This trope occurs when a character or characters has to kill someone or something. That someone is an incredibly tough, practically undefeatable menace. But not only do they need to kill them, but they need to do it quickly. There's no time to waste.
This can be because the person or thing that needs to be killed is restrained or imprisoned, but it can't last. They'll escape sooner or later. Or they're unconscious, but sooner or later they're going to wake up. Or they are weak now, or temporarily weakened, but will get stronger or return to full strength in a very short time. If you wait too long, it'll be too late. Celestial Deadline may be involved.
During this moment of vulnerability, it's common for the "executor(s)" to delay, for one reason or another:
- The "executor" may have a strict no-killing rule, or if the subject isn't really evil (in case the subject is a villain), just uncontrollable or misunderstood. If there's a team involved, look for a lot of arguing with some team members advocating to hurry up and finish them off, while other team members insist that killing is simply off the table. If the hesitation does allow the target to break free and do bad things later on, Pacifism Backfire has happened. If the target is a good guy and the executors are the bad guys, however, moral dilemma/discussion like this are rare, though not unheard of.
- The executors (whether good or evil) do try to finish the target off, but they end up fumbling. Perhaps again and again. Maybe the executors end up being not strong enough (or their method of disposing of the target ends up not working, or they missed the target) or the target turns out to be still not vulnerable enough.
And during the delay, the clock is ticking... ticking... ticking... perhaps waiting for either the target to break free, or for a Big Damn Heroes (or Villainous Rescue, or The Cavalry, or the like) to show up, ruining the whole engagement.
Can be a sister trope to Combat Pragmatist. Also to Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?, as this trope refers to when a character is not killed immediately and comes back to bite, whereas Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? refers to a character not taking the simple option of killing another character immediately, because they can be easily killed any time if the villain would just pull the trigger and get it over with.
This is not Mercy Kill, but elements of it can be in play. Look for If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! to be dragged into the conversation by the no-killing side, but not always. Not to be confused with Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand, where the "target" goads/tempts the would-be "executor" to kill them; that trope has an element of willingness in said "target", while this trope instead has "(involuntary) vulnerability".
Compare with Boss Vulnerability for the gameplay mechanic version of this.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Bleach: The Big Bad of the final arc, Yhwach, is a nigh-invulnerable juggernaut with a host of powers that includes being able to see the future, being able to nullify or counter any ability he has seen and understood, and even being able to "change the future" in such a way that he can undo any future in which he has died. The way he is ultimately defeated is by being shot with Still Silver, a substance Yhwach himself leaves behind in any Quincy whose life and power he's stolen. Still Silver temporarily shuts down Yhwach's power for a brief time, and Uryu urges Ichigo to kill him before the vulnerability wears off.
- Golgo 13 sometimes takes jobs where the target will only be out in the open, or at least in circumstances where a clear line of fire is theoretically possible, for a very brief period of time. The most spectacular example being "One Second Out of 36,000", where the target is in a room at the end of a long corridor, and the doors between Golgo's perch and the target open and close at different times, leaving only the titular time frame as the length of time when all of them are open simultaneously, forcing him to have a very long stakeout while virtually immobile for that one moment. He nails the shot.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: In the final fight, DIO's The World is able to stop time for five seconds. After Jotaro is able to briefly Move in the Frozen Time, he has to relay on waiting for DIO to get in close enough while time is frozen to deliver a strike. Upon having to resort to Playing Possum to convince DIO into moving closer, it allows Jotaro to catch him off guard and attack with Star Platinum.
- Stone Ocean: The last battle has Anasui deciding on a Self-Sacrifice Scheme while Pucci is accelerating around them, asking to Jotaro to stop time the moment Pucci makes his move. Unfortunately, Pucci anticipated their plan and utilized a different method to kill Anasui while distracting Jotaro with a Sadistic Choice.
- JoJolion: During the last battle, after Josuke awakens his Soft & Wet: Go Beyond, he's able to circumvent Toru's Wonder of U calamity and realizes that he has the single opportunity to fire a shot while his target is in front of him and quickly moves in before Toru is able to escape.
