One Free Hit

Vegeta: If it makes you feel any better I'll give you one free shot. But I'm warning you, if you waste it—
Cell: [punches Vegeta]
Vegeta: [chuckles and wipes away a trickle of blood] —you're going to regret it.

— Dragon Ball Z Abridged

Two people are on the edge of getting into a fight, but before any violence can start, one takes a second to tell the other that they can get the first shot in, often accompanied by a warning about what will happen afterwards.

Reasons why they allow that free first shot varies; the character giving up the first shot might be a Reluctant Warrior essentially giving their opponent a Last Chance to Quit. It might be that the Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy is trying to show off their superiority. Perhaps they're simply trying to get an idea of exactly how strong the opponent is. It could be that they feel the other person is right to be angry with them so they allow that free shot in the hope that the other person will be satisfied after that. An ally, or a former ally, who dares them to prove their badassery or suffer shame. Women (whether they be Action Girls or not), tend to be offered a free shot often, usually by a man who underestimates them because of their gender and is sure that they won't be able to hurt him, which frequently leads to a variant of Showing Up Chauvinists. Possibly the worst case is fighting a Blood Knight or Combat Sadomasochist who sees the free shot as the start of a good time.

Sometimes the trope will be played with where the person who is offered a free shot really doesn't want to take it and will respond with a light tap, or by harmlessly striking something along the lines of a person's shield or armor rather than the other person.

Contrast Victory by First Blood, where whoever scores the first hit (or at least the first good hit) wins, My Fist Forgives You where one person hits the other to get some animosity out of the way before forgiving them, and Hit Me, Dammit!. This will sometimes result in a Victory Through Intimidation, and if that's how it was intended and is successful, it overlaps with To Win Without Fighting.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach: Kenpachi Zaraki is a ridiculously strong Blood Knight. As a result, he has taken to giving himself various disadvantages so that he can still enjoy his battles. One of these is to give his opponent one free hit at the start. This also doubles as a test of strength: due to the nature of Bleach's power system, weak opponents will be unable to even draw blood.
• Dragon Ball:
  • During Goku's first fight with Tien, Tien's teacher, the Crane Hermit, cheats on Tien's behalf by having his other student Chiaotzu use telepathic powers to briefly freeze Goku in place, allowing Tien to land multiple blows. After the cheating is uncovered and Crane is dealt with, Tien evens things out by allowing Goku to hit him with a volley of blows without even trying to defend. Once he figures that they're even, Tien begins fighting back again.
  • In the finale of the next tournament, Piccolo Jr. could not care less about the rules or fairness and openly intends on killing everyone after he's done with Goku. Kami takes this as a justification to intervene and block an attack from Piccolo... but Goku still wishes to fight and win fairly, and after admonishing Kami, just stands there and lets Piccolo take the shot.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • Perfect Cell allows Vegeta to charge up the Final Flash with intent to take it head on and prove how outmatched Vegeta is. Subverted, as at the last second, Cell realizes the Final Flash is actually powerful enough to kill him with a direct hit and dodges just enough to only have his arm and half his chest vaporized, which he can actually heal from.
  • Deliberately invoked by Mr. Satan at the end of one of the Worlds Martial Arts Tournament. Trunks has just won the junior championship, giving him the right to have an exhibition match against the World Champion i.e. Mr. Satan himself. Well aware that he doesn't stand a chance against the half-Saiyan Trunks, Mr. Satan decides to make a big show out of Throwing the Fight by giving Trunks a free hit and then "pretending" to lose to the 8-year-old. The tap from Trunks sends Mr Satan flying out of the ring, but he quickly rises to his feet and dramatically cries out that he's been beaten, convincing the entire crowd that Mr. Satan is just being a good sport with the kid, and leaving even Trunks unsure if Mr. Satan was actually affected by the blow or if he is much tougher than Trunks had thought. Only when Mr. Satan is safely inside his private dressing room and nobody can see him does he allow himself to collapse to the floor and writhe in pain.
  • When Gotenks (the fusion of Trunks and Goten) gets ready to fight Super Buu, the challenge-seeking Majin allows the fused saiyans to land multiple blows in the opening. After that, when Gotenks was about to punch him in the midsection, Buu stops Gotenks and tells the fusion to punch him in the jaw instead. Upon doing so, Buu's design changes to his red eyes and begins taking the fight more seriously.
• Flame of Recca: During the Tournament Arc, one of the fighters has the nickname of "Buddha", because of his fighting and religious philosophy to forgive the first two transgressions. He tells his opponents that they must defeat him in the first two hits because he won't forgive them for the third and will not hold back on a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: At their first meeting, Toji punches out Shinji over his sister getting injured due to collateral damage from Shinji's battle with the Angel Sachiel. After Shinji saves the lives of Toji and Kensuke during the battle with Shamshel (and after Toji's sister scolds him offscreen), Toji offers to let Shinji punch him back for free as an apology. In the anime, he does. In the manga, Shinji decides not to, figuring it'll be more fun if Toji owes him one.
• In Sanosuke's first chapter in Rurouni Kenshin, he challenges a much larger bar patron to a fight after the guy hits one of the women working there. Before the first punch, Sano invites the guy to take his best shot, and just stands there and takes it. Due to Sano's Super-Toughness, not only is he unhurt, but the guy who hit him breaks his arm punching him. (Much to the disappointment of Sano, who was hoping for a decent fight.)
• Soul Eater: Maka got frustrated during the Chain Resonance practice and punched Black Star.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: When Divine/Sayer catches Intrepid Reporter Carly in his office about to retrieve all the documents that would prove that Arcadia Movement conducts human experimentation that has killed people, he tosses her a duel disk, informs her that she has one turn, and after that she's not walking out of the office. Carly tries her best to set a good board with a deck that's not actually meant for dueling, but as he warned Sayer wins the next turn and throws Carly off the window (of his very tall skyscraper), resulting to her death.

