One to Million to One

A person has just been hit by a laser beam, or a truck. The person doesn't fly off into space, though. Instead, he shatters into hundreds of... animals? Which then flock over in unison to a different spot? Then regroups into that person again, whole and unscathed?

Alternatively, the person may not be in imminent danger of being splattered into pieces involuntarily, and merely decide to scatter himself into many many tiny bits which then fly away elsewhere. And even then, the go-elsewhere part is also optional; the person may just scatter into dust lest a truck runs him over.

Most of the time, the person in question has a superpower, or may also be supernatural, or may be in fact The Worm That Walks. Or they're just a vampire (in which case the animals are almost always bats) - a form they might weaponize against their enemies, as a Barrage of Bats.

Unlike in the case of Literally Shattered Lives, those employing this trope don't die from being shattered. See also Pulling Themselves Together, which is similar to the second half of this trope, and generally trauma-induced. Blob Monster and Elemental Shapeshifter can do something similar to this. Literal Split Personality may also result. Compare also Detachment Combat if they just detach their body parts rather than breaking down to flying pieces. Related is Destructive Teleportation that employs a method similar to this, i.e breaking the subject into atoms and then reconstructing them in another place; people who have this as an ability might achieve long-distance movement similar to a teleport this way. Compare Me's a Crowd and Asteroids Monster.

Not to be confused with Million to One Chance.

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Examples for trauma-induced variants

Advertising

• This happens with cars in an insurance commercial (Liberty Mutual?) The car would be rear ended, and fly into little pieces, before reforming a short ways away.

Anime & Manga

• Kinnikuman: When Kinnikuman uses his Megaton Punch to shatter Akuma Shogun's body, it breaks into hundreds of razor-sharp pieces that fly though Kinnikuman's body before reforming.
• Naruto: Itachi Uchiha has a technique that creates a clone of himself that disperses into crows when damaged. But since he often combines it with his illusion techniques it's hard to tell whether he is using a clone or an illusion.
• This is the standard with characters in One Piece with Logia powers: Because they embody elements, they can turn themselves (and their clothing and any nonliving things carried on them) into their element, which can then move around in midair and reform at will. These properties effectively render these users invulnerable to most forms of physical damage, but at the cost of near helplessness against their elemental weaknesses. For example, Sir Crocodile is able to scatter into sand and take the form of a living sand cloud, reforming anywhere he wants—but moisture will cause the grains of sand to pack together and be unable to separate.
• Princess Resurrection: Reirei, being a vampire, can turn into a smaller bats and reform back fairly easily. She uses it to mostly avoid attacks or get around her assailants with ease.
• Whenever the Yu-Gi-Oh! monster Revival Jam gets splattered by an attack, it quickly reforms itself. Marik combines this with the Jam Defender card to ensure that Yugi's attacks only hit Revival Jam, making his other monsters untouchable.

Comic Books

• Wonder Woman (1987): The shattered god was split into many pieces long ago and has been slowly rebuilding themselves. Their individual pieces can each possess an animal or person individually, allowing them to at one point attack Diana as a flock of birds.

Films — Live-Action

• Gabriel in The Prophecy series sometimes teleports this way, as when a shot from a gun turns him temporarily into a murder of crows.
• Played in a hilarious fashion in the Disney sequel, Halloweentown: Kalabar's Revenge. Sophie and Dylan realize that Alex, believed to be Carl's father, is in fact a golem created from the villain Kalabar to distract Gwen. The golem (wearing a frog costume) eats a fly Sophie conjures with her magic, breaking the illusion. An angry Gwen then blasts him with magic, turning him back into a pile of frogs.

Gamebooks

• In Book 14 of Lone Wolf, one boss is an armored, fire-breathing, demonic monkey. After it is killed, its corpse turns into a swarm of man-eating insects for you to contend with. Notably, the insects are an illusion. At that point, Lone Wolf has achieved a level of mental discipline that allows him to simply ignore them.

Literature

• Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files:
  • In Dresden's debut short story, Harry and Murphy manage to smash a troll, which breaks into dozens of tiny trolls that escape into a storm drain. Harry notes that supernatural predators will catch most of the little ones before they can reach a threatening size again.
  • In Small Favor, while the shapeshifted form of Tessa isn't actually made of bugs, she is a giant preying mantis with little praying mantises instead of blood that fly out when she gets shot.
• In Renegades, Donna/Monarch can transform herself into a swarm of monarch butterflies, making her an excellent scout and spy.

