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Jaaku King: Where do you get such power?
Cure Black: You've made a mistake! You're not just fighting the two of us...
Cure White: ...you're fighting all the life on this world! All that life is connected through us!

A special attack that uses the combined energy of everyone in a cast with the coup-de-grace, usually but not necessarily, being delivered by the lead. It can be an actual attack technique, or it can be used as a powerup for something, such as a Super Mode.

A common subtext to the trope is that the worst villains are inevitably weaker because they don't have friends to help them. It's also a handy way of showing that the hero is very strong without nullifying the importance of the other cast members. Often combined with Gondor Calls for Aid, when the main group needs more energy than they themselves can generate. May be fueled by Innocent Bystanders. May include the Power of Trust and/or Clap Your Hands If You Believe. See also I Can't Do This by Myself.

A Sub-Trope of Energy Donation and Combination Attack, but unlike most Combination Attacks this is something that even the most faceless and generic Muggle can contribute to.

Not to be confused with Combining Mecha (where multiple characters are physically assembled into one) or All Your Powers Combined (where someone gains the specific powers of a group, rather than just gathering "energy" from them).


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Dragon Ball:
    • The Genki Dama / Spirit Bomb, which is powered by living things donating their energy to a pure heart, is the former Trope Namer. The first time it's used, it's the planet's power itself. The second time, it draws on the ki from other planets and moons nearby. The third time, everybody on Earth sent their power. The fourth time, in Dragon Ball Super, all the Team Universe 7 members donated their energy, only to be outdone by the final time, where everybody Goku had met across the universe helped. While the move takes several minutes to charge and leaves the wielder wide open, its big advantage is that its power can vastly exceed that of the user. It should be noted however that despite all the trouble involved in using it, of the times it's used in the anime storyline, it only actually defeats the target the final time. note  Later on, Future Trunks uses it to kill (the physical form of) Merged Zamasu in Super.
    • Despite being a villain, Cell claims at one point to be able to use the Spirit Bomb, but never actually does so in the anime. In the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai games, Cell is able to use a green version of the Spirit Bomb. Some believe that Cell was able to use it because he was pure of heart, but pure evil instead of pure good. Based on a throwaway line he says while charging it, other fans jokingly theorize that Cell uses a different energy source called "Stupid Energy".
      Cell: Okay, planet, give me that stupid energy!
    • Cell also has the Spirit Bomb in Dragon Ball Xenoverse; when he throws it, he shouts "See? I told you I could do it!"
    • In Dragon Ball GT, Baby had a variation called the Revenge Death Ball, which gathered the hate of everybody on the planet.
    • GT also had Omega Shenron's negative energy ball, made up from all the evil committed throughout Earth's history. The invincible Gogeta just turned it into a "heal the world ball" with a touch.
      • To finish off Omega Shenron, Goku used another Spirit Bomb, this one containing the energy of the entire universe. Omega Shenron never stood a chance.
    • For a non-Spirit Ball example, Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan ends with Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo and (eventually) Vegeta giving Goku their remaining energy after Broly beats all five of them to bloody pulps.
    • Another non-Spirit Bomb version appears in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, where ascension to the level of Super Saiyan God requires five Saiyans of pure hearts to pour their energies into another Saiyan. Such a transformation for Goku is achieved with the help of Gohan, Goten, Vegeta, Trunks, and Videl (who is pregnant with Gohan's daughter, Pan).
    • In Dragon Ball Xenoverse, the better ending (obtained if the player defeats the Final Boss before Goku teleports in to help) shows the Time Patroller getting Spirit Bomb-like energy donations from ghostly images of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo and Krillin and using them to launch a massive Kamehameha that vaporizes Demigra.
      • Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has a similar alternate ending in the final fight against Final Form Mira, should the player clear the mission within 2 minutes (and possibly have their character and Super Saiyan Blue Goku above 80% health). Gotenks replaces Goku (who is present from the start) as the fifth ally lending energy, and the player is the one to punch through Mira with a Dragon Fist to recover the absorbed Time Egg.
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Chapter 50 involves Rentarou restoring Karane's tsundere personality by harvesting tsundere energy from all the other girls using Kusuri's drugs and then "spirit bomb"ing Karane with the resulting mass of tsundere energy.
  • The "Sailor Planet Attack" and "Sailor Teleport" occasionally used in Sailor Moon. Not to forget the entire Sailor Team combining their powers to give Sailor Moon a mandatory power-up at the beginning of the fifth season of The '90s anime, and Chibi-Moon using support from Earth's entire population to defeat the Big Bad in the fourth.
  • Ichigo powers up temporarily at times in Tokyo Mew Mew by taking on some of her friends' powers. In the manga, this also takes their weapons and combines them into the gigantic Strawberbell Version Up.
  • Chapter 56/Episode 13b of Sgt. Frog has the Keroro Platoon beating rival alien invader Viper by going into a series of Toku/Sentai inspired poses, leaps, and sound effects, ending in a team-up super-attack based around basketball metaphors (though Keroro messes up and uses golf: "Nice Shot!").
  • In Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart, Cure Black and Cure White are able to use the power of the planet in the form of their Spark Braces. With them they are able to perform Pretty Cure Marble Screw Max Spark.
    • Before that, they had the attack Extreme Luminario, a powerful attack that they combined together with Shiny Luminous.
  • Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie: The battle against M. Bison concludes with Ryu and Ken defeating him by firing both their Hado Kens at once. Their combined might overwhelms him, blasting him straight through his VTOL, causing it to explode.
  • Variable Geo: In the final episode, Yuka frees her best friend, Satomi, from Miranda's disembodied spirit, leaving her trapped within the cyber drive. Once Satomi recovers, she and Yuka exact their revenge by unleashing both their ultimate attacks in unison, destroying the cyber drive and, presumably, Miranda along with it.
  • Yes! Pretty Cure 5, halfway through, gives the girls weapons. Combining the five weapons together turns them into a giant mecha-butterfly, allowing the girls to perform Pretty Cure Five Explosion, which is typically used to kill one of the major villains. In Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, they all get swords, allowing Pretty Cure Rainbow Rose Explosion, which involves combining giant man-eating flowers. Yes.