- One Piece: In Whole Cake Island arc, this is discussed by Capone Bege, who plans to assassinate Big Mom during her daughter's wedding party. She's tough as nails, but she has a peculiar trait where, if her precious picture of Mother Carmel (Big Mom's late foster mother) is harmed, she'll be emotionally wrecked and her skin will bleed easily. Then, when the party starts, the Straw Hat Pirates (the hero group) cause chaos in the party to both distract the Big Mom Pirates and sneakily crush the Mother Carmel picture. They succeed, Big Mom goes to cry loudly and become vulnerable, and Bege and his men jump in to assassinate her with potent poison syringes... only for her scream — the Conqueror Haki-empowered scream — to break the syringes. The Straw Hats and Bege's pirate crew get nowhere to run and are then trapped inbetween the Big Mom's family and pirate group.
Comic Books
- Anderson: Psi-Division: When she is hurled into an alternate reality, Anderson has the opportunity to kill Judge Death before he became immortal. However, he discovers her plan beforehand thanks to one of his spies and has the process sped up so it's already too late when they track him down.
- The Beyonder has this happen to him after an extended period of trying to learn what it was like to be human, and becoming increasingly frustrated at his inability to fully comprehend human nature, or to use his reality-warping powers in truly beneficial ways. For instance, he tries but fails to have a human woman fall in love with him, turns a skyscraper into gold to reward someone only for it to collapse under its own weight, and while trying to solve humanity's problems many heroes in the Marvel Universe express concern that mankind will grow too dependent on him. At one point, he casually mentions destroying all of reality since the current version doesn't make him happy. Finally, he decides to experience humanity by constructing a device that will allow him to be born as a human infant, retaining none of his past memories, then the device will transfer all of his power back into him. He succeeds, and is reborn. The Molecule Man, who had spent a considerable amount of time with the Beyonder and knew full well how dangerous he was, realized it was leaving too much to chance to just assume an infant with all that power would grow into a benevolent adult. He therefore sabotaged the process to kill the baby before the power transfer was complete.
- Miracle Man: Miracleman does this at the end of Kid Miracleman's rampage through London, where he's destroyed most of the city and killed tens of thousands, with no sign of stopping. Kid Miracleman has done a No-Sell on every attack the heroes have thrown at him, while killing several of them with ease. Finally one of the Warpsmiths teleports a girder into Kid Miracleman's chest, along with a chunk of debris into his head. Unable to endure the incredible pain, Kid Miracleman tries to escape from it by saying his transformation word and reverts back to his teenage alter ego. His teenage alter ego is just an innocent kid who has no control over Kid Miracleman and is completely traumatized by Kid Miracleman's actions. (He'd only said the transformation word because he'd been placed in a youth home and was about to be gang-raped by the other boys there.) While Miracleman absolutely hates having to do it, he swiftly kills the boy in order to prevent Kid Miracleman from ever returning. Due to all the trauma that the boy had experienced, which had nearly driven him out of his mind, it also overlaps with Mercy Kill.
- What If?: In a story featuring The Punisher and the Hulk, Frank is present at one of the Hulk's rampages and simply follows him at a discreet distance afterwards, waiting until the Hulk transforms back into Banner and falls asleep in an alley. Frank then shoots Banner in the head, preventing the Hulk from ever returning. Later comics however established that this approach won't work. Any severe injury suffered by Banner, even a fatal one, automatically triggers the transformation and he survives. Even sticking a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger won't work, he simply transforms into the Hulk and spits the bullet out.
- Supreme Power: When Hyperion arrived on earth as an infant, the scientists studying him noted with alarm that his skin was getting harder by the hour, with a corresponding increase in strength and durability. Several of the military men assigned to the project advocated using extremely powerful bombs (bombs almost as powerful as low-level nukes, but lacking the radioactive fallout) placed next to him and detonated simultaneously in order to kill him before it became impossible to do so.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Backfire -- Part 1"
: As part of the advice of the person she's aiding's advice, Ami gets a warning that indicates this is occuring:
"The enemy will figure out how to break the lock sooner or later, so hurry and recover it! This is the only chance you will get! Do not fail!"
Films — Animated
- Hercules: The evil Hades wants to kill Zeus' newborn son Hercules, but since Hercules is a god, that makes him immortal. So Hades fetches a potion that will turn the drinker mortal, but only if they drink all of it. Hades gets his minions Pain and Panic to take the baby far away from his home in Mount Olympus and get him to start drinking the bottle, but they are unable to get Hercules to drink the very last drop, so the murder plot fails. While they technically didn't have to do it when Hercules was a baby, it would have been more difficult to get him to drink the potion and then kill him when he was older.