Live-Action TV

• In Smallville, Clark Kent battles a Spider-Man-esque villain named Greg Arkin in episode 2. When Greg gets crushed by falling debris, his body breaks up into dozens of beetles.

Music

• Madonna's music video Frozen has one scene where she seemingly falls over and shatters into crows which then fly away.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • From 3rd edition Unapproachable East, a Telflammar Shadowlord of at least 5th level, if dealt a killing blow while in shadows or darkness, has a chance to "discorporate" instead, turning into dozens of flitting shadows which vanish. The character basically cease to exist until the next sunset, where it reappears intact within a mile.
  • From 3.5's Fiendish Codex I, one of twenty random death effects for a demon is for the defeated infernal to collapse into a horde of inch-high duplicates of itself, which fight each other until one remains, which vanishes in a puff of smoke.
  • In 4th Edition, the crystalline beings known as the Shardmind have an ability that lets them separate into individual pieces and reform a short distance away after being successfully attacked.
  • The 5th Edition Swarmkeeper Ranger subclass can, at high levels, use their reaction to halve any damage they just took and teleport away by disappearing into their swarm.

Video Games

• This is how the player character "dies" in cat planet.
• Subverted in Dungeon Keeper: Vampires turn into a cloud of bats when defeated, but only when Killed Off for Real. If defeated in a way they come back from, they turn into mist instead which then reforms the vampire in your graveyard.
• The Forest Quartet have you playing as a ghost roaming a dark forest. One of your powers allows you to disperse into hundreds of butterflies made of light before reforming.
• This is an infuriating ability of the "Golden Knight" enemies in Karnov.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has Jalhalla, boss of the Earth Temple. Killing the smaller parts is what actually harms it, as evidenced by its lifebar.
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
  • The mini-boss Deathsword (who, as the name suggests, appears to be a lich wielding a large sword) of Arbiter's Grounds disintegrates into a massive swarm of scarabs after being defeated.
  • Armogohma, a truly spectacular and terrifying Giant Spider. After you beat her the first time, she disintegrates into an eye with legs and a swarm of smaller spiders, which you have to fight off while going for the eye.
• Boolossus, the third boss of Luigi's Mansion, is defeated by luring him into the horn of a nearby ice unicorn statue, causing him to pop into many smaller Boos, which you can then capture.
• Remilia Scarlet, the Final Boss of the sixth Touhou Project game, pulls off this move if you try to Smart Bomb her during her final Spell Card pattern. The compendiums elaborate upon this, revealing that Remilia can spawn thousands of bats and is capable of fully reforming in a day if so much as a single bat survives.
• In Hollow Knight, Troupe Master Grimm and Nightmare King Grimm split into dozens of Grimmchild-like bugs upon getting staggered. One of the bugs, indicated by an aura, can still be hurt during this period. After a few seconds of random flying, all bugs converge in one place and the boss reforms.

Webcomics

• minus.: minus in the guise of a fairy godmother once saves a jumper from suicide by making him splatter into smaller copies of himself on impact after he wished it didn't have to end on the way down. He appears to be much happier with his life.

Western Animation

• Looney Tunes: At the end of the early short "Hold Anything", Bosko falls from a great height and splits into several miniature copies of himself, which do a little dance before merging.
• In the Roger Rabbit short "Trail Mix-Up", Roger is put through a wood shredder and emerges as over a dozen mini-Rogers; all but one of them merge back.
  Roger: BABY...!
  Mini-Roger: Herman!
• Ugly Americans: When Mark Lily snaps his friend Wizard Leonard's wand, Leonard explodes into Ludicrous Gibs. Shocked by this, Mark fails to collect the globs of gore before they each transform into a mini-Leonard, each possessing a fraction of the original's personality and soul. As the episode progresses, each of the little Leonards is killed via their own startling naivete, their portion of Leonard's soul going to the rest until only one remains to become the revived Leonard.

Examples for at-will variants

Advertising

• Similar to Emily from Corpse Bride, an earlier ad for the Sci Fi Channel had a lady transform into a swarm of butterflies.

