Crossovers
- BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant (BlazBlue & RWBY): In Chapter 14, Pyrrha Nikos ends up subjected to this by Ragna when he starts using his Semblance during their fight. Thanks to Pyrrha's reputation as an Invincible Hero In-Universe, Weiss expresses outright shock at seeing that Pyrrha can lose.
- Child of the Storm: The Winter Soldier swiftly establishes himself as a One-Man Army and underlines his status as The Dreaded with his entrance. At first, the characters hear the guard animals, a Chimera and a Nundu (a gigantic magical leopard), attack something. Then their roars are cut off and the Winter Soldier enters with their heads in his hands. A Chimera's only been successfully slain once in history and a Nundu takes one hundred trained wizards to bring down.
- A later example of this is Gravemoss. In his opening scene, he mentions having once fought in-universe Memetic Badass Stephen Strange, and this, along with his other heinous actions, establishes him as being very powerful and dangerous. But then they have a rematch during the Final Battle of Book 1, where Strange defeats him while multitasking. Then it turns out that this trope was actually being invoked: Gravemoss, knowing he's outmatched, draws on Chthon's power and Chthon pulls a Grand Theft Me, but that makes him vulnerable to getting hit by an Infinite Mass Punch that sends him into Jupiter's orbit.
- In Ghosts of the Past, Harry and Carol get KO'd in one shot by Sinister and Maddie Pryor, who then kidnap them. As one is a teenage Super-Soldier and the other a Person of Mass Destruction with Psychic Powers, including a pretty good Psychic Block Defense, this neatly establishes just how powerful and dangerous they and the Red Room are - however, it's explained that Harry was so surprised that it left him open to being sucker-punched. The rematch between Harry and Maddie is much closer, though it's made clear that she will eventually beat him... which is fine, because actually winning isn't part of his plan.
- And then the tables are turned when Sinister and the Red Room get handed a Curb-Stomp Battle by the Avengers and Wanda Maximoff.
- It's made very clear that Voldemort is an Adaptational Badass, having leeched off some of Harry's magical and psychic powers, and matching Harry in a psychic brawl (though when Harry gets serious in the rematch, he gets flattened). But then he meets Dracula... who suppresses his powers without any sign of visible effort, and makes it clear that if they do team up, they will do so with Dracula in the driving seat, not as Voldemort's lackey or pawn.
- The Equestrian Wind Mage:
- Sombra is the only villain to appear in Season 1 whom Vaati is unable to immediately curbstomp. In fact, Sombra ends up curbstomping him in their first fight, and their final fight is a draw until Vaati gets his hands on the Crystal Heart.
- Ganondorf easily wins the first battle of Season 2, using the Triforce of Power to overpower Vaati and No-Sell the Elements of Harmony.
- Later, Ghirahim hands Daring Do her ass in the special episode that features her.
- Discord doesn't fair very well against Majora's Avatar. Though unlike the above examples, the CMC ultimately help him turn the tables and beat the Avatar.
- In Fractured (SovereignGFC), this happens to the Reapers who are set up as The Dreaded in Mass Effect canon. Justified In-Universe since weaponry from the Trans-Galactic Republic is considered orders of magnitude more powerful and their Deflector Shields are better — unlike kinetic barriers, they block both energy and physical weapons.
- Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters (Jackie Chan Adventures & W.I.T.C.H.):
- It's shown that when Tarakudo is in his full-bodied form, he's basically an unstoppable Physical God. The first time he takes this form, he nearly kills Nimue and her two students, only being stopped because the unnamed Greater-Scope Villain intervenes (due to still needing them alive).
- Callisto provides Jade with the single toughest fight she's had since becoming a Shapeshifter, dominating their fight with such skill and brutality that she's barely able to touch him. She eventually comes to the conclusion that he's not even trying, and is just toying with her.
- The Infinite Loops will usually play this for laughs, showing how a dangerous threat in canon is curbstomped by competent Loopers. It's been inverted on occasion, though, either to show that a Looper has no idea what they're facing or that things are just that serious.
- A staple element featured in most Iron117Prime fanfics. In order to show how effective heroes from one franchise are, they're pit against powerful villains (or villainesses; this trope happens to female antagonists most often) and usually come out on top. Once the Crossover Villain-in-Chief is unveiled, they often side with the heroes.
- Fairy May Cry actually began this tradition with Vergil wiping the floor with the rest of Fairy Tail in the opening arc to establish the new breed of antagonists going forward.