Comic Books

• Edison Hark from The Good Asian subverts this in the first volume. The son of a man he arrested earlier in the story stumbles into Edison after a night of drinking and is eager for revenge. Edison says he'll let the guy get in a first shot, even with the broken bottle in his hand, but if Edison is still standing after that first shot he's going to take the younger man out. The guy hesitates and might be on the edge of reconsidering... and then Edison knocks him out with one punch while the guy is distracted and tells the guy's friends to take him home. When his shocked date comments on how he had said he was going to give the other guy a free shot, Edison just snarks that he's not dumb enough to actually go through with that. Eddy is a rather cynical guy.
• Justice League International: Guy Gardner takes off his Green Lantern ring and offers Batman one free shot at him. One is all Batman needs.
• At the climax of Punisher vs Batman: Deadly Knights, after Batman stops the Punisher from killing the Joker, Castle angrily punches Bruce in the face, resulting in this exchange:
  Batman: I let you have that one because you probably think I deserved it.
  (Punisher takes another swing at Batman, only for Batman to easily catch it)
  Batman: I said one. (casually tosses Punisher into brick wall) Don't test me, Castle.
• Thunderbolts: Played with when Bullseye tries to attack American Eagle, who told Bullseye he'd give him the first shot. Bullseye attacks. American Eagle dodges, then proceeds to beat Bullseye to a bloody pulp.
  Bullseye: You said... you'd give me... the first shot.
  American Eagle: I lied.

Fan Works

• The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf taunts Littlefinger into attacking him in a blind rage. When it wears off, Littlefinger realizes he didn't so much as scratch the Wolf's armor, only making a fool of himself (as evidenced by Arya laughing herself sick). The Wolf is also disappointed and instead has Littlefinger blindfolded and tied to a tree before stabbing him in the back.
• Total Drama Do Over: When Beth eliminates Mel, Mel is so impressed at her strategy that she offers Beth one free punch. Beth is too nervous to go through with it, so Courtney takes the opportunity to deck Mel in the face, knocking her off the ship.