  • Digimon Adventure: Taking out a Big Bad required Angemon to use the digivolving power of all other characters and funnel it into his attack.
    • Angewomon's debut required everyone's attacks (including Angemon's) to take out a badder Big Bad.
    • The second Digimon movie had Izzy redirecting billions of emails from around the world into the Big Bad, causing him to slow down to a crawl from the lag.
    • Not to mention the actual birth of Omnimon resulting from the outpour of support from many Internet users worldwide.
    • And the fourth movie had half of Tokyo redirecting its collective goodwill for the heroes through their cellphones, which inexplicably took the form of a BFS for their 30-foot-tall cyborg dragon-man.
  • Digimon Frontier's highest Evolutionary Levels required that all the other characters' digivoling power be given to the two who can evolve that far, essentially resulting in all but those two being Brought Down to Normal (as once villains started getting tough enough to require these forms frequently, most of the characters' roles became to simply empower the The Hero and The Lancer and get out of the way.)
    • Of course, then they realized that this strategy didn't work, as the only time they even managed to frighten the current villains was when they all used their normal transformations along with some of the dead bad guys. Subverted Trope? Maybe.
      • The final evolution was the ultimate example though, merging all the good guys and defeated foes to work together.
  • Digimon Adventure: (2020) does this in episode 50. After Millenniummon digivolves into ZeedMillenniummon, WarGreymon charges up an absolutely massive Terra Force, powered by the light of everyone in the Digital World, to completely overpower it. The homage to Dragon Ball Z isn't very subtle, especially since it goes from orange to blue.
  • In the final episode of 2001 Shaman King anime, Yoh defeats Hao by channeling the spiritual energy of everyone on Earth.
  • Sky Girls Delta Lock (OVA and TV) and Quadra Lock (TV only) attacks which are used to dispatch each Monster of the Week.
  • A good deal of battles, particularly arc-ending battles in Saint Seiya end with Athena's Saints (usually just the Bronze Saints, but sometimes the Golds if they're available) willingly relinquishing their Cosmo to either Seiya or Athena herself to deal the final blow. Even more notable in that the Saints' patron constellations (like Cygnus, Draco, Phoenix, Andromeda, or Pegasus) manifest visually as helpers to the character delivering the attack.
  • The Spiral Light spell in Magic Knight Rayearth is the team-based version, wherein Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu combine their Fire, Water, and Wind magic in a singular attack that they deliver simultaneously.
    • Of course, their ability to defeat Lady Debonair in the anime because everyone is believing in them is the second. "CURSE YOU, MAGIC KNIGHTS! CURSE YOU, PEOPLE OF CEPHIRO, AND CURSE THE HEART THAT BELIEVES!"
      • ...that and stabbing her in the face with pure omnipotence.
  • Ronin Warriors has the Armor of Inferno which is the merging of all the armors of the team. Its this trope rather than All Your Powers Combined because Inferno is simply Wildfire instead of all the elements in one suit.
    • It's later revealed that since they all have the same origin, any four of the nine armors can upgrade the Wildfire armor to the Inferno.
  • Psychic Squad has Kaoru attempting one of these in a clear parody of the Dragon Ball one, only she asks for the energy of perverts.
    • And then there's the "force of absolution."
  • During the showdown with Nakago in Fushigi Yuugi, Miaka and the other Celestial warriors send all of their power to Tamahome to enable him to take Nakago down.
  • Kenshiro's Musou Tensei in Fist of the North Star is an odd yet very interesting example of this trope - It allows Kenshiro to utilise the abilities of his fallen friends and former enemies by calling on their spirits to help him.
  • Pokémon Adventures is pretty fond of this. The two main instances are at the end of Yellow saga, where Yellow somehow absorbs the attacks of the Kanto starters into her hand to power up Pika's Megavolt, and the end of the Emerald arc, where the nine starters each fire an Elemental Hyper Beam at the fake Kyogre, with two Pikachu and their Pichu child finishing it off with a flying triple Volt Tackle.
  • During the climax of the Pokémon the Series: XY, Lysandre unleashes a Zygarde-like entity known as the Giant Rock and plans to have it collide with the Sundial in Anistar City, thus releasing enough Primal energy note  to annihilate all life on the planet. In order to stop Lysandre, Ash teams up with not only Alain, Professor Sycamore, and the recently reformed Team Flare member Malva, but also Kalos Champion Diantha, all eight of the Kalos Gym Leaders, and Hoenn Champion Steven Stone. This assembled group proceeds to draw a line in the sand and commands their strongest Pokémon to attack with their strongest moves, which proceed to converge upon the monolith. It's not very effective, so the heroes turn to Plan B: disabling the Giant Rock by buying Ash and Alain enough time to infiltrate it and remove its power source, Mairin's Chespie.
  • The Shuffle Doumeiken (Shuffle Alliance Fist) from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. See also the Sekiha Love-Love Tenkyoken from the final episode.
  • Chain/Team Soul Resonance in the Soul Eater anime. Best demonstrated during the Brew arc by Maka, Black Star and Kid, where the combination of the soul wavelengths enhanced the group's strength, awareness, and agility as a team (at one point, Maka 'knows' when to duck after attacking Mosquito, just in time for Kid to shoot him at close range). The team effort was concluded with the Soul Resonance attacks of each team, ending with Maka's newly-realised Demon Hunter.
    • Not so in the manga, where Soul ends his black-blood provoked piano recitation before Maka attacks.
    • The second team of students, made up of Ox, Kirikou and Kim, also use the technique during the same mission.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has the Giga Drill Breaker, which is already a powerful and awesome attack on its own, get an upgrade in the movie. The spirits of everyone in the DaiGurren-dan are infused into it, allowing Simon to blast through the generals' gestalt Gunmen. It's pretty awesome.
    • From the second movie: Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break uses the power of the entire Team Dai-Gurren (and it's implied the rest of humanity as well) in a single awesome, pocket-universe collapsing finisher. Also, the Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break is a villainous example, using the power of the entire anti-Spiral species at once. Guess who wins?.
  • Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann's Spiritual Successor, has a similar finishing moment: the heroine absorbs the empowering clothes of the entire cast (leaving them stark naked) in order to become powerful enough to blast into low orbit and face off with the Big Bad. For good measure, she then absorbs the power of the villain herself, and uses it against her.
  • The final battle with Yakumo in YuYu Hakusho Poltergeist Report should count here. Yusuke's Spirit Gun, Hiei's Dragon, and Kurama's Whip, and Kuwabara's spiritual energy sent Yakumo through a skyscraper, top to bottom. It may not have completely killed him, but it was pretty damn cool.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yami Yugi defeats Yami Marik and the Winged Dragon of Ra in the Battle City finals with "Ragnarok," a card that removes every monster from his Deck and Graveyard from play for its cost. All the monsters then come out and lift Ra out of the field, including Kuriboh! (In the manga, they cling onto Ra and explode.)
    • In the Doma Arc, Yami calls out to everyone who had been captured by the Great Leviathan to give him strength—although each individual may be insignificant, their combined forces help Yami defeat Leviathan.
  • In the Zatch Bell! The Movie, the spell Bird Force combines the energies of Gash and his friends into a giant Pheonix.
  • The Grand Finale of the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou TV series includes a scene where the Hachiyou give their power to Akane so that she could summon the Dragon-God. Complete with a sequence of their eight Dragon Gems combining taken almost directly from the series' opening sequence.note 
    • This technique is reused later in the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Maihitoyo movie, except that instead of summoning the Dragon God, Akane was using her purifying/sealing powers.
  • Beyblade has a couple of these. The Bladebreakers are on Lake Baikal, facing Black Dranzerified!Kai. He beats them, all easily one by one, but then they use all four bitbeasts, with Tyson somehow wielding both Dragoon AND Dranzer, and thus Kai is finally beaten.
    • A slightly shaky fit, but in Ray's final Moment of Awesome against Bryan he pretty much outright states that it is the power of his friendship that enables him to dig in and wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat.
    • Tyson's battle against Brooklyn; almost every 'blader with a television and a bit-beast clubs together to give him the ultimate power boost.
  • Genki in Monster Rancher did this a few times, channelling and magnifying the energy of the whole group into a massive energy attack. Also he is the only one with the ability to draw on the power of every good person (monsters included) on the planet in order to resurrect and power the phoenix. And still has some left over.
  • They use this in the Final Battle of Cardcaptor Sakura to defeat Eriol. Sakura is still unable to transform the powerful Light and Dark cards on her own, so Cerberus and Yue combine their powers (combine themselves really) into her staff; that combined with Sakura's famous willpower is apparently enough to do the job. Syaoran tried to do the same, but it didn't work out too well for him...
  • The anime of Polyphonica ends with a Spirit Song, featuring many people combining their songs. Both the 2007 and the 2009 adaptions.
  • In Bakugan, every human and Bakugan in the entire world sends the power of their bond to Dragonoid Destroyer, causing him to transform into a Golden Super Mode with infinite attack power. He then channels that power into a Wave-Motion Gun that completely obliterates Mechtavius Destroyer.
  • This is how the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc of Bleach ends. The zanpakuto spirits all contribute their energy to Renji, who uses it to defeat the final Sword Beast.
  • In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, all of Tougo's most powerful weapons, such as the Victory Kizuna Buster and the Maximum Kizuna Kaiser, run on The Power of Friendship between him and his allies. He can't even pull out the Kizuna Beasts if he doesn't have a bond with at least one person, even if he's only known them for a day or less. If he runs out of Kizuna Energy, he can be recharged by people overcoming their differences and lending their power to him and his weapons.
  • An interesting non-combat example happens in Transformers: Cybertron, when most of the good guys and a large number of faceless generic Transformers team up to manually align a rocket booster to save the Jungle Planet after it was damaged by a surprise attack by Galvatron For the Evulz. The combined power of every Transformer present creates/summons the Spark of Primus from each of their individual sparks and not only ensures the success of their endeavour, it also enhances the effectiveness of the rocket booster and smoothes the whole process over in a dramatically convenient and climatic way.
  • In Fairy Tail, Fairy Sphere is performed when the caster converts an entire group's feelings of unity into an impenetrable force field. Mavis uses this to defend Fairy Tail from Acnologia's attack when they all hold hands on Sirius Island, while Lucy decides to use this to seal Acnologia away in the Final Battle by channeling the magic of her guild, and soon nearly every wizard on the continent.
  • Used in the final episode of Black★Rock Shooter. Mato Kuroi in the form of Black★Rock Shooter gathers the energy of the Otherselves into a Wave-Motion Gun to defeat her counterpart Insane Black★Rock Shooter.
  • World Trigger: The Trigger ability "Fullguard" (literally "Double Defense") is a defensive variant. Requiring 4 Trigger users to combine their powers, it creates a shield strong enough to block repeated attack from the very strong Aftokrator Triggers.
  • The anime movie Harmageddon had the heroes combining their powers to defeat an extraterrestrial power.
  • Parodied/Played for Laughs in Chibi Maruko-chan, where Grandpa Tomozo tries to open a jar of sweets. When conventional strength failed him, he tried to invoke the energy of the stars, funneled down to his head, to open it. He only top he managed to open was his own.
  • Symphogear:
    • The second season introduces the S2CA Tri Burst, where three of the Gear wielders combine their Superb Songs through protagonist Hibiki Tachibana's Gungnir, channelling it into a Wave-Motion Gun.
    • The third season introduces the S2CA Hexa Conversion, where all six members, using the Ignite Module, combine all six of their Superb Songs and the power of Carol Malus Dienheim's own song, which is equivalent to the songs of all of the people on Earth, to access the X-Drive. And then the other five gave all of the power of their Gears to Hibiki to allow her to use the powerful Glorious Break attack.
    • The fifth season gives us the Glitter Gear Gathering Finest Arts, or G3FA, where the six Candidates combine the powers of their gears and focus it onto one specific location on the enemy.