- Worlds Collide (TMNT) features Azula, who already got a chance to show some level of her usual canonical strength against the Gaaang, getting defeated rather swiftly by the Ninja Turtles. She makes a Heel–Face Turn in the fic's sequel, The Ninja Tribunal Saga.
- Code Prime has Cornelia li Britannia, the supposedly undefeated Goddess of Victory, get her first loss in a duel against Optimus Prime. Later appearances during R1 show her being defeated by both Ironhide and Bumblebee and was only saved by Suzaku in the Lancelot. Much like Azula above, she makes a Heel–Face Turn in the tail end of R1 once the Decepticons demolish the Britannian Empire.
- A Red Rose in the Blue Wind features Cinder Fall (a downplayed example since she has half of the Fall Maiden powers) getting defeated first by Sonic, Tails, and Shadow, then nearly putting the mission of transporting the virus into the CCT due to Omega if Metal Sonic didn't intervene. While this is before she gains the full Fall Maiden set in Volume 3, she has a worse track record when it comes to fights here than in canon.
- Neo is also an example of this trope in action, getting defeated easily by Rouge in a Curb-Stomp Battle, and this is justified by Rouge utilizing her hearing senses to bypass her illusions. Omega even implies this in that, if he and Neo faced off, her illusions won't trick the former Badnik.
- Justice League of Equestria:
- Mare of Steel: Rainbow Dash/Supermare's first fights with General Zod and Brainiac both go poorly for her, showing just how dangerous both villains are.
- The Princess of Themyscira: Diana's first fight with the Alicorn Amulet-powered Ares, while evenly matched at first, still ends with her beaten into unconsciousness and needing to be saved by Soarin'.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures and W.I.T.C.H. crossover fanfic Kage (part of Project Dark Jade, like Shadows Awakening below), The Queen briefly manages to take control of Jade and uses shadow-based Combat Tentacles to capture Caleb and the Elemental Power-equipped Guardians, with perhaps the only reason they survived being Jade retaking control when she saw her reflection in a puddle.
- She later ends up on the receiving end when Elyon nearly kills her in a fit of rage (note that rage makes Elyon more powerful).
- Evoked in Lighting the Path
, when Kara Thrace (Battlestar Galactica (2003)) is recruited by the Green Lantern Corps and confronts Kilowog basically as soon as she arrives on Oa. Despite having no real experience with the Green Lantern ring, Kara quickly manages to overcome the ring’s weakness to yellow and does such a good job against Kilowog that the other Lanterns enjoy the spectacle before Hal steps in to stop the fight. - Lost in the Woods (Firefly & Star Trek: The Next Generation): A literal example of this occurs, as the Enterprise crew get a taste of how dangerous the Reavers are when a single Reaver stays conscious after multiple phaser blasts set on stun and manages to inflict a dangerous cut on Worf’s stomach that damages his sash before they finally knock it out.
- In Mass Effect: Human Revolution, the AIA's Blacklight commandos have gotten their arses handed to them easily in three separate encounters with Adam, Johann and Hannibal.
- Rise of the Galeforces (The Incredibles & Portal): Happens to the Turret Raptors, who are quickly defeated by even the youngest members of the main cast. Ditto for the local Eldritch Abominations, e.g. Dynacide.
- A Shadow of the Titans:
- Not even Superman can breach the Oni's barrier around Jump City. Possibly justified by the fact that Superman is often depicted as vulnerable to magic, so it working on him isn't unheard of.
- The mutated Kitten is so strong that a desperate Jade is barely able to harm her during their fight. Though the fact that this is Jade's first serious bit of combat since losing the Pig and Dragon talismans does play a significant part in that.
- A Song of Silk and Saplings (Bug Fables & Hollow Knight): The main antagonist, Father Veritas, obliterates the Deadlander Omega (a human-sized monster that can't even be harmed at all in its original appearance) in a single attack.
- Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K:
- The first couple episodes are spent establishing how dangerous Space Marines are to the Star Wars characters. A single one-armed Marine is able to easily kill a Jedi Knight and overpower a Padawan in Episode 5. Episode 8 has Anakin Skywalker opting to run for his life when faced with the prospect of fighting several Space Marines at once, and it took the combined effort of Anakin, Captain Rex, and the Bad Batch just to take down one Marine. Skip to Episode 24 where Count Dooku is introduced singlehandedly dispatching a whole Space Marine squad with ease. For bonus points, the leader of the squad that Dooku killed was the same guy who lead the Space Marine fireteam which Anakin fled from in Episode 8.