Films — Live-Action

• In the Jan-Michael Vincent film Baby Blue Marine, Vincent's character Hedge is challenged to a fight by an Army Ranger, who repeatedly demonstrates his toughness by breaking beer bottles over the top of his head. Hedge doesn't want to fight, but is goaded into doing so. The Ranger tells Hedge he'll give him one free shot before the fight starts. Hedge promptly slugs him in the jaw and knocks him out cold.
  Hedge: I guess the trick is not to hit him on top of the head.
• The Breakfast Club: When Principal Vernon loses his temper with Bender, he takes him to a storage closet and threatens him, then challenges him to a fight and offers him the first punch. Bender doesn't take the bait and just sits there terrified until Vernon leaves him locked in the closet.
• Dogma: Everything seems lost for the heroes as demon Azrael holds the group hostage in a bar, waiting for his plan to come to fruition. When he sees Serendipity signaling Silent Bob to attack Azrael with a golf club stolen from Cardinal Glick, he stands Silent Bob up in front of him and offers him a free shot with the club, knowing as a demon he can withstand more damage than a mortal man. It backfires on him when Silent Bob hits him causing a mortal wound which Azrael soon dies from. Serendipity explains that if you hit a demon with an instrument of God, the holy power will destroy anything unholy. Bethany quickly catches on: the club is an instrument of God "because Glick's exactly the kind of asshole who would bless his golf clubs for a better game."
• In the middle of Chen Zhen's fight with General Fujita at the end of Fist of Legend, Fujita pointedly drops his guard and tells Chen to take his best shot by miming a punch to his chin. Chen goes for a big kick... and Fujita dodges and uses it as an opportunity to throw Chen.
• Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan has an unusual example where the encouraged blow is brought in near the end of the fight. When forced into a fight against the supernatural Jason Voorhees with no chance of escaping, teen boxer Julius Gaw punches him repeatedly, which only results in Jason No Selling the blows until Julius has injured his hands and is so exhausted he can barely stand. At that point Julius gives up on all attempts to defend himself and challenges Jason to hit him with his best shot. Jason promptly decapitates Julius with one blow.
• In Judge Dredd, when Dredd goes against "Mean Machine" Angel with a metal pipe, the crazed cyborg quips "Ya got three strikes, law-man!" and stands by. He blocks the first two, and no sells the third with his metallic forehead.
• Never Grow Old: After Dutch shoots The Sheriff, Patrick confronts him with a gun. Dutch tells him that he hasn't the stomach to kill anyone; even offering him a free shot and instructing his henchman Sicily to let Patrick go if he succeeds in killing him. After a moment, Patrick drops the gun and walks away.
• Tommy Boy: When Tommy and Richard's bickering finally escalates to the point they want to fight each other, Tommy arrogantly offers to give the much smaller Richard a free shot. After Tommy mocks his punching ability, Richard continues to hit him with a series of increasingly harder punches before finally whacking him with a nearby two-by-four.
• Wishmaster: The Djinn offers Alexandra a "free wish" as a sample for what's in store, but it just defaults to this trope because she wishes for the Djinn to attack himself. He shoots himself through the head without objecting, an injury from which he immediately recovers, establishing that he cannot be disposed of so easily.

