Gunnm/Awesome

"Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria, est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite; quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite!"
 * Den's last charge into the Scrapyard in the original Battle Angel Alita manga, punctuated by lyrics from "O Fortuna":


 * Figure Four has one when he
 * Desty Nova, revealing that he had a back-up plan for having his head cut off. And then a back-up plan for having his back-up plan discovered. Which he trumps by convincing the hero to join him.
 * There is also.
 * The whole battle was a crowning moment. I mean, civilian body against berserker body being used to its full potential and by a maddened mind? With a sword and a revolver?
 * It wasn't just any old peashooter. That piece was a Smith & Wesson Model 610 with a 4" barrel cut down by an inch or so. Also, the rear sights and the hammer spur had been removed, making it the perfect no-snag last-ditch concealed-carry weapon. This fairly rare firearm uses half-moon clips to fire an equally-rare cartridge; the same 10mm Auto round found in the Bren Ten of Miami Vice fame. Not quite as powerful as a .44, but definitely a step above a .357 Magnum.
 * It's being used against a nanomachine-based, plasma hurling monster whose only remnant of humanity is how much he hates Alita.
 * Too bad - I thought it was a cal. 38 revolver, the kind cops used in the old 70's police shows like Kojak.
 * Oh, and lest I forget... Jashugan's retaining of the motorball championship title. It was, until the Last Order series, the only time Alita had gotten punched straight into her midsection. Jashugan was, in that moment of complete clarity, completely invincible, defeating Alita and, in her words, awakening her with his attack.
 * This leads to the second moment Alita gets punched right in the breadbasket: her battle with Caerula Sanguis in the Last Order series. This fight immortalized a certain phrase, which will always call to mind memories of Caerula's awesome: "Eight-Block Death Gate Array.".
 * Big Bad of Last Order Aga Mbadi gets one while fighting the illusion-making and then seeming REALITY-WARPING psychic leader Whopon of The Starship Cult, when he calmly walks through Whopon's attacks and monsters and tells him "I will not allow you to alter reality without my consent", before snapping his neck.
 * Alita attained a massive moment of awesome when she returns in her new Imaginos 2.0 body, only to be confronted by Aga Mbadi, Super Nova and an army of LADDER troops. Nova and Mbadi hack and take control of Sechs and Zazie, putting Alita at knife and gunpoint. As Mbadi and Nova descend upon her, talking about how they'll dissect her to get the Fata Morgana, Alita merely replies "You think you've won?" before crushing Aga Mbadi's right hand to bits and proceeding to tail whip Nova away and Zazie and Sechs down. All before delivering an electro magnetic punch to Mbadi that he thought he lessened... only to be told by Alita that she lessened the blow since they need him alive to continue the Z.O.T.T. The look on Nova and Trinidad's faces when they realize they couldn't control her and were beaten was priceless. Mbadi's defeat was so bad it actually started his breakdown.
 * Despite not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, Gally's gender-confused replica Sechs gets a few of those throughout Last Order. Among these is a scene in volume 4, taking out heavily-armed trained soldiers with a 9mm handgun while stuck in a 5-inch-tall body, which was only designed as a communication device.
 * Another one comes in volume 5, being strapped in belts strong enough to hold containers together which even a Cyborg can't break free, Sechs is about to be fired from a rail gun with the speed of mach 26.5. Using a small remote doll, Sechs manages to free him/herself from the belts, put them around the opponents head and holding onto them with his/her teeth and feet, in order to be recoiled back at the enemy. Firing.
 * Let me restate that: s/he holds on to the straps with hir teeth after s/he was thrown by a railgun.
 * A rather strange one comes in volume 7. Sechs faces a monster clown, who had trained a normal human girl into being everything he tells her to be, including a blade strong enough to withstand a blow of Sechs sword (which can cut through stone with ease). In order to disarm him, Sechs imitates the clown's voice, telling the girl to become pudding, which she does.
 * During the battle against the Wild Guns, because Alita is elsewhere and the bunnies are out of commission (due to the truama induced from the previous fight) Sechs has to fight a five man team that made it through to the quarterfinals BY HIMSELF. To make it even more badass, he enters a Mexican standoff with the final gunman WITH AN EMPTY GUN. He wins by literally dodging a bullet at point blank range and shoving the gun barrel through the man's skull. The kicker lies within the fact that the gun wasn't even his to begin with "Here, you can have your armor piercing gun back!"
 * And in volume 11, Sechs fights against a massive Jovian war machine that launches a barrage of military grade missiles. How does Sechs counter this? By grabbing hold of one and surfing it!
 * Sechs wins a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded revolver by knowing his skull can withstand the impact. He then shakes the flattend bullets out of his hair.
 * Probably the most crowningest moment of awesome for Sechs is his fight in
 * Everything Zekka does qualifies as awesome but one that tops all the others happens at the end of his match against Venusian team. He turns a rampaging out-of-control mutant blob that threatens to absorb the whole station into a gigantic sakura tree... by karate chopping it very hard. It doesn't make sense in the context of the story and we are not given any explanation on how he did it, were are fat out told it was miracle. Read the previous sentence again: Zekka can cause miracles by hitting things really hard. Nobody should be surprised that he is considered the strongest in the universe.
 * Though there might be a bit of Fridge Brilliance behind it. Before Zekka hits the mutant, Gargantua (which is allready part plant), it closes over Igrek, Zekka's genetically-altered clone, who was genetically designed to fuse with the plant monster and was holding onto his dead android lover who was killed by a mutated rose dart. Now, remember that in a previous fight, Zekka was able to transfer energy into his teammate Touji, turning him into a living projectile that was capable of overloading and destroying Anomaly. Zekka didn't karate-chop the monster into becoming a sakura tree. He blasted it full of energy while Ingrek fused with it, giving him enough juice to mutate himself and the brainless Gargantua into a beautiful and non-lethal creature (overcoming their both destiny of being nothing more than killers).
 * That makes this a shared Crowning Moment between the two of them. Igrek had the will, and Zekka gave him the power to act on that will. So...in a nutshell, Zekka facilitates miracles by hitting things really hard. There's a difference.