- The plot of The Dark Lords of Nerima is kicked off when one lone, outcast youma tries to instigate one of these between the sailor senshi, the dark kingdom, and the Nerima crew in order to kill the sailor senshi and get back into the dark kingdom's good graces. They will accept the deaths of many youma if it means killing them. It works only too well. Ranma and Ryôga end up fighting and defeating Jedite, which is something no amount of dead teenagers can forgive.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: The dark gods get along with each other about as well as sodium and water, so when Ami enters their realm, she ends up with three of them fighting over her. The Unraveller would like to recruit her, or failing that, disassemble her brain and read all her memories. Crowned Death wants to commit unspeakable tortures on her. Azzathra just generally hates her. And Azzathra has forced Crowned Death to co-operate with him, putting pressure on the Unraveller to help them out, but that only increases the resentment between all three of them, and they take pot-shots at each other whenever they see a momentary weakness. The fighting between them is Ami's best chance at getting away.
- HERZ: In this faq
the different factions are listed. Essentially you have: HERZ fighting SEELE's attempts to set Third Impact off and other nations' programs to build their own Evas; SEELE fighting HERZ, GEIST and the UN to initiate Instrumentality; GEIST fighting SEELE and the different world nations; the UN fighting SEELE but not particularly liking HERZ; and other nations fighting HERZ and the UN and not liking SEELE but being prone to strike a bargain with them. - Thousand Shinji: You have four sides in war against each other: The Angels, alien monsters intending to replace humankind with their own species; Gendo and Nerv, trying to exterminate the Angels (and Gendo willing to kill everyone to see his wife again); Seele, a group of old men plotting to kill everyone to create a new god and become one with it; and Shinji and his fellow pilots, fighting to protect humankind and gunning for revenge against Gendo and Seele. The war concludes with the fourth side winning and utterly annihilating the other sides. Discussed by the three Children in chapter 5:Asuka: Well then we should be friends. "The enemy of my enemy" and all that.
Rei: "And all that"? [...] You mean "dies next"?
Asuka: No, the phrase goes "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Rei: I prefer Shinji's version.
Asuka: What have you been teaching her?
Shinji: I think it's a more valid interpretation in my opinion. - Near the latter end of the Digimon fanfic Zero 2: A Revision, Demon and UmbraDevimon's armies invade the Real World at the same time and immediately start fighting each other, with the humans stuck in the middle. And then the Gravemon show up...
- In the Danny Phantom/Teen Titans crossover fic HIVEMinded, Jump City ends up as the sight of a brawl between the HIVE, Plasmius' army of ghosts, the Guys In White, the Titans, and the local police forces. Oh, and then the Justice League sends a few members to try and help, but that doesn't work out so well.
- Shinji And Warhammer 40 K has a Gambit Pileup with Shinji vs. Gendo vs. SEELE vs. Kaworu. This eventually culminates with an actual melee between NERVs EVAs and Magnos Tancred vs. Kaworu's Warborn vs. Keel Lorenz's MP EVAs, although Kaworu temporarily joins Nerv.
- In the Naruto fic Hakumei, the heroes return to Konoha to help La Résistance rebel against Danzou... on the same day as the Sand/Sound Invasion, which occurs more or less as in canon. No one realized in advance that there was more than one conspiracy ongoing, so the eventual three-way battle is not good for anyone's plans. Sasuke said it best when they found out that Itachi and Kisame were there too.Sasuke: We're only missing a joint Kumo-Iwa invasion and then everyone will be represented.
- Queen of All Oni: The fight in the shrine of the Three Shades — the J-Team goes there looking for information about the Shadowkhan, the Shadow Hand follow them so that Jade can steal a powerful Shadowkhan artifact, and the monks are duty bound to protect said artifact (one tablet of a Tome of Eldritch Lore). Of course, since the monks are all
True Neutral, they interpret "protect the artifact" as "fight anyone who shows up who isn't there to join the order", so even though they and the heroes are technically on the same side, they fight both them and the Shadow Hand. And it should also be noted that this fight is a total Curb-Stomp Battle, as the monks utterly wipe the floor with the other two sides.- Likewise, the fight over the second tablet in the Vault of Endless Night is between the J-Team, the Shadow Hand, and the various evil creatures sealed down there. This time around, the heroes are at least aided by the local guardian (a giant feathered serpent called Nameless), who joins forces with them the moment he realizes they're not evil. The Shadow Hand still wins however, managing to grab the tablet and get away at the last minute.
- The Final Battle starts as just the heroes vs the Shadowkhan. But then an Enemy Civil War breaks out with Jade and Tarakudo fighting each other for leadership of the Oni and their respective loyalist Generals turning on each other, all while the heroes are still fighting their forces.
- Nobody Dies is escalating into this, with humanity (NERV) vs. the Angels vs. the Cherubim. No one's entirely sure where the newly-unveiled Grigori fit into this, and there's even another faction of Angelic beings, the Seraphim, who have taken notice of the conflict on Earth but have thus far not done anything directly. And to make things even more confusing, a few of the Angels appear to have their own agendas, which may or may not tie into the above conflict.