Films — Live-Action
- Independence Day: The computer virus that lowered the alien ships' shields can only work for approximately fifteen minutes.
- Star Wars: Subverted in Revenge of the Sith. Chancellor Palpatine goads Anakin into summarily executing the defenseless Count Dooku, justifying it by claiming he is too dangerous to be left alive. This, of course, turns out to be a lie, since Palpatine is secretly Dooku's master and, hence, in no danger at any point... however, the time pressure itself is real in that scene, as Dooku's execution by Anakin is part of Palpatine's plan to seduce the latter to The Dark Side, and he must get him to do it before Anakin's own master, Obi-Wan (whom Dooku knocked out earlier), regains consciousness, as he would remind Anakin that Jedi do not kill their prisoners.
- Van Helsing: Towards the end, Van Helsing inherits the curse of lycanthropy and must use the supernatural strength bestowed by his werewolf form to destroy Count Dracula. He must fight and kill Dracula at some point between the first stroke of midnight, when the transformation begins, and the twelfth, when the transformation will become permanent and Dracula will be able to turn him into a werewolf thrall under his control.
Literature
- The Dresden Files: Halloween is a magically Liminal Time where immortal beings, including Physical Gods, become vulnerable. This gives Harry one chance in Cold Days to kill the corrupted Faerie Queen Maeve before they can complete a plot that would unleash a Fantastic Nuke as collateral damage.
- It: The Losers manage to fight and seriously wound Pennywise in his lair; during the battle, the Turtle tells the Losers to go and finish the job while Pennywise is still wounded and they are still at the peak of their powers. They are unable to do so, and end up having to return to Derry decades later and fight Pennywise again, but this time with their powers diminished and one member short (Stan refuses to return and commits suicide).
Live-Action TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: At the end of Season 5, once Glory has been temporarily defeated and reverted back to Ben, Giles kills Ben so that Glory can't return to be a threat.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", Gary Mitchell gains incredible powers when the Enterprise tries to breach an energy barrier. These powers become so great that Mitchell loses his humanity, empathy, and compassion. Spock advocates this trope to Kirk, telling him they need to kill Mitchell now, while they still can, before his powers become so great that he can't be killed and the crew of the Enterprise become mere annoyances to him. Later, Mitchell himself mockingly tells Kirk that he should do exactly what Spock says and kill him while they still can. (It's clear during this scene that he's subtly implying that the point where they were still capable of killing him has already passed). Finally, another crewman who'd gained the same powers but still hung on to her humanity attacks Mitchell and weakens him enough to make him vulnerable. She then tells Kirk to hurry, because he hasn't got much time.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: The Post-Final Boss fight involves Ann battling Amok to finally seal her away after the former had underwent a procedure to weaken the latter's connection and overall power to be fought at a pivotal time.
- Dawn of War II: Retribution: The Big Bad is ascending to daemonhood; he's already in One-Winged Angel form, but explicitly mentions his ascension is not yet complete, and needs his minions to protect him in the meantime.
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine: Captain Titus explains that Nemeroth will be at his most vulnerable during his own ascension to daemonhood, and duels him once he turns One-Winged Angel.
Web Comics
- The Order of the Stick: When a goblin warlord ascended to divinity after his death as "the Dark One", the Physical God Thor immediately tried to destroy him. The other Gods held him back long enough for the fledgling god's divine powers and Complete Immortality to manifest, and the Dark One never forgot the offense.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Gaang tries to mount an invasion against the Fire Nation on "The Day of the Black Sun" (a solar eclipse, which makes firebenders weaker), at which point Aang can defeat the Fire Lord. Unfortunately Azula knew of the details of the plan from the start.
- Harley Quinn (2019): Harley Quinn runs into this when she gets on the wrong side of the Queen of Fables. She refrains from killing the Queen, who coldly tells her this is a wrong move and she will come back to kill Harley. And the Queen does come back.
- Justice League Unlimited: During the episode "Patriot Act", a scientist paraphrases this trope when he orders some guards to shoot General Wade Eiling before the super solider serum he took takes effect. They end up being too late, although he doesn't kill any of them as he is after the league.