- Aayla Secura spends the first half of Episode 16 showing off how much of a badass Action Girl she is by carving her way through the Imperial Guard's forces, culminating in her killing a trio of Wyrdvane Psykers (the same trio who had just killed hundreds of Aayla's clone troopers) while hardly breaking a sweat. In the second half of that episode, we are introduced to the Arc Villain, Inquisitor Tahr Whyler, who establishes himself to be a formidable adversary by dueling Aayla to a standstill before swiftly incapacitating her via Mind Rape.
- In The Swarm of War, the Overmind's first mental battle is against Ahzek Ahriman. That's a ten thousand years old Badass with knowledge and power only surpassed by the Greater Daemons and Primarchs... and he barely manages to flee.
- In the first chapter of Waking Nightmares, one of the Nightmare Dogs (not even a named character) nearly kills Princess Celestia with one unexpected strike. In a later scene, Slenderman kills [RED] Demoman and [RED] Medic in one hit while they're ubercharged. (For non-Team Fortress 2 players, that means they're completely invulnerable.) The Doctor is hit by a verbal version when their enemies reveal that they know who he is... and aren't the slightest bit afraid. Until then, everything that has ever faced him and survived has learned to fear The Oncoming Storm.
- The Weaver Option (Warhammer 40,000 & Worm):
- Lelith Hesperax makes her debut by destroying a C'tan shard which had previously annihilated an entire fleet with a single swing of her blade before handily defeating Trazyn. She's also revealed to have previously defeated Primarch Rogal Dorn in single combat and after her duel with Taylor she permanently kills several Daemon Princes.
- Slaanesh manifests in an Avatar and proceeds to dominate a fight against Lelith by simply overwhelming her with sorcerous attacks. This is despite the limitations of working through an Avatar and its recent weakening due to the raid on Commorragh.
- The Devil May Cry/Blood+ crossover When the Devil dies, the Diva cries, the antagonist group proves its strength in their first fight to the extent that Dante and Saya end up having to escape rather than continue fighting; Dante is especially irked, because this is the first time that has ever happened to him.
Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra
- Azula Trilogy: Each of the Big Bads prove themselves to be threats by being able to match or defeat one of the heroes — Azun defeats Zuko in Heart, Wei Ming goes toe-to-toe with Azula in Path, and Jian Chin defeats Aang in Soul (though the latter two were possessed by true Big Bad Zhan Zheng at the time, so this trope more works for him than them).
- Uninvited Guests: This is invoked by Hitsugaya in order to beat Aizen's Plot Armor. Enter "the Dark Lord Wolfington," who is definitely not Komamura in a mask.
- Facing the Future Series: Vlad Plasmius and Dark Danny, two of the most powerful villains in the Danny Phantom series that Danny would normally have problems against are completely overpowered by Danny's feral Super Mode on two occasions. He nearly would have destroyed them both (and himself) if not for Sam talking him down.
- Transcendence: Digital Curse: Abyssgreymon worfs everyone from the first two Digimon adventures plus two other champions without even being touched. He apparently does this without wanting to or trying.
- Disgaea: Jewel of the gods:
- Epic is an example. He's introduced by taking out an immortal, giant enemy that Laharl, Adell, and Mao couldn't beat. After that he gets dominated by Etna, a reaper, Baal's minions, Baal's right-hand man Fried, Baal, Raiden, and Alex, mixing in some Butt-Monkey status along the way.
- Ash also gets this treatment. After he and Marona joined the group, he gets taken out fairly quickly in fights, mainly against Baal, or when he fights one of the item gods.
- Dragon Ball Z Elsewhere: The Big Bad of the manga does this to Goku as a means of illustrating just how powerful he is. While the aforementioned character is capable of holding his own and even gains the villain's respect, he has to power up to Super Saiyan 2 with a Kaioken x4. His final attack uses up all of his ki and then some.
- In Never Had a Friend Like Me, Bob resists even Norm's genie's magic, and even more terrifyingly destroys Norm's lamp, which even Jorgen couldn't do (though that was because of Da Rules).
- In the Alternate Tail Series, Mercator Garten's first introduction has him capture Freed (an S-Class candidate) before the other Fairy Tail wizards could react. Even after Freed escapes and teams up with Gajeel, he easily handles the two of them and almost defeats them until Mira arrives. And even then, a combined attack from all three only breaks his spell-created shield, leaving him unharmed.
