her yo-yo and 'fancy suit', she's just a stuttering, weak-willed, and clumsy girl... right before she effortlessly pins him to the ground.

My Hero Academia

• The Emancipators: Izuku wasn't always a dragon. His Quirklessness made him an easy target for Katsuki, even as his resentment of his former friend smoldered and grew into something dark. After receiving One For All, however, the main thing protecting Katsuki is that Izuku wants his long-time bully to SUFFER before he brings him down for good.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Lopoddity's Pandoraverse: Pandora was ostracized for her appearance despite being the second most powerful being in the setting and the daughter of Discord, THE most powerful and temperamental. Lopoddity later realized this made no sense (less for this trope than that ponies have been quick enough to accept non-ponies in canon that's there's no reason for it) and retconned it into the more plausible they were afraid of her powers.
• In Progress, Angel Bunny attacks Princess Luna with baseballs, knowing full well who she is. She freaks out at first, but after a little therapy with Fluttershy and Applebloom, she tries to keep cool about it until he breaks her glasses. Then she snaps.
• The Quiververse gives a fine example with Primrose Thorn, Brick Wall and their associates, former schoolyard bullies to protagonist Quiver Quill. In Many Happy Reunions, they attempt to harass him as an adult, only to discover that Quiver Quill, by this point, has gained powerful friends in the forms of the Mane Six (among other characters). Despite those characters being national heroes with several victories under their belt, they still choose to go on the attack. The story ends with all of them badly beaten and bruised, one of Brick Wall's knees shattered by Twilight Sparkle after he attempted to attack Spike, and Primrose's magic disabled for the foreseeable future.
• In Running From Myself two former classmates of Twilight Sparkle mock her and call her names in front of everypony like they used to, even while knowing she is Princess Celestia's personal student, and thus capable of great magical powers. This was true in a non-violent way when they were fillies. They never seemed to think that bullying somepony that Celestia holds dear would result in their suspension. Suspensions that they, naturally, blame on Twilight.
• The Vinyl Scratch Tapes:
  • Vinyl calls Princess Celestia out during a live broadcast interview for the whole "banishing your sister to the moon and never checking up on her even once for a thousand years" thing. Her co-host Octavia is horrified by Vinyl's behavior and is stunned when Celestia accepts it with good grace instead of having them immediately yanked off the air and thrown into prison.
  • This comes back to bite Vinyl big time, when Princess Luna royally chews her out for giving Celestia a huge guilt trip over the incident when it was entirely Luna's fault to begin with and she had no other choice but to banish her.

Naruto

• In The First Try Series, Sakura tries to do this to Naruto, with poor results:
  Barako: I would like to file a complaint against Uzumaki Naruto.
  Ninja Clerk: (grabs a pen and a form) What is the nature of this complaint?
  Barako: That filthy little monster threatened to break my daughter's arm!
  Clerk: (fills in information) Where were you, and what were you doing at the time this threat was made, and at what time did it occur?
  Sakura: I was outside the Academy. I had just gotten out of class for the day, and noticed him hanging around on that swing in the tree near the entrance. I... I tried to hit him.
  Clerk: (coldly crumples form) Let me get this straight. You, an Academy student, decided to attack a full-fledged shinobi who is only a Genin because he had a run of seriously bad luck, and isn't currently on his way to the Chunin exams because we don't want to give Iwa a chance to legally get their revenge on him for what he did to two of their Genin, and you want us to punish him because he decided to go easy on you and let you off with a warning?
• In Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox, Naruto gets subjected to this from the very first chapter, upon his arrival in Konoha Town in fact, by Mizuki's biker gang. Dosu, Zaku, and Kin, who'd previously had a run-in with Naruto at Ino's family greengrocery and had then dismissed him as being no threat to them, happen upon him later that same day and decide it's going to be a good idea to have the gang beat on him for kicks. The thing is, Naruto's a former member of the Kyuushingai, nine very dangerous people who laid waste to entire cities single-handedly over a 365-day period. The end result of the gang's attempt to bully him? Their motorcycles get turned into scrap, and several of their members wind up bloodied and broken on the ground. Then in the next two chapters, they have another confrontation, at which point he reveals his past to everyone present, and Mizuki (who's there this time) decides to send his gang at Naruto anyway. End result? Naruto defeats the whole lot of them with a soda bottle.
• Darui in The Pride threatens to kill Shizune (knowing full well she's carrying Naruto's child) if Naruto doesn't do what he says. Naruto is currently in Kyuubi Sage Mode and fully capable of taking on an entire country by himself. Needless to say, it doesn't go well for him. Made even worse by the fact Darui was there on orders to offer Naruto's group a chance to join Kumo and was told to only resort to violence if absolutely necessary.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Advice and Trust: In chapter 6 Gendo berates Rei for not obeying him and threatens her with "consequences" should she fail in following and executing his orders and only his orders to the letter. Keeping in mind he knows she is a Physical God capable of liquefying him with a mere thought and protected with an impenetrable barrier, he should think twice before threatening her, especially since she has begun ignoring his orders.
• The Child of Love: An humorous example. In chapter 5 Touji mocked Asuka’s gaming skills, despite knowing she was more than capable to destroy them all. A split-second later she had killed his in-game character.
• In Neon Metathesis Evangelion, Ritsuko grabs Rei's arm and refuses to let go, trying to physically coerce her. Unfortunately for her, Rei's soul has already been reunited, so Rei I's anger is now part of Rei. She gets double-whammed by AT Fields for her trouble.