Anime & Manga

• Movie villain Janenmba from Dragon Ball Z can teleport around by breaking his body into smaller, squared bricks that reform at the desired location, usually just behind the opponent. However, he cannot attack unless he has completely reformed.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion, Wu Tomoki's Stand, Doctor Wu, lets him disintegrate his body into tiny stone fragments and reform later. He can use these fragments to control other people if they get inside their body.
• In the manga version of Guyver, Aptom converts his own body into Gaster's organic missiles to attack an enemy. After Aptom converts himself completely, the manga cuts to a distant rooftop, where it is revealed that while most of the missiles blew up, some of them flew away and recombined into a diminished Aptom.
• Arachne from Soul Eater hid herself by turning her body into 3000 spiders that spread across the world, and then hid her soul inside a giant Golem.
• As befitting the King of All Vampires, Alucard from Hellsing can do this in spades. He does the traditional version with bats to regenerate from being beheaded, then changes into a swarm of centipedes after undoing Restraint Level One and unleashing his familiars.
• Benisato in Ninja Scroll does have a normal body, but she can use a writhing mass of snakes to hide or fight with.
• In One Piece, Gekko Moriah fights by sending his Living Shadow at his enemies. It can appear as a giant made of shadow, but can also split into many small globes of shadow to protect Moriah, and those globes can then sprout wings and fangs to attack as a swarm.
  • Additionally Karasu has consumed a Devil fruit that allows him to turn into a murder of crows at will. The classification of this fruit is currently unknown.
• Naruto: Katsuyu can not only voluntary split into thousands of tiny versions of herself and reform, those who have signed the Slug contract (including Tsunade and Sakura) always summon portions of her. Whereas the Toad and Snake summons have entire families of differently-sized summons, there is only one slug, and she's at least big enough to be summoned at a size equal to other Great Summons, by both Tsunade and Sakura, at the same time.
• Snake Youkai Tayura from Ushio and Tora usually moves around by transforming his body into a whirlwind of razor-sharp splinters which he can also use to attack in tandem with his partner (a frog youkai)'s Overly-Long Tongue. According to Tora, the weakness of this attack is that Tayura needs an open space to move properly, and is reduced to a sitting duck when cornered in an elevator.
• It isn't clear if it actually happened or not but Legosi of Beastars briefly appeared to transform into a swarm of moths during his final fight with Tem's killer. He never uses this ability again, making it a bit of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
• As a vampire, Rose from My Cheat Skill Resurrection Revived Me is able to transform her body into numerous bats shown in manga chapter 10 and 21.

Comic Books

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10: In the second issue, one vampire disperses into a swarm of bees to avoid a crossbow bolt from Dawn. Spike deals with the bees using a Booze Flamethrower.
• Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: The Ammonites are a race of transforming, combining robots similar to Cybertronians. Unlike Cybertronians, every Ammonite is a Combiner, with no limit to their combination ability beyond how many there are. This takes the Cybertronians who encounter them initially by surprise, as a large Ammonite suddenly splits into a bunch of smaller robots, each only slightly larger than a human, then merge back together into a different large robot.

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Vampires can do so, as seen in "Assault on Wemos":
  the agile monster turned into a swarm of bats that was suddenly behind the reaperbot. The vampire returned to her true form

Films — Animation

• Corpse Bride has Emily dissolve into butterflies by the film's end.
• Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: The Genie and Abu's picnic is attacked by a swarm of spiders that pile together before turning back into Jafar. The bugs weren't his true form, however — apparently he just wanted to freak them out.
• A example in the Dragon Hunters movie with the "Red Swarm". Constitued of many small red flying creatures (looking like a cross of toad and bat), it can assemble into a large, fire-breathing dragon/ogre. Once, the dragon reconstitutes while the swarm is separated in several places; its head ends up stuck inside a barn, the body outside and one leg farther away, but still mobile and aware of its other body parts.

Films — Live-Action

• The 2010 Clash of the Titans has Hades teleport by having demon imps fuse into him (and he can fission into said imps). He also has a "conventional" Villain Teleportation where he appears from what is essentially a shadowy black hole that has sucked up a platoon of Argosian soldiers.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The vampire Mina Harker can split up into a swarm of bats at will, travel some distance and reform into a human again.
• Snow White & the Huntsman gives this ability to the Evil Queen, who can disperse into crows.
• Little Nicky once turned into a bunch of spiders to escape an angry mob, then reformed in his apartment.
• In Bram Stoker's Dracula, among other transformations, Dracula takes the form of a horde of rats to escape the protagonists.
• After being released from her bonds in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the sea goddess Calypso grows to about 30 feet tall then dissolves in a shower of crabs, to escape into the ocean.
• In the live-action modern version of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the villain, Maxim Horvath, first appears as a swarm of cockroaches scurrying out of a matryoshka doll and assembling themselves into a human figure, complete with clothes.
• Upon becoming a vampire, Vlad III, the newly risen Dracula in Dracula Untold, is capable of doing this with bats, and does so very often, both to teleport and in a Flash Step. He adorns the page image.
• Destoroyah from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah is a kaiju made of multiple tiny crustaceans merged into a single gargantuan body. At the climatic battle, when Burning Godzilla wrestles against him, Destoroyah is forced to briefly split on his aggregate form, medium-sized crab-like monsters, to tackle Godzilla as a group.
• In Transformers: Age of Extinction this is how KSI's line of mass-produced transformium-based products are able to change. They break down into numerous small cubes which can hover and reassemble into new shapes, then smooth out into the desired product. This includes their "new and improved" line of attack drone robots based on the Autobots, which are actually being controlled by Megatron's consciousness inside their "Galvatron" model.
• Xianniang from Mulan (2020) can turn into a swarm of bats.

