Sub-Zero vs. Glacius

Sub-Zero vs. Glacius is a What-If? episode of Death Battle.

Description
''Mortal Kombat VS Killer Instinct! Two of the fighting genre's coolest ice-wielding warriors will settle the score. Can Sub-Zero's skills stand up to Killer Instinct's morphing alien?''

Interlude
Wiz: While many fighting game combatants have wielded the elements, few are cool enough to wield ice.

'''Boomstick: *groans* ... and these two are where it all began. Sub-Zero, Mortal Kombat's blue ninja of the Lin Kuei.'''

Wiz: And Glacius, Killer Instinct's ice-cold morphing alien.

Boomstick: He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick...

Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armors, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.

Sub-Zero
Wiz: Bi-Han, codename Sub-Zero, was the most fearsome warrior of the Lin Kuei until his death at the hands of Scorpion.

Boomstick: Wait, are we talking about the right person?

Wiz: I'm getting to that! Then came the tournament in Outworld, in which it seemed Sub-Zero had returned once again. But then the combatants, especially the hellspawn ninja, were surprised to see that this Sub-Zero spared the lives of his opponents.

Boomstick: So clearly, he was someone else entirely.

Wiz: Bi-Han's younger brother Kuai Liang took up his older brother's mantle and title. But despite his initial occupation as an assassin, he began having moral doubts about the clan's doings.

Boomstick: Including that whole "loss of mind and soul if you turn into an awesome robot" thing.

Wiz: He, alongside his best friend Smoke, defected from the Lin Kuei. Even with the threat of capture, Sub-Zero came to the aid of the heroes of Earthrealm in their battle against Shao Kahn's forces.

'''Boomstick: He's a master of Shotokan karate and dragon. Dragon is... uh...'''

Wiz: It's a Shaolin style of boxing.

'''Boomstick: *copying Wizard* Shaolin style of boxing. Yeah, I knew that. And like his older brother before him, Kuai Liang utilizes ice in combat in a variety of ways.'''

Wiz: You see, Sub-Zero isn't just a human; he, alongside his older brother, are descendants of Cryomancers, an ancient race of Outworld capable of controlling ice. This long-forgotten race was thought to have been exterminated during Shao Kahn's reign... because he's gotta have hobbies of some kind.

'''Boomstick: Anyway, he freezes foes in their tracks with Ice Blast and Ground Ice, slides across the ground with Slide, and generate icy clones of himself called... Ice Clones. yeah, he and his brother could've come up with more original names.'''

Wiz: These clones stand in place on the ground and even in mid-air... somehow... and stop attacks from getting though, even freezing enemies that try to attack them up-close. And if the situation calls for it, Sub-Zero can even pick them up and use them as a shield or throw them at his foes himself.

Boomstick: He can also create bits of ice to drop on his foes, can unleash a pillar of cold air from underground to suspend his enemies in the air, and charge straight at them with a shoulder charge.

Wiz: Though as the ice clone has shown, he isn't solely about offense. He can teleport short distances by becoming ice, cover himself in ice as a means to counter close-range attacks, create barriers of frost, and can unleash a shockwave-like wave of cold air to freeze multiple foes around him solid.

'''Boomstick: And in mid-attack, he's capable of forging weapons from ice, such as swords, daggers, and hammers... though they're not terribly sturdy, so they tend to break upon contact. That was until he created the Kori Blade, which is strong enough to repel sword strikes. What, did he put more time and effort into it than his other ones?'''

Wiz: No, there may be an explanation for this. After returning to the Lin Kuei, which Sektor was the grandmaster of, he defeated the cyborg warrior and took from him the Dragon Medallion.

Boomstick: This artifact is incredibly powerful, increasing its owner's power to near-omnipotent levels.

Wiz: I don't know about that high, but this medallion isn't just some plot device that any shmuck can use with equal efficiency: Frost, one of Sub-Zero's students in the reformed Lin Kuei, who was also a Cryomancer, took it and attempted to seize its power for herself. But due to her lack of discipline, she was frozen in place.