  • Monster Musume: In the anime opening, you can see all the girls raising their hands in the air creating a huge heart that lands in front of Kimihito in the exact same fashion as a spirit bomb. None of them have powers like this in canon.

    Comic Books 
  • Day Of Vengeance: In the DC miniseries, Sorceress uses the combined power of every magic user in the DCU to fight The Spectre. It wasn't enough.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992): At the climax, Zelda begins to ask for the aid of the maidens and fires an ordinary arrow from the crossbow, but as it approaches Ganon, the power of the maidens, Zelda, Link, and Roam, turn the arrow into the Silver Arrow, destroying Ganon.
  • Scott Pilgrim: The cast comes together in an equally defensive and offensive version of this at Scott's first fight with Matthew Pattel.
  • Star Wars Expanded Universe: The Thought Bomb, one of the most powerful and destructive applications of the dark side of the Force, created by many powerful Sith Lords. It was so powerful that it not only killed every Jedi in its radius, but the Sith who created the bomb as well.
  • Ultimate Marvel: In the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy mini-series, Jean Grey and Professor X, combining their power with an enhanced version of Cerebro, link every human on the planet to beam thoughts of living at Galactus until it got scared off. Well, vaporizing 30% of it by shooting a goddamn Big Bang at it helped too.
  • What If?:
    • Used in a bizarre manner—perhaps subverted or parodied—in an issue of the original series. Korvac, a Knight Templar who wants to create a perfectly ordered universe, is opposed at every turn by the Marvel Universe 's cosmic beings (mostly because his plans involve slaughtering them). At the end of the story, Korvac absorbs the powers and life force of every being on Earth, starting with his allies, in order to face off with an alien armada and destroy the universe. It was even lampshaded by the editors in the letters column, when one fan questioned whether Korvac was really strong enough to kill all the Celestials on Earth at the time—they argued that if all those cosmic beings, plus the superheroes, plus every living being on Earth wasn't enough to kill one Celestial and absorb its powers (then go on to the next till finished), they didn't know what was.
    • In an Age of Apocalypse After the End issue, Dwayne Taylor uses technology from the Watcher's Dome to give himself incredible powers to fight off Galactus but, after seeing his brother die, uses a Combined Energy Attack instead to take down the monster.
  • X-Men:
    • Prof X once went into hiding for months (with the dying Changeling taking his place among the X-Men) and linked every mind on Earth with his to fend off an impending alien invasion.
    • In X-Men (1991) #19, during a mission in Russia, X-Men got into a fight with a one-shot villain Soul Skinner, a telepath who got a serious Power Born of Madness upgrade after discovering his wife was an undercover KGB agent monitoring him (and that she let their daughter die to avoid blowing her cover). With the X-team on the verge of losing, Psylocke performed a rather unusual move: she found a group of children hiding in a nearby building (the only people in town who hadn't yet been turned Empty Shell by Soul Skinner's rampage) and linked their minds into her psychic knife. Then she stabbed Soul Skinner with it. Since his powers were pretty much powered by Wangst, the concentrated Children Are Innocent shut down his brain.
    • In the classic story arc The Dark Phoenix Saga, all of the X-Men donated part of their life forces to give Jean Grey the strength to repair the M'Kraan crystal.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Angels in the Outfield: In the deciding game, a variation of this is used: No angels will show up to the championship game because The Rules state that championships must be won without supernatural help. However, to inspire Mel, the pitcher, to strike out the final batter, coach Knox and Roger fake an angel appearance by using the "angel signal" to trick Mel into thinking he has an angel with him. What Knox and Roger didn't anticipate was that the entire stadium full of fans would mimic the signal in order to give Mel the confidence and courage needed to throw one more strike. After he gets the last out, Knox tells Mel the truth.
  • At the climax of Gamera 2: Advent of Legion, our hero destroys his foe with the Mana Beam, the force of which is channeled directly from the life of Earth itself.
  • Plenty of Marvel Cinematic Universe examples:
    • Remember that shockwave from Thor's hammer hitting Cap's shield in The Avengers (2012)? They exploit it as an area-of-effect attack later on in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
    • Thor's attempt to lightning-blast Iron Man in The Avengers simply gives Iron Man a temporary power boost.
    • Also in Age of Ultron, during the climax, Thor, Iron Man and Vision combine their beams on an attack that with enough time, manages to melt part of Ultron's face.
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: This is how En Sabah Nur is finally defeated. He folds under the combined might of Magneto's barrage of metal, Cyclops' optic blast, Storm's lightning and Jean Grey's Phoenix powers. He's completely vaporized by their unified onslaught, simply because nothing less was going to stop him.

    Literature 
  • The "prayers of the saints" are what literally empower God's Angels in This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness by Frank Peretti.
  • Similarly to Ameterasu in Okami, deities in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books do not, specifically "attack" anything, beyond the odd thunderbolt, but they require the belief of their followers in order to maintain power and status as gods. Some gods go to great lengths to prevent this from happening-Blind Io, for example, is in fact EVERY thunder god in every pantheon across the Disc, and has over seventy hammers, thus ensuring that even if one particular thunder god's worshippers die out or convert, he is still riding the gravy train in Dunmanifestin.
    • The Great God Om, in Small Gods, was very nearly reduced to the wisp of consciousness that is the fate of all fallen gods, because all but one of his followers had lost sight of the God and simply believed in the Church. Though by channeling the renewed belief of an entire natioin at the end he becomes mighty.
  • The Children of the Lens, in the Lensman series, focus the Psychic Powers of trillions of Lensmen across two galaxies into a single blast which finally destroys the evil Eddorians.
  • This is basically the point of Tamora Pierce's original Circle of Magic series — in Sandry's Book, the title character weaves together the magics of the four leads, making them all stronger, and each of the subsequent book titles (Tris's Book, Daja's Book, Briar's Book) tells you which of the four takes the initiative this time in using their combined magics to resolve the plot.
