History Awesome / DeadBeat

** Hell, summoning the Erlking is a moment of awesome on its own. Harry summons and tries to bind one of the most powerful FairFolk in existence. This will give said FairFolk a personal grudge against Harry, which means the Lord will probably kill him within a day or two even if bound long enough for Harry's purposes. (Remember back in ''Literature/StormFront'' when Harry comments in the narration that he'd never try to summon and trap [[BadassSanta Santa Claus]] in a magic circle because "nobody has stones that big"? Various bits of WordOfGod, plus the eventual appearance of "Kringle" in ''Literature/ColdDays'', indicate that summoning the Erlking is comparable to that). And not only did Harry summon it, he'd have actually held it in the circle. To clarify, right before doing it Harry considered that he'd have needed weeks, using some pretty rare and hard to find materials to be sure the circle could keep something that strong inside it, but he has to make one in a matter of minutes. Then the Erlking tries to break the circle, and Harry (already quite battered by that point) ''pushes it back''. Too bad Cowl was savvy, but hadn't he shot Harry, he'd have prevented the Wild Hunt.

* Harry animates Sue the T-Rex, the one from the actual museum in Chicago, to serve as his steed as he rides into battle against an army of necromancers and zombies. It was controlled by not only his magic, but his sidekick's one-man polka suit. By the way, in the [[TheVerse Dresdenverse]], the older a corpse is, the stronger it is when animated as a zombie, but it's also commensurately harder to reanimate. Nonhuman zombies, preferred by Harry because they're not Forbidden Magic, are weaker, but more difficult to create and control. The walking corpses summoned by the Big Bad in ''Dead Beat'' range from less than a year to maybe a few hundred years old. Sue is roughly ''sixty-five million years dead'', and was famous several years back for being one of extremely few complete skeletons ever found. The Dresden Pen and Paper RPG includes ''rules for doing this yourself''. The stats for Sue in particular as an opponent basically translate to [[CurbStompBattle "You lose."]]

* The Senior council was being chased through the Nevernever by Red Court vamps, demons, and at least one EldritchAbomination. The Merlin held off ''the entire freaking Red Court'' with an impromptu ward. In the Nevernever, [[UpToEleven meaning that he didn't even have a threshold to anchor it with]].

** Another one for Bob, manipulating the ImplacableMan into making himself vulnerable. And the villain for surviving whats basically a magical bomb going off in his face.

** Harry ''physically'' holding up against Kumori's.
*** When the reason for the above is revealed it becomes more a moment for her than Harr. [[spoiler: She was nowhere at full power, having used the majority of her energy ''to save someone''.]]

** Hell, summoning the Erlking is a moment of awesome on its own. Harry summons and tries to bind one of the most powerful FairFolk in existence. This will give said FairFolk a personal grudge against Harry, which means the Lord will probably kill him within a day or two even if bound long enough for Harry's purposes. (Remember back in ''Literature/StormFront'' when Harry comments in the narration that he'd never try to summon and trap [[BadassSanta Santa Claus]] in a magic circle because "nobody has stones that big"? Various bits of WordOfGod, plus the eventual appearance of "Kringle" in ''Literature/ColdDays'', indicate that summoning the Erlking is comparable to that). And not only Harry summoned it, he'd have actually held it in the circle. To clarify, right before doing it Harry considered that he'd have needed weeks, using some pretty rare and hard to find materials to be sure the circle could keep something that strong inside it, but he has to make one in a matter of minutes. Then the Erlking tries to break the circle, and Harry (already quite battered by that point) ''pushes it back''. [[spoiler:Too bad Cowl was savvy, but hadn't he shot Harry, he'd have prevented the Wild Hunt.]]

** The best part was that she nodded and moved to leave. Harry stops her, snarling. "Say it!". Marsters used a nearly insane with rage tone that just sends shivers down a reader's spine. FridgeBrilliance makes this more awesome. [[HorrifyingTheHorror Mavra has not come back since.]]
*** Well, [[spoiler: she did in ''Battle Ground''. With backup. Which included her boss]].

But he skittered directly between [[spoiler:Cassius]] and me.\\

* Harry is being submitted to JackBauerInterrogationTechnique via ColdBloodedTorture. Harry lets loose a non-stop ClusterFBomb in various languages, [[spoiler: to mask the footsteps of Mouse charging into rescue. The villain gets mauled to death on Harry's order]].