- The Harry Potter fanfic The Return of the Marauders features a very elaborate three-way conflict between Harry's Marauders, Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and Manipulative Bastard Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix. Among other things, double agents abound.
- A Brief History of Equestria:
- The Lake Trot Crisis started as the Celestine Junta attacking the Hyracotherium Republic and Kingdom of Unicorns for control of said lake. Then Wind Whistler kicked off her coup, which led to the troops loyal to her attacking those loyal to Sullamander; both the Earth ponies and unicorns decided to take advantage of this to take more territory for themselves, and started attacking each other as well as the pegasi.
- The Winter War wasn't supposed to be one of these — nominally, the Republic and Kingdom were allied against the Junta. However, only the Royal army obeyed that; the nobility's mercenary forces splintered, with only some fighting the Junta, some fighting the Republic and some fighting everyone for the sake of riches.
- Turnabout Storm gets a courtroom version during Gilda's cross-examination when the defense, the prosecution, and the witness all start to verbally smack one another, prosecutor-witness relations be damned. Since Ace Attorney's courts run on Mundane Made Awesome, the overall treatment is not that much different from a physical version.Judge: A three-way tussle between the defense, prosecution, and witness! My! How exciting! Er- I mean... ORDER!
- In The Swarm of War, the first arc has: 1)The King’s Army. 2) The Loyalist Space Marines and Duke Verin’s forces. 3) Judanus with his Chaos Marines and cultists. 4) Bugklaw with his Orks. 5) The Swarm.
- Chapter 6 of Power Games: Wolkenritter plus one unknown vs. Alicia's weird doll monster vs. Earth natives vs. TSAB vs. Team Testarossa vs. Mariage.
- The Rise of Darth Vulcan: The battle of the Everfree Castle is fought between Vulcan's forces, Chrysalis' changelings, and Sombra's brainwashed minions for control of said castle and the Tree of Harmony beneath it. And that's all before the Princesses and Royal Guard show up.
- Webwork: There's one in Chapter 13, with an all-out brawl between Jade and her minions, Chang and his Samurai Khan, and an unwilling teamup between the J-Team and crime boss the Old Colonel.
- In the Worm fanfic, Intrepid, we have the ABB going against the PRT, the E88, the Brockton Bay Brigade, Faultline's Crew, and the Undersiders in Arc 2.
- Wonderful (Mazinja): Shortly after the Leviathan's attack the drug-dealing gang called The Merchants declare war on everybody else. In chapter 12, the battle between the local Protectorate -a super-hero organization- and three crime gangs -the ABB, the Empire 88 and The Merchants- begins.
- Children of an Elder God: In the Final Battle, the main characters have to fight the dead Outer Gods once again. However the Eldritch Abominations hated each other as much as they hated the Children, so they tried to fight the main characters and each other simultaneously.
- Last Child of Krypton: In this story, there’re several sides fighting each other: The Angels; SEELE; NERV; and the Justice League and their successors: Shinji, Asuka, Touji, Kaji, Misato…
- The Last Spartan: Chapter 31 sees a four-way fight between Saren's troops, Promethean Knights, the Flood, and Master Chief's squad. When Saren reveals that the Chief has data leading to a Halo, the first three groups all team up to take the latter on. They end up curbstomped.
- The New Adventures of Invader Zim quickly turns into this when Tak returns to Earth, as she's now competing with Zim to conquer the planet, and Dib is now trying to stop them both. This leads to several three-way fights over the course of the story.
- Black Crayons: In one of the installments A Child's Innocence (a retelling of Transformers: Dark of the Moon) has a three-way fight between Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Sentinel Prime.
- In Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters, the big fight in Chapter 9 starts as the Guardians, Caleb, and Jade against Daolon Wong and his Shapeshifters when the latter show up to claim an Oni mask that's in the same area as the former group's ski trip, but then Hak Foo shows up to claim the mask himself, and Quentin Ross (who had been trailing the group) steps in to try and capture Hak Foo.
- In Chapter 22, both Jackie and Viper have Oni masks forcibly put onto their faces, and become corrupted. Viper is turned into a Card-Carrying Villain who fights the Guardians For the Evulz, while Jackie becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist who decides that the best way to keep everyone safe is to have the Mini Khan eat their shadows and put them into comas so they can't fight anymore. This leads to him attacking Viper and the Guardians, and their Shadowkhan fighting each other even while fighting the heroes.
- White Sheep (RWBY): The Battle of Haven has six different factions with ten different goals. The White Fang under the Albain brothers just want to cause death and destruction. The White Fang under Sienna want to stop the other White Fang faction. Ozpin and Qrow simply want to escape to collect the relics. Cinder wants to kill Raven. Raven's faction wants to kill everyone. Tyrian and Sapphire want to kill Qrow. Coral wants to sleep with Qrow. The SDC and Emerald are simply trying to survive. And lastly, the members of teams RYBN and WRJP and Sun are just trying to regroup and head to the Grimmlands. The whole situation is Played for Laughs as people repeatedly attack allies (or at least non-enemies) on accident since no one can keep track of what's going on. It finally ends with Jaune summoning a Grimm dragon, which Weiss uses to threaten everyone into sitting down and shutting up. The dragon then spends the rest of the time following Weiss around like a puppy.