  • In Anne McCaffrey's Tower and the Hive series, humans who are telekinetic and telepathic can "merge", making the "focus" of the merge into a much stronger telekinetic. The Rowan does this with her support staff to deal with an incoming missile, and with four other extremely strong telekinetics to deal with some invading aliens; when the invading aliens turn out to be the preliminary wave of a much bigger invading fleet, she and her husband, respectively, serve as the foci for merges of every psychic woman or man in the galaxy.
  • In the Bounders novel Fractured Futures, Mira shows the other Bounders how to combine the powers of their bounding gloves, which have telekinesis among their powers, to do things like throw a guard across the room.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's season four penultimate episode, "Primeval", Buffy's friends pump up her strength with theirs using a magic spell, so that she can fight the demonic cyborg Adam.
  • It is the entire premise of the TV series Charmed, and is used at varying degrees for both heroes and villains. The most common reference in the show is to the Charmed Ones being unique because they have "The Power of Three". Many demons and other magical beings can only be destroyed using a spell cast by all three sisters together. However, it continues to escalate throughout the series to include more family members... In order to defeat the Source of all Evil, the girls use not only the Power of Three, but also call upon the power of their entire ancestral line of witches. In the series finale, this is taken a step further by calling on the powers of not only their past family members, but also their children from a future generation.
  • Doctor Who: In "Last of the Time Lords", over the past year, Martha has been travelling the world, telling people to think of the Doctor at precisely zero on the Master's countdown; the Doctor, interfaced with these people through the Master's own psychic control network, shines with power and briefly gains superhuman abilities that let him overthrow the Master.
  • An interesting inversion in Volume 5 of Heroes. It's been revealed that Big Bad Samuel Sullivan's Earth Bending ability is powered by the presence of evolved humans. It's strongly hinted that if he gathers enough followers at the Carnival, he'd gain the power to split the Earth in half.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • The Showa-era Riders have a technique variously called "Rider Synchro" or "Rider Syndrome". It involves doing a Team Hand-Stack, synchronizing the power of their Transformation Trinkets, and then using the energy to some end. In Kamen Rider ZX it generates an energy cyclone that destroys Badan's Space Break System, while in the Rider Pachinko game it lets them perform a combined Rider Kick in the shape of a giant burning Kamen Rider.
    • In the finale of Kamen Rider Den-O, the super-powerful Death Imagin is defeated by a Combined Energy Attack version of Den-O Sword Form's Extreme Slash, where the blade detaches and strikes the opponent...except that this time, each of Ryotaro's allies "catches" the blade in mid-flight, imbues it with some of their power, and throws it at Death, before Den-O catches the blade, dashes in, and hacks it up with a flurry of All Your Colors Combined slashes.
    • In Kamen Rider Decade All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker, King Dark is defeated by Decade merging with Kamen Rider J, forming a gigantic Decade, then performing his standard leap-through-cards Rider Kick...except that all the other Riders turn into the cards themselves, each donating their power to Decade as he passes through. Moment of Awesome? Yes, why yes.
    • The climax of the Kamen Rider Double movie has the Big Bad Kamen Rider Eternal fling Double from the tallest tower in the city. The people of the city, seeing their hero in trouble, begin shouting "Kamen Rider!" and wishing for his victory. This causes the winds to blow through the turbine in Double's belt, triggering a Super Mode transformation that lets him fly back up to Eternal and take him down.
    • Kamen Rider Fourze has a version of this by default with his Super Mode, Cosmic States, which draws its power from the bonds between him and his friends. His movie-exclusive Meteor Fusion States is even bigger in this regard, since creating it required the efforts of forty people with strong bonds with Fourze; he himself even tells the villains that it's not just his power, but the power of everyone he calls "friend".
    • Kamen Rider Gaim gains a similar sort of Super Mode to Fourze, Kiwami Arms, which uses the master key and thus can use all of the combined powers and weapons of every other Lockseed that the other Riders use. His own signature weapon, a matchlock rifle, is upgraded in this form to fire rainbow-colored blasts with energy effects displaying all of the various fruits the other Lockseeds are based on.
    • Kamen Rider Zi-O, who wields the powers of every other Rider on this listnote , can summon all of them from various points in history and combine all of their kicks into one so powerful that it can destroy an entire timeline.
    • Kamen Rider Zero-One has a rare variant of this with the villainous Kamen Rider Thouser, whose Power Copying sword lets him permanently learn all of the animal-based abilities of every other Rider just by touching them once. Thouser's own animal, the Caucasus beetle, has the ability to take all of the other powers he's stolen and combine them into a single attack.
    • Kamen Rider Saber has a similar example to Fourze and Gaim, as his Super Mode, Xross Saber, requires him to unify all ten other wielders of the eleven holy swords under a common cause and grants him the ability to conjure as many copies of their swords as he wants, normally in the form of a Storm of Blades. In the final episode he gains another one of these in the form of the Wonder Almighty book, which instead lets him fire off all of the combined powers of the magical storybooks associated with the swords.
  • Power Rangers / Super Sentai:
    • Most seasons feature an uberweapon formed by combining the melee weapons of the individual rangers. Of course, this usually doesn't kill the monster, instead the Big Bad transforms it into a huge monster. Then the trope comes into play again as the rangers combine their powers to make a Mega-Zord.
    • Gosei Sentai Dairanger features a more typical Combined Energy Attack as the Dairangers' first on-foot finisher: The Chi Power Bomber attack.
    • In the finale of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, Mesogog's One-Winged Angel form forces the Rangers to channel literally everything they have into one last attack. This destroys him for good at the cost of burning out their powers.
    • Also used in the Power Rangers Mystic Force finale, when the human and mystic communities unite and their support supercharges the Rangers' magic.
    • In the 199 Heroes movie of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, all of the previous Super Sentai teams lend their power to the Gokaigers and Goseigers, forming the Super Sentai Bazooka.
  • Used in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "The Nightmare Man", where Luke, Clyde and Rani realize that together, they're strong enough to defeat the Nightmare Man.
  • The finale of Ultraman Tiga has every child on Earth channeling their light into Ultraman Tiga, transforming him into Glitter Tiga and joinning him in firing his attacks.