Literature

• The Asterisk War: In the Phoenix Festa, AR-D and RM-C offer all their opponents in the Phoenix Festa a full minute free to attempt to land a damaging hit on them. They then proceed to tank all the damage that would have been done using a Deflector Shield. In the semifinals, Kirin Toudou works out the trick: the robots use their AI programs to predict the attacks and raise their shields accordingly, and she's able to actually crack part of the armor on AR-D's face simply by being less perfect in her attacks.
• Book of the Dead (2021): When Magnin and Beory return home, Magnin's brother Worthy is understandably furious with them, for not being there during their son's disastrous Awakening ceremony. Magnin lets Worthy punch him once in the chin, and just takes it, rocking his head back, but on the second punch, he uses his high level and skills to resist, making Worthy effectively hit a brick wall and injure his hand.
  Magnin: You get one, Worthy.
• Craft Sequence: In Four Roads Cross, Tara brings the gargoyle Shale to a meeting with the god-slaying sorcerer Kopil, the King in Red, in the hopes of negotiating ownership of a piece of the goddess the gargoyles serve. This goddess was mauled in the Great Offscreen War by Kopil himself, and that piece of her pocketed to increase his own power, so naturally there's bad blood between them. Tara barely restrains Shale from attacking him on sight, and the moment only grows tenser when Kopil taunts him over his goddess's near-murder and offers to let him take the first swing — "no shields, or wards, or tricks." Fortunately, Shale keeps his cool out of loyalty to Tara, and Kopil is intrigued enough by her control over him to hear her out without need for violence.
• Foundation's Edge: While out for a jog, Speaker Gendibal of the Second Foundation encounters a number of farmers, who would normally be deferential, but in this case, they uncharacteristically decide to start trouble. Karoll Rufirant, their leader, invites Gendibal to exchange hits, giving Gendibal the first shot, but it's clear that a punch from a scholar will have no impact on his muscular frame. It later turns out that the farmers' minds had been expertly adjusted to push them into the confrontation.
  Rufirant: Strike, scowler. Give us a blow.
• Keys to the Kingdom: The undead pirate Feverfew invites Arthur to cut his head off, after which Feverfew will do the same to him. Ordinarily, even a Denizen would die from beheading, but Feverfew's magic allows him to just stick his head back on.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Strong Belwas, a Meereenese pit fighter, allows each opponent to slash him once before he kills them. He's Covered with Scars and boasts that if someone were to count them all, it would tell them how many men he's killed.
  Strong Belwas: I let each man cut me once, before I kill him. Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain.

Live-Action TV

• Game of Thrones: Arya attempts to kill Sandor Clegane in his sleep by crushing his skull with a rock. Sandor is awake enough to catch her in the act, but confidently mutters that he'll give her a shot. If she misses, he'll beat her face in until it's unrecognizable. Having already lost the element of surprise, Arya wisely backs down.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Several subplots are built around the "slap bet" between Marshall and Barney, where the loser of the bet has to let the winner slap them in the face as hard as they can. Due to some chicanery with the rules, Marshall ends up winning the right to slap Barney five times, at any time of Marshall's choosing, which they quickly turn into a Paranoia Gambit against Barney.
  • Another episode has Barney piss off Ted and try to make amends by saying Ted can have one free shot ... before adding Not in the Face!. Ted punches them in the groin.
• In Jackass's "Department Store Boxing", Johnny Knoxville boxes against professional boxer Butterbean. It gets so bad Butterbean gives Knoxville a free hit on him. Johnny hits him, to no effect, and promptly gets knocked out.
• In That '70s Show, after Hyde sleeps with Kelso's ex Jackie, Hyde offers Kelso one free punch as penance.

Music

• The traditional English ballad "Matty Groves" (recorded by the likes of Fairport Convention and others) has the head of the house Lord Donald confront the title character after he had a tryst with the Lord's wife. After acknowledging that he has the advantage over the naked Matty, he makes this offer to him: "And you will strike the very first blow, and strike it like a man, I will strike the very next blow, and I'll kill you if I can."Lord Donald after surviving Matty's attack ends up killing both Matty and his cuckolding wife.