'''Boomstick: With it, Sub-Zero's ice attacks and weapons are stronger, so much so that one time, when he used his wave of cold air thing on multiple attackers, it hit so hard that they were frozen... forever... until Taven decided to smash them.'''

Wiz: Also keep in mind that he had such complete control over it that he did not accidentally freeze Taven as well, who was well within the move's range. And with or without the medallion, Sub-Zero can perform no less than 14 fatalities.

'''Boomstick: Aside from the fact that more than half of them are just variations of him turning the opponent into ice and then shattering them, he can tear his foes in half and even goes way past his older brother tearing off their head and spine. He goes for the whole package and tears out their entire skeleton. But as powerful as he is, there's that yellow ninja Scorpion that always outclasses him.'''

Sub-Zero is about to be fatalitied in Kratos' MK9 trailer.

Boomstick: Every...

Sub-Zero's head is ripped off by Scorpion in another MK9 trailer.

Boomstick: Single...

Sub-Zero is about to be finished in Scorpion's Injustice intro.

Boomstick: Time.

Sub-Zero's decapitated head has a sword thrown into it in the debut MKX trailer.

Boomstick: It's like that harpoon is his kryptonite.

The screen goes to grayscale.

Wiz: That is not the case. While Scorpion has defeated him before, Sub-Zero dealt the final blow to him in the Battle of Armageddon and would've killed him in the new timeline had the Lin Kuei not stepped in.

'''Boomstick: Well regardless of his portrayal as the yellow specter's punching bag, Sub-Zero has defeated some impressive foes, such as the acid-spewing green ninja Reptile, the red ninja made of one thousand souls Ermac, both Lin Kuei ninja cyborgs Cyrax and Sektor, and even the resurrected Bi-Han, now going by the name of... Noob Saibot? *laughs uncontrollably*'''

Wiz: Kuai surpassed his older brother, truly earning the title of Sub-Zero. But he is definitely far from the strongest combatant in the Mortal Kombat universe. Despite his mastery of the Dragon Medallion, he has occassionally been overwhelmed... mainly whenever Noob has help. In the Battle of Armageddon, the person that delivered the final blow to the icy ninja was... Baraka.

Boomstick: What?!

Wiz: And in the new timeline, he died in battle at the hands of the all-powerful Sindel, who single-handedly killed him and all of the Earthrealm warriors... except for Sonya and Johnny Cage.

Boomstick: Weak.

Wiz: And interestingly enough, Sub-Zero is one of the few combatants who has actually undergone physical aging. Whether it be from many years or as a side effect of the Dragon Medallion, the young warrior would became an old man.

'''Boomstick: Not that it came anywhere near close to stopping him from being awesome! There's a good reason he and Scorpion are the poster children of the series.'''

Wiz: But above all else, Kuai Liang is the embodiment of a true hero, always ready and willing to aid Earthrealm's warriors in protecting the innocent.

Sub-Zero: Then I will do it the hard way!

Glacius
Boomstick: Well I'd start with how Glacius is an alien, but that isn't a surprise to anyone, so tell 'em that backstory, Wiz.

Wiz: One day while flying amongst the stars in a space ship, he came too close to Earth and soon crashlanded.

Boomstick: There are many terrifying words that describe Glacius, but when it comes to his driving skills, clumbsy should come to mind after that.

Wiz: But as it turns out, Glacius' home planet had records on the human race and warned of their brutality.

Boomstick: But Glacius thought to himself, "Eh, they're just overexaggerating", but then he found himself captured by UltraTech, who decided to use him for "research".

Wiz: They then forced him to compete in the Killer Instinct tournament for his freedom and he performed incredibly well before escaping his captivity.

Boomstick: Then he came back to the planet some time later because he left some advanced technology behind and didn't want humanity to misuse it.

Wiz: And surprisingly, despite his cruel treament by UltraTech, he still hopes to improve the relations between his race and humanities.

'''Boomstick: Well if that includes ultra comboing all the fools dumb enough to fight him, then that message of peace is a bit mixed... not that it makes him any less deadly.'''

Wiz: His entire species is composed of an ice-like substance and can morph their body and apendages, varying their shape and even size.