Literature

• In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, a vampire can only change into a single bat if they've been feeding on human blood, since it takes great magical power to change one's body mass in the setting. Belonging to the beetotaler Black Ribboners, Lance-Constable Sally von Humpeding, the first vampire to join the Ankh-Morpork City Watch in Thud!, turns into a flock of bats. This is theoretically easier than turning into a single bat since you don't have Shapeshifter Baggage problems. What you do have are "keeping track of where they all are" problems and, for female vampires, "making sure two of them carry your clothes for you" problems.
  • Despite being very much not Black Ribboners, the Magpyr family transforms into a swarm of hundreds of magpies at the end of Carpe Jugulum, presumably because it looks cool.
• Played with in Castle Hangnail. As part of the demonstration Molly gives her new minions to convince them she's powerful enough to run the castle, she appears to disperse herself into a swarm of bats and fly away. (She can't actually; what she does is turn invisible at the appropriate moment while a friendly swarm of bats who live in the castle's belfry provide the effects.)
• In the Wild Cards novels Inside Straight, Busted Flush and Suicide Kings, Jonathan Hive has the power to turn himself into a swarm of wasps and back again.
• In Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, D'ivers are shapeshifters who can turn and split into several animals of the same species at once, rather that just one. Some of them, like Gryllen or Mogora, can turn into hundreds of rats and spiders, respectively. Mogora in particular loves collapsing into a heap of spiders only to reassemble into her human form a short distance away and laugh.
• In Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:
  • The demon Hastur bursts out of a phone line as a massive wave of maggots and eats a roomful of telemarketers.
  • Also, Crowley scared the pants off a guy with a form that basically overloaded his brain. Aziraphale thought the maggots were a bit much, but that's angels for you; never appreciate a good maggot form.
• In Hex and the City, a powerful demon takes the form of a huge swarm of biting flies.
• In The Dresden Files book Skin Game, the Denarian Tessa (see Trauma section) attacks Harry in a secure bank vault by converting her body mass into a swarm of insects that attacks every inch of his exposed skin while trying to burrow into his orifices, while simultaneously whispering demonically into his mind.
• The Lords and Court of Creature Court have the ability to transform into their signature animal based generally on their body mass, which leads to this if their animal form is small. The closest to swarming are Velody and Poet (mice and rats, respectively), but other Court members become multiple pigeons, bats, sparrows, cats etc.

Live-Action TV

• The Locust Undead in Kamen Rider Blade can split himself into multiple smaller locusts to attack the BOARD office before returning to a more humanoid locust form to fight Kenzaki as the titular Kamen Rider Blade.
  • A Bee Ganma also featured this power in Kamen Rider Ghost, dissolving into a swarm of bees when attacked.
• The '90s Dracula: The Series has the vampires break up into swarms of bats when making a quick getaway.
• On Shadowhunters, the Prince of Hell Azazel can evade attacks by dissolving into a swarm of insects and flying away.
• In the Crisis On Infinite Earths' final battle, the heroes prepare to battle the horde of Shadow Demons until they merge into a cloud of dark energy from which the Anti-Monitor appears.
• Gorm, the Big Bad of Galidor, has the ability to turn into a swarm of bat like creatures, which he uses to travel, in a way similar to Villain Teleportation.