    Multiple Media 
  • Used a number of times in various BIONICLE media.
    • When the six Toa Mata first face Makuta, they only manage to beat him by striking him with their combined Elemental Powers.
    • When fighting the Bahrag queens, the Toa use the same tactic but this time activate their powers at the exact same time, which creates an impenetrable protodermis cage around the Bahrag, locked with a Toa seal only they can undo. They are eventually forced to undo it after they learn the Bahrag weren't evil after all.
    • In the film Mask of Light, three of the evil Rahkshi combine their powers via their staffs in an attempt to destroy the Toa, but Tahu's Mask of Shielding blocks them.
    • In Legends of Metru Nui, the six Toa Metru combine their powers to seal Makuta away, encasing him in protodermis crystal.
    • In Web of Shadows, the villain Roodaka uses this attack to her advantage by carving out a piece of Makuta's prison and getting the six Toa to combine their powers (now in the form of elemental spinners due to a mutation) to strike her down, unwittingly hitting the protodermis fragment and freeing Makuta, as the stone carried by Roodaka was linked to Makuta's prison.
    • In The Legend Reborn, Mata Nui, Ackar, Kiina and Gresh combine their newfound elemental powers to blast away the Skrall and Bone Hunter army — as there's only four of them rather than six, this does not create a Toa seal.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • At the 2016 Chilanga Mask 3 Aniversario ACH raised his arms and asked the crowd to give him their energy before performing a warrior's way. They were eager to oblige but he missed. Also, his brain buster is named after the former Trope Namer.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Exalted, the Dragonblooded Exalted represent the very epitome of this trope and All Your Colors Combined; when they throw Elemental Bolt or Elemental Burst together, their powers aren't just cumulative - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When they channel their power through the toughest of them (the maximum raw power is determined by the toughness of the caster), each may add as much to the attack as s/he can. The focus is also the one who determines base accuracy, which increases (along with range) for each participant. Lastly, the elemental effects combine; with all five elements in one attack, you are subject to a localized earthquake, hurricane-force winds, drowning by pulmonary edema, set on fire and infected by a relatively harmless plant venom - all at once.
    • Eg; with 5 Essence 2 (rookie, in other words) Dragonbloods throwing an Elemental Burst together, count on at least 10-15 levels of damage to everyone within a radius of 10m, practically guaranteed to hit, and the whole thing has a minimum range of at least 200m. Basically enough to wipe out a squad of un-Exalted humans or hurt a small group of Exalts. Pull together a company of veterans, and they'll throw around blasts that can level city blocks and blast the shit out of anything short of Primordials. Also note that during the First Age, the Dragonblooded were the common soldiers, and numbered in the millions.
  • Magic: The Gathering does this in so many ways.
    • Affinity: The card's cheaper for every X you control, where the card has affinity for X. A variant exists with three cards in Urza's Saga where they count a particular card type.
    • Slivers: They share abilities.
    • Domain: There are five basic land types. Control 1, you get an effect of 1. Control 2, you get the effect of 2. Et cetera.
    • Last Stand and friends: These cards count the number of a given basic land type. (Last Stand counts all five.)
    • Collective Unconscious, Keldon Warlord, and friends: These count type rather than subtype but are otherwise the same as Last Stand.
    • Exalted: Like the aforementioned cards, only it only applies when exactly one creature attacks, and it gets stronger for every other creature.
    • Allies: Allies have abilities that activate when an ally comes into play, count your allies, or both.
    • Defender: Continuing Zendikar's list of "things that are usually bad or neutral are now good" (auras, excess land, Awesome, but Impractical big creatures), we get defender, which means this creature can't attack, but in Zendikar, a lot of creatures with defender give bonuses to the player if there are more creatures with defender.
    • Counting cards in hand or graveyard. This can also hurt a player, as is the case of Black Vise.
    • Lords invert this, granting more power to each creature of the same tribe, or something similar.
  • The Elemental Commixture feat in Pathfinder allows two casters to cast offensive elemental spells of different elements together to create new effects depending on the combination, as well as making it much harder for enemy casters to counterspell them.

    Video Games 
  • The final stage of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan involves the cheerleader protagonists leading the people of Earth as they combine their ki into a massive blast of energy in order to save the world from impact with a huge meteor. In Ouendan 2, the two rival cheerleading teams join up to cheer the people of Earth on as they combine their power to keep the sun from going out. In the American version and Spiritual Successor Elite Beat Agents, our heroes do much the same thing to destroy the mothership of the music-hating aliens invading the Earth.
  • In the final stage of Space Channel 5, the Big Bad disables the sound system on Ulala's spaceship, rendering her unable to follow his patterns... until the scores of people she helped in the game previously show up and provide music in the form of an a capella version of "Mexican Flyer", the game's theme song. At the climax, the people focus their energy on a radio antenna in order to power up an energy blast big enough to blow away the bad guy.
  • Kingdom Hearts
    • Sora has a wide range of combination attacks with his party members, but only the Sora-Donald-Goofy Trinity Limit really applies. It's the only one to involve the entire party, and both versions so far end with them combining their power into a ball of energy that wipes out anything in the vicinity.
    • The Drive system of Kingdom Hearts II - Sora can temporarily use the power of one or both of his allies to access a Super Mode with more powerful abilities.
    • Terra, Aqua and Ven have their own version of Trinity Limit in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, but you can only use it once in the main story (multiplayer is another matter). Aqua uses something similar in the final battle of her scenario, calling out to Terra and Ven to lend her their strength. She uses this power to destroy the X-Blade and defeat Vanitas.
  • In the final battle of Alundra, all of the townspeople pray for the main character's victory, and the prayers' energy fully restores your health and magic at the beginning of the battle.
  • EarthBound (1994)'s final boss fight ends on such a note as well through the Prayer ability, invoking the prayers of everyone the heroes have encountered, ever — eventually breaking the Fourth Wall and asking the player for their prayers.