Sports

• This was the trademark of boxer Ricardo Mayorga, who when he wasn't fighting in the ring, was a hard partying, Trash Talking, Ax-Crazy bonafide street gangster. Although always part of his schtick, he first became well known for it during his second bout with Vernon Forrest, when he gave Forrest (who was not a light puncher by any means), six free shots in a row, with Mayorga nodding, laughing, and inviting Forrest to hit him again in between each pair of punches before Mayorga finally attempted to return fire. Afterward, he did the same with most of his opponents, usually taking an opportunity in the first round or two to invite them to hit him with their best shot.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Asylum: After Batman manages to defeat Joker's first Titan Goon, the Clown Prince of Crime offers his foe one chance to end it all for good. Batman naturally refuses to take it.
  The Joker: Seeing as how I'm feeling generous, I'll give you this one for free! Knock me off! I dare you! End this! Pull the plug! Stop me once and for all!
• In Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, you can choose to play the Ritual mini-game that gives a combat advantage to the winner. A possible consequence is to let the winner get one free hit on the loser before the battle starts.
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: Once the player has finished talking to the Big Bad Dagoth-Ur, Dagoth-Ur acknowledges the Player Character as the challenger, and gives them the first blow to begin. Due to seemingly an oversight in coding, however, he will always attack right after dialogue ends.
• Henry Stickmin Series: In the Master Bounty Hunter route of Completing the Mission, the Right-Hand Man Reborn, during his confrontation with the titular character, gives Henry one free hit to see if he can take the now-Cyborg down. Unfortunately for RHMR, he underestimates Henry's cunning and skills, with Henry using a cheap melee combo to take him out easily in a Curb-Stomp Battle, disabling the RHMR's cybernetics in the process.
• In the Mega Man (Classic) series, Metal Man, Crash Man, Needle Man, and Skull Man won't start fighting until Mega Man fires a shot at them. Some of them will eventually get impatient and start firing early if you take too long, though.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Armstrong does this to Raiden during the second phase of his boss fight, giving us the memetic scene of Raiden repeatedly punching him in the chest.
• Undertale: If you attempt to befriend Undyne, she tries to teach you how to cook like she did with Papyrus. Unfortunately, she causes her stove to overload, which then causes her house to catch fire. When she thinks that you and her are not compatible as friends, she decides it would be best if you stayed an enemy, like before. She then initiates a battle and gives you the first strike. Whichever option you pick, you automatically don't have the heart to hit Undyne at full force; any attack only lowers her HP by 1 point, taking only a sliver's worth out of her health bar.

Webcomics

• Bob and George: Bob and Mynd have both had occasions of allowing their opponents the first attack, including Mynd giving Bob this chance in their first fight.
• Grrl Power: For Whom The Death Bell Tolls challenges everyone who fights him to make the first attack. After watching him defeat several ARC-Light members, Sydney realizes that he has to let his opponent make the first attack because his superpower is being able to perfectly counter every attack that's made against him. If he can't goad someone into attacking him, he can't do anything.
• Homestuck: During Act 5 Act 2, Tavros grows a spine and decides to stop Vriska (who's crippled him) for good after she reveals she was the one who allowed Jack Noir to become a Physical God . Vriska who is much more powerful than Tavros, mockingly tells him he can have a free shot "No funny 8usiness or anything". When they finally clash during [S]: Wake. Vriska, being Vriska lied about the free hit and immediately kills Tarvos by impaling him with his own daggerlance.
• Poppy O'Possum: After tearing her way through the fighting tournament with her Super-Strength, Poppy faces the champion, Boris, who lets her have the first shot. She knocks the wind out of him but fractures her hand, and then the fight begins in earnest.

