Schlock Mercenary/Awesome

• A toss-up between Kevyn annihilating a shielded tank with an epaulet grenade and taking out an entire enemy fortress with his bare hands.
  • Or during the fortress-kill: "Hello again, commodore. I have a tank now. It's very shiny, but there's an ugly stain on the upholstery."
• Elf proving she's beautiful.
• Breya Andreyasn turning a Dyson Sphere into hash.
• Her charging a Battleplate (the most powerful individual starships in existence, not counting the Fleetmind) with an unarmed diplomatic ship? And winning.

Breya: Be a dear, jack in, and play the shields. I need to establish contact with the Touch-and-Go. Hull contact.

• The birth of Emperor Pius Dei, or perhaps the largest, fastest, and most bloodless military victory in known history
  • Given that the losses run to 35% it's actually worse than Gettysburg.
    • But considering the kinds of weapons used, there probably wasn't a whole lot of blood left.
• This scene alone.
• Pretty much the entirety of the Time Travel storyline, Mad Science Means Never Having To Say "What's the worst that could happen?"

Petey: Welcome aboard, Captain. I see you made some new friends.
Captain Tagon: Petey, What happened?
Petey: It's a long story. Would you like -
Captain Kevyn: I happened.

• • Especially this bit, with Kevyn Save Scumming the entire galaxy.
• Currently, LOTA is just a walking, talking, teleporting CMOA. Consider the following:
  • • That is King Lota, Longshoreman Long-gunner of the Apocalypse, thank you.
  • "LOTA shall now juggle seven hundred and fifty tons of cargo using LOTA's military-grade gravitics while flying. Perhaps someday LOTA will find something challenging to do."
  • LOTA earns LOTA's name.
  • And another one for LOTA: Now please stop pretending that you are the voice of the people. You just happen to be loud, and wearing a microphone.
  • LOTA, master poker player.
  • LOTA actually using a pronoun at the start is awesome enough.
• "Tagon's badassery with the pugil stick"
  • "Don't forget the first time it happened."
    • "Thank you. Now I have a knife."
• I would say Petey planning his first mission as an official officer of the crew as well as the resident AI was pretty awesome. Tagon's Toughs are no slouches at getting paid inventively but in his first attempt at a mission Petey managed to get them paid "five times for a very easy job". Then he just increased the scale of his plans from there.
• Even John der Trihs gets not one, but two.
  • Don't forget this one. Especially the footnote.
• Schlock goes up against a sniper who has been dogging him for a bit. The last time he fought him, his rapid-fire micro-grenade launcher wasn't hitting the target. This time, Schlock knows exactly how long his grenades are going to take to drop, and he's kind enough to let the sniper know.
• While we occasionally hear that the clothing-like Powered Armor bestows Super Strength, we rarely get to see that feature come into play. Then we have the waif-like Ensign Ventura, surrounded by disabled comrades and an angry mob, and...yikes.
  • Tagon's "I don't tell you how to remove bullets. Don't you tell me how to make killing machines back into little girls." is also pretty damn nice.
• Plenty of Petey references here already, but for this troper his finest hour is when the month of strips where we find out he isn't dead, starting here-ish. Especially all of the P.D. puns...
• And there was the time when Massey started a very brief firefight in a courtroom.

"Those not wearing body armor are hereby advised to keep their arguments on-topic."

• Colonel Dehaans subjects the entirety of the Toughs to a memory altering treatment, including Schlock, who promised to find Dehaans after it was over and eat him. Schlock gets around the memory treatment with his crazy biology. Then, he fulfills the promise he made to the good Colonel.
• What, no love for Tag? Just as trigger-happy as the rest of the Toughs, and not above joking about it too!
  • And also this, though I suppose it counts more for Crowning Moment of Heartwarming?
• The Freighter Captain inadvertently becoming the principal of Qlavical through an improvised defense of his planet involving "Rocks, ramming and balls of steel" (all three are literal. Even the balls of steel). "Show me your DREAM MESS!"
• I hereby award one to Nick.

"No curses. If I get dead, it's 'cause I chose this."

• Schlock gets a promotion by doing a Sherlock Scan with his nose.
• Tailor confirms his level of badassery. Holy. Shit.
  • Which was implied here.
• We don't run from the end of the world. We CHARGE!
• Starting from here, onward, perhaps the best Big Damn Heroes moment to date.
  • Hell Already Slipped It's Leash, Mister Crunchy.
  • THIS is what Schlock would do.
  • I see angels...
  • Awww, we just got here!
• This troper personally squee'd when a montage was apparently set to Still Alive.
  • This troper did as well, which caused a problem since he was in school at the time.
• Here.

Gripponan smart soles definitely qualify as force multipliers. With the right skills, they allow for amazing feats. And with the right intel, amazing feats become legendary ambushes.

• The entire Longshoreman of the Apocalypse arc is one for Schlock, as he proves himself not only to be capable of forethought and careful restraint, but also proper leadership and quick, creative thinking, such as when he decides to use goober rounds to save his squad after their transport is shut down in mid-flight.
• "Wow. They're like popcorn." "Weak simile. These have to be popped twice."
• Tino shows that he has learned from his earlier instruction.
  • "Skeet."