Basic Trope: Two or more characters keep track of how many Mooks they kill during a battle in order to see who's the bigger badass.
- Straight: Ace and Barbara make a bet before a big battle: who can kill the most of The Empire's soldiers?
- Exaggerated:
- Ace and Barbara keep a running tally of their kills throughout the entire series; judging from how the numbers jump, there's either a lot going on offscreen or both keep inflating their number.
- Not only is Ace and Barbara competing, just about everyone on their team is.
- Downplayed: Barbara and Ace shoot a camp cook but just wound him slightly. They claim it as one tenth of a kill each.
- Justified:
- The battle is a simulated training exercise, so Ace and Barbarra have to keep track of their kills to know when they've finished their "reps."
- Alternatively, it's a way of coping with the emotional stresses of battle.
- Inverted:
- Ace and Barbara deliberately defeat their enemies without killing them; whoever ends up killing a Mook first loses.
- Ace and Barbara compete to see who can rescue more innocent bystanders.
- Ace and Barbara are in charge of two divisions of the Redshirt Army, and decide to hold a Minimal Casualties Competition.
- Subverted:
- Barbara keeps meticulous count of her kills, but she's the only one who does.
- Ace challenges Barbara, but she refuses to participate.
- Barbara changes the rule: Defeating an enemy non-lethally gives a double score.
- Double Subverted:
- But after the battle ends, she abruptly announces her number of kills; either she won, or Ace didn't keep track and she wins by 'default'.
- But then Ace adjusts the rule once again into: Killing more than 11 enemies with one shot gives an undecuple hendecuple score.
- Parodied: Ace breaks a tie by killing Barbara. With her last breath, she scolds Ace for cheating. Depending on the mood, she may or may not be fine in the next scene.
- Zig Zagged: Ace challenges Barbara, but she refuses, it turns out she was keeping track all along, but his number was higher than hers. They are scolded by a higher-up for trivializing the deaths of enemies, but the commander than announces they won because they killed officers, whereas Ace and Barbara had just killed mooks.
- Averted: Neither Ace nor Barbara bother to count their casualties.
- Enforced: We don't have the time for ten minutes of Ace and Barbara plowing through mooks, but we want to show that they are stupendous badasses. Let's just show them taking out a few mooks while counting the kills, then we can make the numbers as big as we like and they look all the tougher for making a game out of a life and death situation.
- Lampshaded: "Somehow, I knew those two would have a contest over killing mooks."
- Invoked: Ace and Carol had Barbara count her kills to keep her busy while they carry out plan delta.
- Exploited:
- Emperor Evulz's plan is to take advantage of the competition to make Ace and Barbara get mad at each other.
- Evulz uses this to keep his elites at their top game.
- Killer Kane exploits the fact that Ace and Barbara are calling their kills to figure out where they are and aim his attacks.
- Defied:
- "Don't be ridiculous, there's more to winning the battle than the number killed. Carol does more by killing the upper officers than I do by taking out entire squads."
- "I refuse to trivialize anybody's murder in such a fashion."
- The moment Ace and Barbara declare they are starting such a competition, Caleb just happens to set off a nuke. They immediately declare Caleb the winner.
- The very first goon they run into (or managed to sneak on to them while they were establishing their challenge) kills them both.
- Discussed: "Actually, Dave, I think the smart money's on Mimi this time."
- Conversed: "Do you think they actually count how many Mooks they kill? I'd think staying alive would place higher in their priorities..."
- Deconstructed:
- Ace and Barbara reduce slaughtering the enemy to a game to avoid thinking about the fact they're taking all these lives.
- Ace and Barbara are so focused on their kill counts that they neglect their primary mission and get chewed out by Charlie afterwards.
- Ace and Barbara start faking kills to get one up on their rival, leading to problems when characters that they claimed were dead start showing up and taking advantage of their status to threaten the team.
- It's the Sadistic Choice version of "But for Me, It Was Tuesday": you cared enough about remembering your victims to carry a precise tally of how many you killed, but you don't care enough to remember anything else. Good luck talking with the family of Kill #1138.
- Ace and Barbara think it's a cute game. Civilians think they are "unhinged hero" material. What's gonna happen when they lose count? What's gonna happen if any of them lose? What is going to happen if killing Goblins is not a good challenge anymore? And then there is the horror creeping up their spine when they finally get that Ace and Barbara have a tally of five or six figures each and are not making the slightest dent on this plague…
- Reconstructed:
- Ace and Barbara do this to know the true cost of their actions as well as their contribution to the war. They take their hats off to their enemies after the battle is over acknowledging that even though they were on the wrong side they were still honorable soldiers.
- Ace and Barbara realize this, and only go after mooks when it doesn't interfere with their primary mission, reasoning that Charlie will let their Body-Count Competition slide as long as they accomplish their missions.
- Plotted a Good Waste:
- Promotions are based on kills, so soldiers are expected to keep track.
- War is a Blood Sport.
- Played For Laughs:
- Despite all their efforts, neither Ace or Barbara is actually able to score a 'kill' during the battle as other characters end up defeating each and every mook.
- The standard barrage of arguing and whining that comes from two spirited people trying to one-up each other becomes a Running Gag, with a special emphasis on trying to aggrandize or trivialize each other's kills to not have to add any additional points to the score ("An elephant only counts as one kill!" "So does a general!" "Mine was taller than yours!" "Mine hit the ground first!", and so on)
- Played For Drama:
- Ace and Barbara's team is going up against horrendous odds; to have any chance of survival (or, alternately, to ensure others survive even if they're killed in the process), they both have to take down as many enemies as possible.
- Ace and Barbara become so embroiled in their competition that they start screwing up their assigned roles. Or worse yet, they deliberately screw up in order to keep the war going so they can keep the competition rolling.
- Played For Horror:
- Ace and Barbara are rival serial killers.
- The competition is presented as proof that Ace and Barbara are becoming Sociopathic Soldier material.
Back to Body-Count Competition, mates! Drinks are on me if you win!