Tabletop Games

• Exalted has the spell Flight of Separation, which turns the caster into a flock of birds.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Ananasi, werespiders who, in their animal form, turn into their weight in spiders. Since they can eventually regenerate their entire bodies from even one of those spiders, it makes for a great escape technique.
• In the New World of Darkness:
  • The Changing Breeds can do this with a specific aspect. Werecrows turn into crows, werebats turn into bats, and werecats turn into a horde of small cats or kittens...
  • In Vampire: The Requiem, vampires capable of shapeshifting into animals can learn to become a swarm of tiny creatures like bats or rats instead. Unlike regular shapeshifting, the experience is confusing enough to leave them slightly deranged for hours afterwards.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • In 3.5th Edition, the warlock can transform into a cloud of darkness and bats, but given any warlock's extremely limited skillset and how late this comes, nobody ever takes this power.
  • What's worse than a druid who can turn into a giant bear and eat you? A druid who can turn into a swarm of 10,000 flesh-eating scarabs and eat you. Plus as a druid with the swarm ability you gain heavy resistance to melee and basic ranged attacks. The flavor art for the 4th edition Primal Swarm druid build depicts one such druid transforming into a bunch of cute, placid frogs, humorously enough.
  • Worse, there are some feats and magic items that turn you into a magic, resistant-to-all-damage walking colony of flesh-eating insects.
  • The Swarmshifter template from 3.5 allows DMs to apply this trope to all sorts of monsters.
• The 2nd edition Discworld Roleplaying Game has the Alternate Form: Swarm Body meta-trait to represent Discworld vampires, above.
• Big Eyes, Small Mouth has the Swarm power, which allows its user to transform into a swarm of insects or a flock of birds.

Toys

• BIONICLE has Zaktan, whose body is composed of millions of microscopic organisms called protodites. His power was first triggered involuntarily when he was blasted by Eye Beams that were supposed to disintegrate him—which they did, technically. But since then, he's been able to do it any time he wants.