One Piece

• This Bites!:
  • Kaku tries to invoke this for why the Straw Hats shouldn't challenge the CP9. Cross points out that as pirates, they fight the World Government as a matter of principle, furthermore Kaku and Kalifa are both outnumbered and outgunned.
  • Spandam's habit of this comes back to bite him when Franky and Robin are given free access to him with no one around who's capable of stopping them. They proceed to get some much-deserved revenge.

Pokémon

• The Beginning Trainer's Guide to Pokémon: The chapter regarding Darkrai emphasizes that one should never mistreat it, as it is an incredibly dangerous and hostile Pokémon with the power to trap its victims in endless nightmares. It holds long-lived grudges against people it hates, and will wait for years to get revenge on them if it needs to. One Trainer abused a Darkrai he had captured in order to make it hate him and thus maximize the power of its Frustration^note (a move that gets stronger the more the Pokémon hates its Trainer), feeding it bitter medicine and forcing it to fight Fighting-type Pokémon it was weak against. Eventually, the Darkrai turned on him and attacked him so ferociously that he was forced to release it, but it continued to haunt him and inflict terrifying nightmares on him every new moon. Four years later, the Darkrai was still stalking its old Trainer and forcing him to endure its nightmares, causing him to be reduced to a shadow of his former self.

Power Rangers

• Of Love and Bunnies has a ship full of troobian soldiers chasing the Lost Galaxy Rangers... while they're on their way to a Kegger. For every Power Ranger on Earth. It ends exactly as well as you are thinking.

Real-Person Fic

• In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, the four are known to be some of the most powerful individuals on C'hou—at least powerful enough to be able to get a white key on their own, an operation that usually takes dozens of people (and they'd be more freaked out if they knew that Paul did it mostly by himself). While most people are waaay too sensible to cross them, they tend to get attacked a lot anyway. Being Actual Pacifists, they school their attackers in creative and often humiliating ways.

RWBY

• Fixing RWBY explains why Cardin gets away with bullying Velvet, who is a stronger upperclassman. Velvet explains that she thinks an eye-for-an-eye would make Cardin even more prejudiced and wouldn't solve anything. She instead allows him to take his speciesism out on her because she's emotionally able to handle it, unlike his next potential victims. Velvet wants to befriend Cardin and fix his anti-faunus bias. She prefers gaining friends over enemies and sees Cardin as just a challenge to overcome.
• A pair of racist teenagers in Service with a Smile decide to assault Velvet while she's working at Jaune's cafe. Said cafe is considered the hangout of choice for huntsmen and huntresses looking for a good cup of coffee, all of whom are armed at all times. Luckily for said racists, they "only" get their asses kicked by Russel.
• White Sheep (RWBY): Despite Cinder telling him to call off the attack, and knowing that she has the Grimm behind her, Adam still attacks the Vytal Festival. Then he taunts Jaune once he shows up in Hentacle form. This leads to Jaune deciding to summon the giant Grimm dragon Kevin to eat Adam. He does.

