Kill Steal/Playing With

Basic Trope: Jumping in to deliver the final blow after letting others do all the hard work of weakening a foe.

• Straight: Hiro, Wolfie, Marcy, Kelvin and Claudia are whittling down the health of the powerful orc Slashgut. Suddenly, ninja assassin Kodachi jumps in and backstabs Slashgut For Massive Damage, taking him out.
• Exaggerated: Kodachi specializes in kill stealing, to the point where every single kill she's made has been poached off of others.
• Justified: Kodachi believes she is the only one capable of killing Slashgut, but only by surprise when he is already weakened from the fight. She didn't know Hiro was about to do it himself.
  • Kodachi didn't want Hiro to live with the guilt of ending a life, even if it was in battle.
• Inverted: Deliberately allowing another person to land the final blow.
  • Killing the person right before or as they're about to kill another person (where the person saved had no way to kill the now dead guy).
• Subverted: It turns out Slashgut is not quite dead, allowing Hiro to make the kill anyway.
• Double Subverted: Kodachi, realizing her mistake, quickly finishes off Slashgut with a shuriken.
• Parodied: Hiro and Kodachi are more concerned about fighting each other over the kill than finishing Slashgut.
  • No one delivers the first blow to avoid the other to finish a weakened foes, to the point of letting Slashgut pounding them to the ground effortlessly.
• Deconstructed: Hiro confronts Kodachi after the battle and demands an explanation for her behavior. He points out that she's not a particularly competent fighter by herself, and accuses her of stealing kills just for the right to brag about making them. She meekly admits it, and is promptly Put on a Bus for her selfishness.
• Reconstructed: ...But it turns out that although finishers are the only thing Kodachi is good at, she's pretty damn good at it, and nobody in the team is. Without her, the team struggles to finish their opponents, and when Kodachi comes back to bail her friends out of trouble, they welcome her back with open arms... as long as she promises to share the bragging rights from now on, which she does.
• Zig Zagged: At first Kodachi attempts to steal the kill, but the killing blow misses. She falls back into a support role after the team members bawl her out. As the battle continues and the team members miss opportunities to kill Slashgut, she resolves to leap in and do the deed herself; this time the deadly attack hits, but it just causes Slashgut to transform into his One-Winged Angel mode. Hiro, who was preparing an attack that would have ended the fight if Kodachi hadn't once again tried to steal the kill, is not amused.
• Averted: Nobody jumps in at the end of a fight.
• Enforced: Hiro is supposed to have a rule against killing, so we need somebody to finish Slashgut for him.
• Lampshaded: "That ninja totally stole my kill."
• Invoked: The Big Bad has his Dragon on orders to do this to prevent the heroes gaining his exp/loot/powers.
• Defied: "This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself."
• Exploited: Hiro and his gang take advantage on Kodachi's impulsive-compulsive kill stealing to save themselves the effort on fighting though enemies.
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???
• Played For Laughs: Kodachi is a well-meaning ally who only wants to help Hiro out, but her timing really sucks and makes her look like a Glory Hound.
• Played For Drama: Slashgut is one of a number of monsters whose essence can be absorbed by Hiro's Sword of Plot Advancement, something that will eventually make it strong enough to take down Dark God Marduk. Kodachi is a rival carrying a similar blade; since she stole the kill, she reaps the benefits of all their hard work and keeps that strength away from Hiro — and drives forward the possibility that they may have to eventually fight each other to consolidate that strength into a single weapon.

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