  • There's not one, but two Combined Energy Attacks in Skies of Arcadia. The first, Prophecy, has the entire party call down a giant moon on their opponents for a huge amount of damage. The second, Blue Rogues, has the crew of the party's ship either dealing damage to the enemies or healing the party. Either Combined Energy Attack also makes the enemies skip their turn. Both of these require your Spirit Points be at full, though, so most players don't use them often.
  • Though it is not a specific attack, Amaterasu in Ōkami was only able to gather the energy needed to defeat the Big Bad when the world finally realizes that she's more or less God and offer her their prayers.
  • In the final battle of Final Fantasy IV, after the entire party is wiped out by Zeromus' Cutscene Power to the Max attack, they are brought back to life and restored to full health by the prayers of all the other Player Characters and important NPCs they've met over the course of their journey.
    • Inverted in Final Fantasy VI: Sabin's Mantra splits an amount of HP equal to his to every other party member, divided by the number of other party members. This is actually useful, as in the World of Ruin, he's the second party member you get.
    • In the Blitzball minigame of Final Fantasy X, Wakka's special shot Auroch's Spirit has the effect of combining his SH (shoot) stat with the SH stat of all the original Aurochs (Himself, Datto, Letty, Jassu, Botta, Keepa) that are on the field.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 gives us Al Cid, who is more powerful for each woman on your side.
    • In Final Fantasy XIV, the Reaper Job's Plentiful Harvest ability gains more potency when other party members affected by the Reaper's 'Arcane Circle' buff casts any spell or ability within a short timeframe, resulting in an attack that is mildly powerful when used alone to an attack on par with their strongest ability (Communio) in an organized full party of 8.
  • The prayers of everyone on Earth help empower Mega Man in Mega Man Battle Network 4 when he's challenging an alien who has put Humanity on Trial.
    • And at the end of the first Mega Man Star Force Luna, her two cronies, Sonia, Pat Sprigs (Gemini Spark) give their power to Mega Man Geo-Omega so he can blow up Andromeda and save the world.
  • Paper Mario:
    • At the end of Paper Mario 64, the wishes of everyone in the world empower the living stars to grant Mario the 11th-Hour Superpower he needs to counter Bowser's new superpowers.
      • Also spoofed in the same scene where everyone is wishing for Mario's success. A young toad is shown wishing for Shroom Cake.
    • Likewise, during the final battle in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the wishes of everyone Mario has helped give him the strength to confront the Shadow Queen.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Master Sword can only harm Ganondorf if the descendants of the Sages are praying for Link's success within their temples.
    • Hyrule Warriors has this in its final battle; once Ganondorf turns into Ganon, Zelda gives you the permanently-upgraded Light Arrows. The more allies are left on the battlefield at this point, the stronger the Light Arrows are, implying that they are putting their combined energy into the arrows.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, if you freed the four Divine Beasts, they'll fire lasers at Calamity Ganon when Link confronts the beast in Hyrule Castle, whittling away an eighth of its health each.
  • In Breath of Fire III, there's a dragon form that is different depending on which characters you have in your party.
    • In the original Breath of Fire I there's one character who powers up by merging with the other characters, and the final dragon form combines everyone.
  • Advanced V.G. II concludes with Miranda trying to escape after her husband and her daughter, Reimi, remove her as head of The Jahana Corporation. Chiho tries to stop aboard her private jetliner, by holding her a knife-point, but Miranda fatally shoots her with a concealed gun. Just as it seems she's home free, Chiho uses her remaining energy to radio Yuka and the others and tells them to shoot down the plane. They reluctantly honor dying wish by combining all their Ki to dispense karmic justice.
  • The Team Attacks of the Suikoden series, that are not Combination Attack call upon the various interpersonal relationships between the characters — be it love, loyalty, family, True Companions, friendship, camaraderie, or even rivalry. For the most part, this results in attacks that are significantly stronger than the sum of their parts... though not always.
    • Also spoofed sometimes—a few of the combinations are not inuitive and are tied together by stuff like mutual status as Bishounen.
  • In Eternal Fighter Zero, Ikumi Amasawa's Final Memory attack, "Sword of Friendship", calls out her four friends from the game MOON to attack her foe, with Ikumi herself delivering the final blow. If the attack doesn't finish off the opponent, Ikumi and her friends will strike a pose together as her opponent plummets back down to the ground.
    • The way it's executed is a huge Shout-Out to Captain Commando's Captain Storm, not that it's any different from any of the other countless shout outs in the game...
  • Persona:
    • The final battle of Persona 3 has the Main Character powering up his Universe arcana through the willpower of the rest of the cast.
    • And even before the battle, he had acquired the power of The Universe through the bonds he had forged with various other characters.
    • This happens again in Persona 4, in both forms. After technically beating the cosmic entity and learning that they can't proverbially punch out Cthulhu, the Protagonist collects the powers of the bonds he's formed and summons his ultimate Persona to deliver a proper knockout blow on behalf of humanity.
    • In Persona 5, the Protagonist defeats the Big Bad by focusing all the power of the Seven Deadly Sins into a bullet, which his ultimate Persona, Satanael, then shoots through its head. Not to mention, prior to this, the Big Bad pretty much wiped out the Phantom Thieves but they were all revived through the collective will of humanity because they were universally beloved.
  • Wild ARMs:
    • An outright shameless "Combined Energy Attack" appears in Wild ARMs 4, in the form of the Arc Impulse group attack. Initially just an energy blast the four character pull off by reciting, rather cheesily, about positive philosophical concepts, the final boss being reduced to 1HP grants them an 'upgraded version' with which to strike the killing blow. This version results in the four pulling together a giant, combined ARM, and reciting a new set of cheesy philosophical lines, proceed to blast it into oblivion.
    • Arc Impulse's first appearance in the series was very similar: in the final battle of Wild ARMs 2, the main character uses it, gaining more and more power from the wishes and friendship of just about everyone in the world, dealing more and more damage to the final boss, until the protagonist's Love Interest makes her speech...which, of course, gives him enough strength to deal a whopping 99,999 damage, destroying the boss for good. Forget "freaking brilliant," this is quite possibly the series' ultimate Moment of Awesome.