- In Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness, Reimu reveals that there's a provision in the Spell Card rules for this. At least four people with no set alliances with each other need to agree to a fight, and it has to take place in open air so that there's enough room to dodge the sheer volume of danmaku that would result. One Spell Card is allowed per combatant, and the winner is the last one left standing.
- Earth's Alien History: The Praxis War starts as a Klingon Civil War with just two sides (Azetbur's legitimate government and the rebels led by House Duras), only for the Cardassians and Breen to try and take advantage of the situation by invading Klingon space and attacking both sides. And since the rebels are too stubborn to call a truce (unlike the more pragmatic Azetbur), it stays a three-way conflict.
- The J-WITCH Series:
- In "J-WITCH Meets The J-Team!", the Auction of Evil that Valmont is hosting breaks down into a brawl between all of the attendees over the stolen Heart of Kandrakar, even before the J-Team and Guardians get involved to retrieve it.
- In "Divide and Conquer - Chaos and Hilarity", the heroes find themselves being attacked by Cedric and Daolon Wong, Valmont and Hak Foo, and the Monkey King all at once, who also start fighting each other.
- In the Harry Potter fanfic This Means War, Ginny Weasley, Cho Chang, Pansy Parkinson, and Susan Bones get into a four-way Wizard Duel, with each fighting to keep the other three from getting to Harry first and asking him out to the dance. Ginny wins, but when Harry hears about the reason behind this, he is insulted. He and Ginny had been snogging for a week by that point—did she really think he would say yes to any random girl who asked him?
- In A Jade Dragon, the North becomes a battleground between the invading Free Folk, the Boltons and their allies, and a coalition of Stark loyalists and Valemen led by Sansa.
- Subverted in Son of the Sannin. Due to the number of candidates for the Chunin Exams, the tournament bracket sets up the finals as a three-way fight, with the eventual winners being Naruto, Sasuke and Gaara. However, Rasa protests over the possibility of Naruto and Sasuke teaming-up to take out Gaara, and Jiraiya ultimately gives in to his demands and decides to let Naruto and Sasuke fight each other one-on-one first, and then let the winner face Gaara alone.
- Chasing Dragons: The Civil War that erupts in the Vale near the end of the story starts as a rebellion by the Old Faith against the Arryns and their loyalists, but then the Mountain Clans take the opportunity for an uprising of their own, attacking both sides.
- No stars in sight: During the Vroengard arc, the eponymous island becomes the center of a four-way struggle between the Imperial Cabal (led by Ikharos), the Scorn (led by the Locus of Communion), the Lucent Hive (consisting of just Skuldu and Agnisia), and Cuaroc. As this goes on, you also have Zendolyn-Far acting as a Wild Card and Formora getting caught in the middle of it all. Aside from Zendolyn and the Scorn, who aren't aware they're on the same side due to a case of Right Hand Versus Left Hand, each faction stands in direct opposition to everyone else's goals.
- Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo: During his conversation with Plagueis in the first epilogue chapter, Vader states his belief that leaving the Republic to collapse under the weight of its own corruption, without the Sith pulling the strings to get the specific outcome of Republic vs Separatists that there was in his timeline, means that when the civil war eventually comes, there will be "a great many" factions that will pop up.
- Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: By the end of the second Story Arc, the story has settled into a four-way conflict between Dib and Gaz, Zim's team, the alliance between Tak and Lex, and Aldrich Coathanger — the latter three factions are all in competition for control of The City (and by extension, the rest of Earth), with the Membranes fighting to stop all of them.
- Perhaps inevitable given the setting, but A different weasel makes a difference has more than one:
- The Second Battle of King's Landing is also known as the Battle of Four Armies, between Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon, Lannister forces loyal to Tyrion, and the Faith Militant. There might actually be a fifth side given a few holdouts to Cersei. Robb is the most clear winner, but Stannis at least manages to avoid a complete defeat. The other sides don't.
- Subverted in the Reach, despite it being invaded by Euron Greyjoy, Aegon VI Targaryen, and Stannis. It isn't until the Battle of Highgarden that all sides are even all present at once, and Aegon makes peace with Willas Tyrell so they can both focus on Euron. When Stannis arrives, he orders his men to focus solely on the Ironborn. Once they're killed to the last, everyone present surrenders to Stannis.
- The Vale civil war was mostly between a few Arryn loyalists and the forces under Lord Royce, but the Mountain Clans also attacked a few times and made a general nuisance of themselves.
- Dorne chose the Second Long Night as a time to fall into a three way civil war, though it wasn't really until the final battle that all three sides were on the field at the same time. Arianne's forces won. In this case, all other factions deliberately chose not to intervene until the three sides had more or less destroyed each other.
- The Chaotic Masters: Roulette's auction of magical artifacts ultimately breaks out into a free-for-all between every single attendee and the infiltrating heroes for possession of the artifacts, after Aqualad is caught trying to steal the Trident of Triton, triggering a fight that turns into a general brawl.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MeleeATrois/FanWorks
FollowingMelee A Trois / Fan Works
Go To