Web Videos

• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • The Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy/Blood Knight Vegeta allows people a free shot on multiple occasions.
    • Vegeta allows Android 19 to attack him in the midst of chatting with the other Z warriors. He responds by saying that the android just activated its own self-destruct sequence.
    • Vegeta tells Semi-Perfect Cell that he'll let Cell have a free shot. Cell hits Vegeta in the middle of Vegeta's speech, but Vegeta is virtually unharmed. He then spends the rest of the fight completely toying with Semi-Perfect Cell.
  • After Cell evolves into Perfect Cell, he winds up giving Vegeta two free shots. Cell completely shrugs off the first blow and reprimands Vegeta for not hitting him as hard as he could, which Cell had requested. Vegeta unleashes his Final Flash, which is enough to actually do some damage and might even have killed Cell if Cell had taken the blast head-on. Unfortunately, the Final Flash only lands a glancing blow on Cell and Cell has an extraordinary healing factor that immediately undoes the damage. The rest of the "fight" between Cell and Vegeta lasts only seconds.

Western Animation

• Family Guy:
  • One episode features Stewie subjecting Brian to two No Holds Barred Beatdowns in order to collect on a bet that Brian had made and was making excuses to avoid paying. After the second beating, Brian pays but refuses to talk to Stewie any longer. Stewie tries to make up for going overboard on the beatings by offering to let Brian have one free revenge blow. Brian accepts this but tells Stewie that he won't say when it is coming, causing Stewie to become paranoid. At the very end of the episode, seemingly after everything was wrapped up and forgotten, Brian suddenly pushes Stewie in front of a bus.
  • In another episode, Peter gives Stewie steroids to toughen him up, and Stewie starts acting extremely aggressively as a result. In one scene, he picks a fight with Brian, and Stewie actually punches himself in the face with the logic "the first one's on the house."
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Tree for Two", Spike the bulldog has cornered Sylvester in an alley. Terrified for his life, Sylvester timidly swipes his claws at Spike while cowering. Amused, Spike says "Aw, the kitty cat's gonna scratch me. Well, go ahead, scratch me!" and stands defiantly with his eyes closed. At that moment, an escaped panther hiding in the alley swipes at Spike, slicing him like a block of cheese (which he quickly recovers from).
  • In "Cat Feud", an alley cat takes the kitten Pussyfoot and steals the sausage he was eating. Pussyfoot gets angry and tries to claw him, but the cat, unintimidated by this ineffectual display, mockingly sticks out his chin to have Pussyfoot get first hit. That's when the bulldog Marc Anthony takes a hanging I-beam and swings it at the cat's face.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot:
  • Jenny ends up in a fight with Himcules, while severely hampered by extremely sensitive artificial nerves where even the slightest touch can set them off. He delights in her pain so much that he decides to go easy on her and let her take a swing at him right in his face. Her attack does nothing but cause her severe agony thanks to the nerves.
  • In "Mist Opportunities", Jenny grows lazy and out of shape from letting Misty fight all the crime in town. When Misty refuses to fight a monster because she didn't get paid, the two fight, with Jenny getting demolished by both Misty and the monster. When Jenny becomes too beat to fight anymore, Misty smugly offers her a free hit, and when she doesn't respond, takes that free hit for herself.
    Misty: Tired, Jen? Here, I'll give you a free shot. No? What's that? You wanna give me a free shot? Gosh, it seems so unfair, but since it is your last request...
• The Simpsons: In the Hamlet segment of "Tales from the Public Domain", when Ralph/Laertes and Bart/Hamlet are about to battle, Moe/Claudius says Laertes gets one practice stab. Laertes promptly uses this practice stab on himself, falling dead instantly.
• Storm Hawks: In "The Lesson", Piper is forced into a melee fight with Snipe, who tells her "Tell you what, because you're a girl I'll let you take the first shot" and presents his cheek. Unbeknownst to him, Piper has just spent the episode training with a Trickster Mentor, who made her play a "Test Your Strength" Game multiple times until she could win with a combination of strength and skill... she applies the same technique to her punch, and sends him flying with a single blow.
• The Venture Bros.: When Augustus St. Cloud makes the mistake of breaking into his archenemy's house right when his mother (a veteran, retired superheroine) was there, she has this to say:
  Rose: I'll let you take the first swing, and if you don't put me down, I'll beat the living shit out of you until my arthritis kicks in. And I just took my Humira.

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