* Morgan, [[spoiler:after thinking Harry turned on them and killed the Warden commander]] when he proves himself willing to go through above mentioned reanimated T-Rex to [[spoiler:bring Harry to justice]]. He's probably ''able'', too; see ''Awesome/ProvenGuilty''.
** Harry's reaction to this is also awesome; within the space of a second or two, he calculates all the possible outcomes of the confrontation, and realises that the only way the good guys would have a chance of preventing the Kemmlerites' victory is a ThanatosGambit. He then simply prepares his death curse, targets it towards the weakest of the necromancers and waits for his end. [[spoiler:Good thing Ramirez interferes]].

* And Bob, after [[spoiler:the BigBad necromancer puts him down, ''possesses Sue'' to come to Harry's rescue. He then uses the body to shield Ramirez]].
** Another one for Bob, [[spoiler: manipulating the ImplacableMan into making himself vulnerable. And the villain for surviving whats basically a magical bomb going off in his face.]]

** They did it with the help of TheMole along with [[TheUnfettered sheer ruthlessness]] and [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatism]]. With information on their enemy's location, the vampires hammered the wizards over and over, till they couldn't advance further. And when the vampures found out where the injured Wardens were treated, they sent in mortals with a WMD, killing entire city blocks of people for a group of less than 100 people.

* After six books of taking crap from the Council, Harry finally gets to tell them exactly what he thinks of them and why he treats them with such disdain.

** Harry ''physically'' holding up against Kumori's telekinesis.

* Corpsetaker ripping into Harry's mind, followed by her ghoul minion Li Xian newrly killing him.
** Harry makes her regret for the above by making useuse of the mental link she created, ''by twisting his own injuries that Xian had given him'', making her writhe in pain.

* Corpsetaker easily ripping into Harry's mind, followed by her ghoul minion Li Xian newrly killing him.
** Gard's BigDamnHeroes moment saving Harry for Marcone.

* Cowl delivering a CurbStompBattle to Harry.

* Morgan, [[spoiler:after thinking Harry turned on them and killed the Warden commander]] when he proves himself willing to go through said reanimated T-Rex to [[spoiler:bring Harry to justice]]. He's probably ''able'', too; see ''Awesome/ProvenGuilty''.

* Harry is being submittted to JackBauerInterrogation via ColdBloodedTorture. Harry lets loose a non-stop ClusterFBomb in various languages, [[spoiler: to mask the footsteps of Mouse charging into rescue. The villain gets mauled to death on Harry's order]].

* Mavra's through blackmail of Harry, with plenty of RulesLawyer.

* Mavra's through blackmail of Murphy, with plenty of RulesLawyer.

--> ''Harry:'' [[PreMortemOneLiner I told you I would kill]] you [[NotHyperbole if I saw you again]].

* And Bob, after [[spoiler:the BigBad necromancer puts him down, ''possesses Sue'' to come to Harry's rescue.]]

* Luccio shows Harry why she's the captain of the Wardens by destroying thirty undead in under five seconds,the rest of the Wardens handle the rest and not one child is harmed in the process.

** They did it with the hdlp of TheMole along with [[TheUnfettered sheer ruthlessness]] and [[PragmaticVillainy pragnatism]]. With information on their location, they hammered the wizards over and over, till they couldn't advance further. And when they found out where the injured were treated, they sent in mortals with a WMD, killing entire city blocks of people for a group of less than 100 people.

** TheUnfettered PragmaticVillainy.

** Harry's reaction to this is also awesome; within the space of a second or two, he calculates all the possible outcomes of the confrontation, and realises that the only way the good guys would have a chance of preventing the Kemmlerites' victory is a ThanatosGambit. He then simply prepares his death curse and waits for his end. [[spoiler:Good thing Ramirez interferes]].

** Hell, summoning the Erlking is a moment of awesome on its own. Harry summons and tries to bind one of the most powerful FairFolk in existence. This will give said FairFolk a personal grudge against Harry, which means the Lord will probably kill him within a day or two even if bound long enough for Harry's purposes. (Remember back in ''Storm Front'' when Harry comments in the narration that he'd never try to summon and trap [[BadassSanta Santa Claus]] in a magic circle because "nobody has stones that big"? Various bits of WordOfGod, plus the eventual appearance of "Kringle" in ''Literature/ColdDays'', indicate that summoning the Erlking is comparable to that). And not only Harry summoned it, he'd have actually held it in the circle. To clarify, right before doing it Harry considered that he'd have needed weeks, using some pretty rare and hard to find materials to be sure the circle could keep something that strong inside it, but he has to make one in a matter of minutes. Then the Erlking tries to break the circle, and Harry (already quite battered by that point) ''pushes it back''. [[spoiler:Too bad Cowl was savvy, but hadn't he shot Harry, he'd have prevented the Wild Hunt.]]