'''Boomstick: I was going to make a joke here about their junk extending in size, but I don't see anything down there. Either it's tucked in there or I guess they reproduce some other way.'''

Wiz: Ugh. He can make his close-range attacks even deadlier by morphing his hand into weapons like axes, turn himself into a puddle to evade attacks... even in the air, somehow... and attack opponents from a distance by extending parts of his body into spikes.

Boomstick: Even from afar, this guy can still combo you.

Wiz: His standard arsenal of moves includes his charging Ice Lance, Shockwave, which is actually just a bouncing projectile, a shoulder charge, and by increasing the size of his hand to grapple his opponents toward him, as well as even brutalize them by slamming them into the ground multiple times.

'''Boomstick: But Wizard... wasn't that move from a different member of his species?'''

Wiz: Yes, Glacius had a great ancestor... whose name also happened to be Glacius...

Boomstick: Guess our Glacius is Glacius the XVIII or something...

Wiz: Anyway, his ancestor had come to the earth nearly 2,000 years ago. But with that said, considering they are both from the same species, it's very likely that the Glacius of the present could use the same moves as his ancestor.

'''Boomstick: So with that, he also has Arctic Blast, a projectile that sounds as cold as you would assume. And besides turning into a liquid to get around the battlefield, he can also follow up with devastating uppercuts.'''

Wiz: Aside from Arctic Blast, not all of Glacius' moves are just extensions of his body. He gained the ability to use the moisture in the air to form Hail, spiked balls which he can launch at foes at a maximum of six at once.

'''Boomstick: And from underneath them, he can unleash a beam of ice to strike them from above. And he can even enhance it to create ice spikes that track down his foe.'''

Wiz: And to give his opponents a harder time up close, he can create one of five layers of his ice-like material to cover himself.

'''Boomstick: Or you can just call it Ice Armor. These block a single attack, allowing Glacius to walk them off and catch his comboing foe off-guard. And he has a couple good No Mercies of his own, such as turning his foes into ice or having them sink into his body while brutalizing them.'''

Wiz: His skills were so impressive that he even managed to defeat Cinder, an experiment of UltraTech who is proficient in pyrokinesis.

'''Boomstick: Considering his body is composed of plasma and he's always on fire, you'd think that'd be a bad match-up for Glacius, considering ice melts and stuff... but no, he straight up slayed that fool.'''

Wiz: However, his teleporting aside, Glacius is fairly slow on foot. And while his Ice Armor is one of his best defenses, it has its limits. He can only hold one piece at a time and once one piece expires, he has to wait three seconds for the next to takes it place.

'''Boomstick: But even with all that, Glacius is a beast of an alien and one hell of an ice-wielding combatant. Don't bother trying to melt him or you're be stopped cold.'''

Glacius stands atop of a frozen peak and puts out his hand, channeling his frozen powers. He lets out an indescribable roar as his eyes glow green.

Nkstjoa
Out in the mist of space, Glacius’ ship begins entering earth’s orbit. From afar in an arctic region, the ship can be seen rocketing towards the icy surface.

Meanwhile, in the Lin Kuei temple, Sub-Zero suddenly feels a shake in the ground and decides to investigate the occurrence. He walks out in search of the area, then finds a large crater in the ground and at the edge of it a large ship of alien origins. Sub-Zero jumps into the crater and inspects the ship up close. Suddenly, a door opens, and behind it is none other than Glacius. Sub-Zero steps back in a defensive stance as Glacius exits the ship, his first few steps creating icy spikes near his feet. He continues stepping closer towards Sub-Zero, who then begins channeling ice through his arms as a final warning to the creature. Glacius places his hand out and channels ice through his fingertips as his eyes glow a bright green. He then gets into a combat stance as well.

FIGHT!