- The Fifth Act: Genesis realizes just how obscenely strong Cloud is when he hears him fighting Sephiroth and investigates to find the latter going all out, on the back foot, and losing.
Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
- Purple Days: After Joffrey fully grows from the incoompetent monstrosity he was in canon into The Wise Prince / The Good King, not even Tywin Lannister can intimidate, brow-beat or cow him.
- The Raven's Plan: Each of the "great players" of the Game of Thrones suffer this after the Remembering. To wit:
- Petyr Baelish is killed by Jaime Lannister within hours of the Remembering. Even if that hadn't happened, Bran made sure Littlefinger wouldn't Remember, meaning the man was a dead man walking.
- Tywin Lannister is usurped by Tyrion in the same general time frame, and is now a non-entity under house arrest.
- Cersei Lannister is immediately taken into custody by Renly and then tossed into the Black Cells.
- House Tyrell (temporarily) loses control of the Reach to Samwell Tarly, who then engages Dickon to Margaery to ensure he still has some influence there after the Long Night, upon which he'll give back control of the Reach to them.
- Euron Greyjoy was enough of a threat in the previous timeline (having successfully killed Arya, Brienne, and the Hound) to the point Bran made sure he wouldn't remember. He meets his end early on after the timeline reset by the crew of a Yi-Tish pirate ship he had attacked in the previous timeline.
Godzilla/King Kong/MonsterVerse
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Skullcrawlers are on the lower end from the Many or a partly-regenerated Ghidorah. They, the antagonists of Kong: Skull Island, positively flee from these new monsters, which dispatch them with frightening swiftness.
- The Odds Were Never In My Favour: During the second task, Beauxbatons champion Ambre (who was previously injured and sidelined while fighting a cockatrice) proves how effective she is against human opponents by trouncing Eleonora, a champion who excelled during the first task.
- Nightfall: When Hades shows up, he easily lays out Dave and Rose, and overpowers John and Vriska. With only Vriska and Dave managing to hit him. Jade steps in and brings the battle to a stalemate, and he's later whisked off by one of his "allies."
- In The Troll War series, after Equius Zahhak resigns from the human Starfleet, he explains his reasoning for doing so thusly: "I have been... reviewing your documentaries and the history of your spaceships, John. And I will not be the 'Worf'." John Egbert convinces Equius to stay, not by telling him that Star Trek was fictional, but by promising he won't let the fleet "Worf" him.
- Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends:
- In the first chapter, Skoodge shows enough fighting skill to easily beat Dib and keep ahead of Gaz (until he presses her Berserk Button). Afterwards, he proves to be less effective, though this is blamed on him following Zim's terrible orders.
- Whereas the regular DIRs are mostly Cannon Fodder, the SADIRs introduced in Chapter 15 are powerful enough to even match Minimoose in combat.
- Shadows Awakening:
- The first fight between the J-Team and Daolon Wong's new dark chi warriors ends with the heroes being forced to retreat and escape.
- Jade's tribe of Kunoichi Khan inflict this on Won's wizard Shadowkhan in turn, showing just how effective they are as Mage Killers.
- In Jonathan Joestar, The First JoJo, Heaven Ascension Dio easily defeats everyone in chapter 10 (sans Jonathan) due to his powers.
- Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams features an example between the villains Bullseye and 8-Ball when they fight after being hired by rival crimelords who are having a Mob War. In the official Marvel comics, Bullseye is an Ax-Crazy sadist who's seen as one of the most dangerous street-level villains in New York. 8-Ball, on the other hand, is a classic example of C-List Fodder. When they fight, Bullseye plays up his supposed A-list status and mocks 8-Ball for his supposed C-list status, but 8-Ball wins the fight and ends it by knocking Bullseye's severed head into a trashcan like a billiard ball.
- Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises establishes Nevermore as being a far more elite hero than those of Team Arctic. However, upon facing The Nightmare King offscreen, the next time Nevermore is seen he's been sent to the ER in critical condition while the latter barely broke a sweat.
- Dekiru: The Fusion Hero!: Several canon characters suffer this to show how powerful Izuku's fusions are. For example:
- The Sludge Villain is nearly obliterated by one explosion from Katzuku (the fusion of Izuku and Katsuki).
- During the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, the hero team of Momo and Izuku was losing badly to the villain team of Tenya and Shoto. Then they fused into Moku, who decimated their opponents in seven minutes, winning the match with twelve seconds to spare.