  • Phantasy Star IV allows the PCs to combine their attacks. The immensely powerful Destruction combination attack requires simultaneous action all four mandatory party members: three combine their most explosive attacks, and the fourth puts up a shield so the party doesn't get nuked.
  • This happens in the final boss battle of The World Ends with You. Although you start the battle alone and almost hopeless since your partners have been absorbed/captured by Megumi, dealing damage allows Shiki, Joshua, and Beat to send their light pucks to Neku, multiplying your damage ratio higher and higher until Neku finishes the fight by funneling it all into his hand and firing it as a beam of light, actually ripping Draco Cantus' flesh off of its bones.
  • How could ever forget about the ending to Warcraft III Reign Of Chaos. Thousands of wisps simultaneously detonating packs enough life energy to cause the demon Archimonde (who managed to trash you and your allies bases in the last mission of all the campaigns) to explode in a massive firestorm.
  • The "Collected Power" card from Yu-Gi-Oh! is most likely a reference to this.
  • Suikoden Tierkreis plays this a little too straight in one ending. It's possible to defeat the Final Boss with the combined energy of all the 108 characters you've recruited. More specifically, their Life Energy. The only survivor is the protagonist, who's corrupted into replacing the villainas the villain was corrupted into replacing the villain before him, when he, too, sacrificed a hundred and seven lives!
  • In .hack GU during the final battle against Cubia the Epitaph Users give all their power to Haseo and then when he can't even defeat it because he's missing one epitaph user, Ovan comes to the rescue. Afterwards its one attack and then Cubia is gone.
  • Inazuma Eleven has "The Earth" shooting technique, performed by Endou, Goenji, and Fubuki by channeling will power of every active players in the team to create a huge energy ball before kicking it toward the goal. After learned, however, the player can have Endou abuse it in ever match without any need of gathering the power thing, in contrast to the anime adaption, where the skill is used only once throughout the series.
  • Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica has METHOD_REPLEKIA. It's an attack hymn that all the IPDs sing together.
  • Near the end of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, the Sinistrals attempt to finish off the player's party with a Combined Energy Attack; the party counters with their own.
  • Splatoon 2 has the Booyah Bomb special weapon, which is generally agreed to be a straight homage to the aforementioned Spirit Bomb. Once activated, the Inkling/Octoling user in question begins charging up a ball of... ink... energy.... stuff. By cheering the user on with their 'Booyah' taunts, other players donate power to the ball, charging it up much quicker than if left alone. It's then thrown by the user, producing an enormous ink-splosion wherever it happens to land, and doing a frankly ridiculous amount of damage to any opponents in range.
  • Undertale doesn't have it as an attack, but Undyne seems to hint as much when going into her Super Mode in the Genocide Run. Supported by the fact that it doesn't work unless you've killed everyone so far and attempted to kill Monster Kid.
    Undyne: Right now, everyone in the world... I can feel their hearts beating as one. And we all have ONE goal. To defeat YOU.
  • OMORI: The party can, on Omori's cue, "Release Energy" should they have enough collective energy. All enemies are dealt heavy damage as a result.
  • Pokémon: Water Pledge, Grass Pledge, and Fire Pledge are special attacks exclusive to the starters. When used in a Double Battle, depending on which two are combined a new gimmick will be added to the battle. For example, combining Water and Grass Pledge will create an 150 Base Power move that creates a swamp on the enemy side that quarters those Pokémon's speed.
  • The final part of LocoRoco 2 concerns Majoline and the Moja Troop doing a villainous version by channeling their life-draining song into a giant cloud to cover the world.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Solarnight from Phaeton is implied to be this, but its effect is a mystery.

    Western Animation 
  • X-Men: The Animated Series: The animated adaptation of The Dark Phoenix Saga ended with every X-Man on the team giving a portion of their life forces to bring the de-Phoenixed Jean Grey back to life.
  • One of the countless magical artifacts in Xiaolin Showdown, the Sun Chi Lantern, allowed one person to gain the strengths and abilities of his allies as long as they were within the lantern's light radius. Naturally, it was only used once.
  • The heroes pull one off in the animated special Freaknik: The Musical. This one is unique in that it saves Freaknik and is used to defeat the Big Bad.
  • A bizarre example in Futurama: Because of the massive pollution caused by the robot population of Earth, Wernstrom and Nixon have aimed an EMP cannon at the Earth with the intention to destroy all robots (who have been gathered at the Galapagos Islands under the guise of a party for this reason). In order to save the robot populace, every single robot on the planet has to blast their exhaust upwards to propel the Earth out of the cannon's line of fire, incidentally moving the Earth further away from the Sun, solving the global warming problem.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's Mane Six have this in the form of the Elements of Harmony, and as of Season 4's finale, the Rainbow Power. In Season 2's finale, Cadance and Shining Armor perform a combined Power of Love spell to banish the Changelings from Canterlot, and in Season 3's premiere, the Crystal Ponies do similar with the aid of the Crystal Heart, destroying King Sombra.
  • Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers has the "pool the badges" tactic where the other three gather around Niko and allow her to pull energy from their badge charge, channeling it into a shield powerful enough to protect a small starship or into a devastating power blast. It's a tactic of last resort since it burns the badge charges for everyone and usually leaves Niko in no shape to fight afterward.

    Real Life 
  • Japanese Giant Hornets are horrifying to those familiar with them. Thirty of these hornets, each the size of a person's thumb, can annihilate a hive of thirty thousand bees as seen here. However, the bees native to Japan have evolved a defense that involves a bee and about a couple hundred of her sisters that can only be described as a real-life Combined Energy Attack. See it here.
  • BOINC, for computers. Combining the processing power of volunteered personal computers all over the world via the internet, the network can achieve performance outputs equivalent to large supercomputers. It's used for executing computationally intensive tasks in all manner of scientific research, including physics, biology, astronomy, meteorology, and more.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Spirit Bomb

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Destroying the Trident

While the might of ''one'' Kraken isn't enough to destroy the trident, but the might of three krakens can.

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