Sekirei

• Ashikabi of Thunder and Lightning: Some of Higa's thugs chase after Oriha. The only reason they thought that they could get away with it was that her powers were weakened without an Ashikabi, and they got too close to her for her to be able to use her powers effectively.

Star Trek

• In the canon Star Trek: Voyager, the Kazon's willingness to harass the Federation starship wasn't this, as she's just a light cruiser with half-empty torpedo stores. In Star Trek Voyager: Uchū Tanken Yamato!!!, on the other hand, the Voyager was preceded by the USS Yamato, a fully loaded and equipped Galaxy-class explorer that repeatedly trounced them without using the experimental phaser lance... And they still harass both ships.

Star Wars

• Imperium of Vader: Sate Pestage is stupid enough to suggest to Vader's face that he forged the Emperor's will (which names Vader as Palpatine's heir) and that Pestage should be in charge instead. Tarkin walks into the room just in time to witness Pestage's death by Force choke-induced Neck Snap.

Tolkien's Legendarium

• In The Silmarillion story A Boy, a Girl and a Dog: The Leithian Script, Aredhel constantly baits her husband Eol into angering her father Fingolfin, the greatest Elven warrior, renowned for hurting Morgoth in single combat. Fingolfin trounces Eol very, very painfully every single time, and still his son-in-law never fails to fall for his wife's taunts. It's theorized Eol's well aware that his wife is goading him, but he's too proud to back down.
  Fingolfin: Master of Nan Elmoth. Mark my words very well. — Show our kinswoman and her story due respect, because I enjoy chopping you into pieces far too much for my own good.
  Aredhel: [poisonously sweet] Darling, no one will think the worse of you for not facing the High King of the Noldor in single combat, again.
  Eol: [calmly] I'm not afraid of your father.
  Aredhel: [sighing exaggeratedly] Why must you insist on reinforcing everyone's impression that you're insane? I have a hard enough time as it is.

Transformers

• In Skies of Vermillion (inspired by Ancient Rome), Soundwave purchases Tracks as a slave. Throughout the story, Tracks snaps at him, makes accusations, and even hits him on one occasion. Granted, Tracks has a Dark and Troubled Past, but the fact remains that Soundwave is his owner and could easily have him a) beaten, b) executed, c) executed by being beaten, or d) beaten and then executed if he wanted to.
• Spontaneous Earth: Ryanne, a human library employee, repeatedly expresses her desire to ban the Constructicons from attending an outdoor storytime program, to the point of threatening to get the police to shut down the event if they aren't kicked out. Her coworker Louise points out this is stupid because not only have the Constructicons not actually done anything to warrant expulsion from the event, it's very difficult to tell a group of giant evil robots they're not allowed to be somewhere they want to be. Fortunately, the situation is resolved before Ryanne tries anything drastic.

Undertale

• In the Mirror Universe fan AU Underfell, it's the monsters who attack the humans rather than the other way round. Unfortunately for them, monsters are still critically weak compared to humans like they are in canon. Also like in canon, the war between the two races is a Curb-Stomp Battle that ends with the monsters being banished underground and no humans killed.

Worm

• A Darker Path: Brockton Bay's gang leaders have a pass, since they didn't know what Atropos was capable of doing. Everyone that chooses to ignore her warnings (or worse, actively trying to attack her) does not. Those who try their luck after she destroyed the Slaughterhouse Nine in 42 minutes can't even excuse it. It gets to the point that the Darwin Awards committee officially states that being killed for ignoring Atropos' warnings is now considered "Suicide by Atropos" and thus not eligible for a Darwin Award.
• Justified in I'm HALPING. Part of Zachary's powerset is an extremely strong Stranger power that makes it impossible for people to perceive him as a threat. It's mostly intended to keep Taylor from freaking out about his presence, but it also keeps people from registering that picking fights with the super-strong, Nigh-Invulnerable mystery cape who literally punched Assault into the next state might be a bad idea.
• Wyvern: Literally, in this case. Armsmaster keeps antagonizing Taylor, mainly by pressuring her to join the Wards, which combined with Taylor's transformations being partially involuntary and triggered by intense stress tends to result in him facing a large, angry wyvern rather more often than he'd like to.

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