- Tsuzuru, the triple-fusion of Izuku, Minoru, and Tsuyu, not only manages to incapacitate Nomu, but also knocks away and captures Shigaraki and Kurogiri as well when rescuing Aizawa. The defeat was so humiliating for Shigaraki that he decided to ditch his plan altogether.
- The Fundamental Essence of Villainy: Izuku absolutely wipes the floor with the USJ Nomu (which, in canon, was strong enough to give All Might a real challenge).Izuku remembers All Might's fight with the USJ Nomu, he remembers being blown away by the sheer power on display. He remembers being terrified of the massive monster, and being terrified for his mentor, who was forced to fight well beyond 100% of his power to put the monster down. This fight... was not at all like All Might's battle.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Friendship Is Magical Girls:
- Sunset Shimmer dominates her first fight with the mahoushoujo in Magic 5, only being defeated when the girls activate the Elements of Harmony and use them to weaken her.
- Both fights with Royal Changelings go very poorly for the girls, with them only winning by virtue of a new mahoushoujo awakening.
- The first fight with the Shadowbolts in Loyalty 3 only ends because Gilda is enraged by Spike's presence and leaves to plot a new strategy.
- After the mahoushoujo manage to defeat the Shadowbolts easily in their rematch in Loyalty 4, you might start to think they're not as threatening. Come Loyalty 9, this gets flipped on its head, as thanks to gaining Lunar Seal-powered mahoushoujo forms, they nearly kill Applejack, and only lose because Starscream doesn't fight, and Spike mutually fights Gilda into a bloody mess.
- A Future of Friendship, a History of Hate: When Ruinate gets loose, he quickly overpowers the Princesses and takes the Mane Six (minus Twilight) prisoner. And then, when they actually have a chance to use the Elements on him, he's already attuned himself to them and shrugs the attack off. It takes help from Amity to give the ponies a chance to defeat him.
- Inner Demons: Twilight manages to turn Princess Celestia to stone by accident even before her Face–Heel Turn, which gives a good idea of just how powerful and dangerous her Queen persona will later be. Which is proven true when one of the first things Queen!Twilight does is completely wipe the floor with Princess Luna.
- The first time we see one of Queen!Twilight's lieutenants fight the protagonists, Scootaloo not only beats Rainbow Dash in a race, but leaves her unconscious in a ditch. Said lieutenant goes on to successfully fight the rest of the Element bearers and their allies, and very nearly defeats them, only being stopped by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie's Elements evolving to armor.
- Speaking of which, an inverted example — every time one of the Element bearers succeeds in getting their elements to evolve to armor, they easily Worf whatever they're fighting. The only exception is Rarity's offscreen fight with Trixie, which she loses, but even then it's implied that the fight was even enough that Queen!Twilight had to step in to end it.
- Pony POV Series:
- Deconstructed with Spitfire. The repeated failures of the Wonderbolts to actually succeed in their attempted heroics begins to take their toll on her confidence and send her into a Heroic BSoD. Rainbow Dash snaps her out of it by reminding her that, even if the Wonderbolts can't do the actual heroics, they are still heroes because they inspire ponies who can.
- Dark World!Spike gets hit with this pretty badly for a while, as his superior strength and flame breath are one way or another made ineffective — Tom is literally Made of Diamond, the blackbirds could regenerate near instantly, and by the time the Valeyard was out of his protective shield, Spike had already been disabled (he lampshades the last one). However, the trope is ironically subverted during the fights with Odyne!Cruelty and Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox, the two strongest opponents in Dark World, as Spike manages to be as effective as everyone else.
- The Powers of Harmony:
- First time we see Cetus in action, she defeats Celestia, and kills Grovi.
- Likewise, Eclipse's first fight has her curbstomping Applejack, Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, and their Guards, even killing Strauss.
- And the two of them working together easily defeat all of the remaining Mane Six and all their Guards, including killing Elo.
- The Affectionate Parody of common MLP cliches A Series of Stories has the frequency of this happening to Princess Celestia and Luna as one of the first tropes it lampoons. A Parody Villain Sue that is a parody of every MLP villain cliche ever (a black and red Alicorn with a shattered world Cutie Mark and running on The Power of Hate named Ruin) shows up with the intention to crush the Princesses. The Princesses are more annoyed than threatened due to this being apparently a common occurrence, and after killing him in an offscreen battle, complain about villains always coming after them due to trying to invoke this trope. Worth noting is the author loathes this trope due to how overused it can be.Princess Celestia: I blame Queen Chrysalis for it. It's annoying; you lose once to a supercharged Changeling Queen in a room crowded with innocent civilians, and suddenly everypony thinks they can defeat you.
- Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: Following the Konoha Crush, it's noted that Danzo Shimura is an old man in a profession where people tend to die young. The fact that Kabuto was able to defeat four ANBU and leave Shimura comatose is treated as a testament to their assailent's strength and ability.
- Blackkat's Reverse: Kaguya is established as a threat by having Naruto, who possesses massive amounts of chakra, completely exhaust his reserves.
- The Girl From Whirlpool: Minato puts a twist on this trope when he deliberately allows himself to be caught by A and his forces from Kumo in order to pull off a Trojan Prisoner gambit. He even rubs it in their faces when he teleports back into their base after leaving in order to gather more information.
- In AAML: Diamond and Pearl Version, during Ash's gym battle with Candice, Charizard loses to Abomasnow despite the type advantage, with Word of God noting that it would be boring if they could make a clean sweep. They further justify this loss as Ash not spending as much time regularly training that particular pokémon, leaving them out of practice.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Several of the later battles of Ash's Pokémon have them suffer from this to show off their opponents' strength. Examples include:
- Primeape and Boldore both lose to Blaine's Mega Houndoom rather easily.
- Boldore later loses to a Golisopod after it dodges her Z-Move using Substitute.
- Against Giovanni in the Viridian Gym, Tauros and Kingler go down without scoring a single win.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness:
- Apoch and Astreal Ezrana have a reputation as being "the perfect shield and the perfect sword." Said reputation starts to become an Informed Ability as the series goes on, with more and more people proving able to block and survive Astreal's Hand Blasts and shatter Apoch's barriers.
- In Act II chapter 23, when the gang fights Kiria in the Snow Woman Village, he easily curb-stomps all of them to the extent that Tsukune is forced to unleash his inner ghoul just to stand a chance. Even then, Kiria ultimately comes out on top, and it's only because Kiria decides that Tsukune could be useful to his plans that they get out alive.
- Jovian and Jacqueline Kikion are set up as Invincible Villains with impenetrable barriers and unblockable energy attacks, with their power levels being outright described by Akua as immeasurable. Come Act IV, and it turns out the new Apoch's Laser Blade can cut through their barriers and deflect their attacks.
- The first sign of just how tough a rylo is in Act VI? Kurumu using her Princess of Hell Super Mode doesn't even faze it.
- The rylo is also on the receiving end of this; in Act VI chapter 25, Astreal uses the Artimus Arrow spell, which completely obliterates the supposedly Nigh-Invulnerable demon with one shot.
- In A New Order, the first fight after Haruka's awakening as Sailor Uranus is also the first operation Jadeite is put in charge of. Haruka is several years older than the other senshi, trained in hand-to-hand combat, and an outer senshi (meaning she's supposedly stronger than the inners). In spite of this, the battle ends with her near death and in the hospital for several chapters, though she did manage to kill the youma she was facing.
- Sonic X: Dark Chaos: Zigzagged:
- Tsali manages to defeat Super Sonic one-on-one in the opening scene. However (unknown to Sonic), he was wounded and only barely won. Come Episode 64 when he fights Sonic, Shadow, and Eric in their Super forms, it doesn't take long for him to lose horribly.
- Maledict is quickly shown to be an Invincible Villain who curb-stomps the heroes into the floor. Then comes in Dark Tails, who grows so powerful that he shrugs off all of Maledict's attacks. It's a good thing Sonic and friends end up allying with him.
- In chapter two of Bait and Switch and the Foundry mission it's based on, this happened offscreen; only the aftereffects are shown. To drive home how much trouble Starfleet's having in the Beta Ursae sector block, the USS Defiant was badly damaged, but not irreparably, by a rogue Cardassian legate playing warlord.
- Diamond in the Rough (Touhou): Flandre is subject to this. She agrees to fighting according to the spellcard rules, but when the Diamondback's beasts start to cheat, she loses because she refused to disobey the rules.
- Better Bones AU: Tigerstar's final battle with Firestar in the rewritten Omen of the Stars is set up by him being seemingly unstoppable during the rest of the battle, managing to kill formidable fighters like Hawkfrost, Blackstar and Iceheart (though the last two are quite old by this time, while Tigerstar as a spirit is physically in the prime of his life).