Video Games

• One of the new Taken in Alan Wake's American Nightmare, the Birdman, turns into a flock of crows at will, but doesn't have the darkness shield of vanilla Taken.
• In Alice: Madness Returns Alice gains the ability to briefly turn into the swarm of butterflies to get back from Bottomless Pits or just Flash Step around.
• In Awesomenauts, Ix the Interloper can avoid attacks by splitting his body into many smaller crystals
• In Bayonetta, by dodging an attack at the very last second, Bayonetta can shatter into bats upon getting hit, negating the attack and gaining increased amounts of Witch Time in the process. For Jeanne she turns into a swarm of moths, and this is the only way she can get Witch Time normally. In the sequel, Rosa can also use this ability, turning into a swarm of hornets. This carries into her Super Smash Bros. incarnations, too. When she attempts, but just barely fails, to dodge an attack, she bursts into a cloud of bats and reforms at her intended destination, taking reduced damage from the attack and none of the knockback.
• In BioShock Infinite, the Zealots of the Lady (also known as "Crows") are a series of Elite Mooks that are able to use the "Murder of Crows" vigor to transform into a flock of crows, avoiding all damage before reforming to attack. Weirdly, the player can also obtain the Murder of Crows vigor, but they don't get this ability (instead they get the power to summon a horde of crows to swarm enemies).
• The fire elemental boss from Cadash looks like a big demon standing still in a pit of fire, that shatters in a multitude of fireballs before reforming into another fire pit.
• Carrion: After the Villain Protagonist monster obtains the Hydrophilia upgrade, it becomes able to transform into a swarm of worms when it enters the water and reform into its usual amorphous flesh structure when it exits the water. This allows it to fully bypass the "metal square" barriers whose gaps are normally too small to pass through, but it only works while underwater.
• Castlevania:
  • Dracula occasionally teleports this way. Being the good ol' Drac, he becomes a mass of bats. Curiously, the ability was first seen in an NES-era boss fight with Alucard, who uses Drac's classic pattern from the other games.
  • Some games, such as Castlevania Chronicles, also give this ability to the Phantom Bat. Similarly, Super Castlevania IV gives this ability to the mummy boss, Akmodan II, who teleports as a stream of loose bandages.
  • In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Dracula can do this with a plague of rats when hiding in shadows, and Alucard can teleport himself with a swarm of bats.
• The Succubi and Incubi of Darkstalkers make their clothes out of souls, which manifest as bats. They can occasionally turn themselves into bats as well, an ability Morrigan makes use of to help her distract and then get the jump on Iron Man in one of the trailers for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
• Nevan from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening teleports across her room/battle arena by dissolving into bats.
• In The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, Yuki gains the ability to dodge attacks by instantly shredding herself into a full body version of Pink Mist then reforming elsewhere.
• The Ultimate form of the Shapeshifter mage subclass in Dragon Age: Origins is a swarm of bees. Taking a master level in Shapeshifter turns them into parasitic insects.
• Vampire Lords in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim can turn into bursts of bats to travel short distances.
• This tactic is imitated by the Dragon Devil in I Wanna Be the Guy.
• Khimera: Puzzle Island: The mastermind, when Chelshia tries to punch them in their reveal cutscene, dodges by turning into four bats that reform away from the starting location.
• Beelzebub in La-Mulana alternates between being a swarm of flies, being more-or-less normal humanoid, and being one giant fly.
• Storyline example from League of Legends — Naafiri is a Darkin whose Soul Jar was bitten by multiple desert hounds simultaneously, causing her to reincarnate as a Hive Mind of feral dogs. "She" can effectively be as many or as few dogs as she needs to be: yes, she can do more with a full pack, but if even one dog survives, she lives.
• This is Kain's favorite method of transportation in Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen and Defiance. Being a vampire he transforms into a flock of bats.
• Link's Crossbow Training: After its outer layer of armor is knocked off, the Darknut demonstrates the ability to dissolve into thousands of flies and reform at will. Although this allows him to teleport around the room and avoid Link's attacks, it also reveals his weakness: There are three white flies among the black ones, and if they are destroyed, the Darknut can be killed in his humanoid form.
• Cackletta and Antasma of the Mario & Luigi series are both capable of splitting into a cloud of bats and rushing the brothers. Notably, in the case of the latter, jumping on and destroying the individual bats will deduct from his HP when he reforms.
• The Yellow Devil and its many, many successors throughout the Mega Man franchise fights by sliding square segments of its body across the screen one at a time until it reforms on the other side.
• The Dimitrescu Daughters in Resident Evil Village can turn into swarms of flies to move around and evade attacks. Their only weakness is cold temperatures which kill the flies very quickly.
• This is one of the abilities of Swarm, the Air-elemental giant in Skylanders. He can turn into a swarm of bees at will, and since he is a massive humanoid bee, it grows into a massive cloud that damages opponents that touch it. One upgrade path allows him to improve on this, letting him unleash shockwaves or even form the swarm into a giant axe for massive damage.
• Being Western-inspired vampires (as opposed to more conventional Eastern vampires), Touhou Project's Remilia and Flandre Scarlet are able to turn into and reform from a swarm of bats. Interestingly, Flandre's bats have normal wings, even though she herself has bizarre metal/crystal wings.
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen introduces the Spectre, a robotic humanoid that reverts to a cloud of Nanomachines when it moves. This allows it to fly over difficult terrain, and grants it the Lightning Reflexes perk, making the first Overwatch shot against it miss.
• Vagullion, the Warm-Up Boss from Ys Origin, will sometimes transform into a flock of bats and fly toward the player to attack. After taking enough damage, it splits into two beings, both of which use the swarming attack. It likewise appears in Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen, to which Origin serves as a prequel, where it is most definitely not a warm-up boss, coalescing into its singular form for only a split-second at a time.

Webcomics

• Kill Six Billion Demons: Gog-Agog is a Hive Mind of The Worm That Walks and capable of assembling and disassembling bodies from her component worms at will (she has a lot of worms, and can teleport). She pulls the trick several times during King of Swords and Breaker of Infinities, usually in ways full of Body Horror.
• In PepsiaPhobia, Krphxyzwlps the Neitherbeast is a shapeshifter who can take many forms, but always with the same total mass. This can include several humans, or in one case a swarm of mice to slip through a small hole.

Web Videos

• Flander's Company: In the season 5 finale superhero battle royale, Kevin, in a spectacular case of New Powers as the Plot Demands, spew some green silk from his mouth and wraps himself in a cocoon. It later breaks open, releasing a swarm of Kevin-headed butterflies which fly around before reforming anew into Kevin as human-butterfly hybrid. Nadège is very disturbed by the whole sight.

Western Animation

• The Static Shock show has a The Worm That Walks villain called Mmoboro who is a swarm of hornets merging into a giant anthropomorphic hornet.
• The series finale of Kassai and Luk shows two of the setting's gods turning into flocks of birds.
• In The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VIII", Witch Marge can turn her hair into a swarm of bats.

Real Life

• Slime molds break apart into individual amoeba-like cells that forage for microscopic food, then merge together into much larger colony organisms that ooze around, feeding on decomposing plant matter as they prepare to reproduce.

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