Sub-Zero fires an ice blast, which Glacius counters with arctic blast. The two ice attacks collide and Glacius looks for his adversary in the aftermath of the clash. He is suddenly struck from behind by Sub-Zero, who unleashes a small combo before shoulder charging, knocking him back. Anticipating a counter attack, Sub-Zero creates an ice clone in front of him and waits. To his surprise, he is struck by ice-like spikes from below and he sees that Glacius has created it through extensions of his own body. Sub-Zero vaults over his ice clone as Glacius' spikes follow after him, to which one spike ends up penetrating through it. Suddenly, Glacius finds himself frozen in place as Sub-Zero musters another ice clone, picks it up, and throws it at the frozen Glacius. As it nears him, Glacius breaks free from the ice, then turns into a liquid to avoid the thrown ice clone. To Sub-Zero's surprise, he is then caught in a combo by Glacius, who materialized in front of him. After a few strikes, Sub-Zero manages to avoid a swipe, to which he uppercuts Glacius into the air.

Toasty Guy: TOASTY!

Sub-Zero begins sliding across the ground and trips Glacius, then turns around for another attack. Glacius fires off a bouncing projectile, forcing Sub-Zero to jump over it. As Sub-Zero prepares to attack, Glacius summons hail and the spiked ball strikes Sub-Zero head-on. Sub-Zero quickly gets up and starts another combo on Glacius, but Glacius manages to catch him in mid-attack.

KI Announcer: CCC-COMBO BREAKER!!!



With his opponent knocked back, Glacius transforms his hands into axes. Seeing his adversary approach with his weaponized appendages, Sub-Zero creates his kori blade. The two clash with their weapons, neither weapon wearing down from the repeated impact. Eventually Glacius stomps his foot on the ground, creating ice spikes, which catch Sub-Zero off-guard, causing him to lose his footing. With a powerful swing from both hands, Glacius disarms Sub-Zero of the kori blade and then goes for another on his unarmed opponent. To his surprise, Sub-Zero stops the blow with his bare arm, which is encased in ice. Glacius resumes the attack with his axe hands, which Sub-Zero blocks with his arms until he ducks below one of Glacius’ strikes. With his foe exposed, Sub-Zero quickly mustered an ice dagger, which he swings quickly at Glacius, scarring his chest and stomach region. He then quickly creates a hammer made of ice and swings it upward, striking Glacius’ jaw and sending him rolling to the ground.

With his hands and feet on the ground, he transforms both of his hands to normal before suddenly realizing Sub-Zero was to the side of him. The blue ninja freezes the ground, trapping Glacius’ feet and one of his hands. As Glacius tries breaking free, he stretches out his arm in an effort to grab Sub-Zero, only for Sub-Zero to stop it in its tracks with an ice blast. He then takes the opportunity to hack at Glacius’ arm, which after multiple strikes, finally comes off, causing Glacius to roar in pain. In that anguish, Glacius musters the strength to break free from the ice and then shoulder charges at Sub-Zero. Sub-Zero freezes the ground once again, this time causing Glacius to slip across it. Glacius attempts to even the odds by quickly firing hail, but Sub-Zero easily avoids it and then unleashes a combo against his one-armed foe, who can’t defend against it. He takes out the kori blade and stabs it into Glacius, then turns around and tosses him to the ground, causing a wound from the extracted blade.

The icy alien left dizzied, Sub-Zero fires a blast of ice at Glacius’ legs, keeping his lower body and arm in place as he walked over to finish his foe. He swings his sword at Glacius’ neck, but is startled to see his foe quickly melt away as the liquid-like substance overflew out of the ice that had just seconds ago held him in place. In that moment of disbelief, Glacius instantly reformed and unleashed a swift and powerful uppercut, knocking Sub-Zero upward. As he got back up from the blow, he saw Glacius retreat to his arm that he had just lost as he placed it back onto the wound, joining them back together. With both his arms, he was prepared for the next round with the Lin Kuei warrior.

Sub-Zero sees Glacius approaching and unleashes a wave of cold air, but Glacius transforms into a liquid just in time to avoid it. Sub-Zero then looks below him and sees the liquefied alien around his feet. He soon feels himself being pulled in and not wanting to waste a single moment, he freezes the puddle below him. He is able to control the density to allow his feet to escape while still keeping his foe entrapped enough to guarantee it. Afterward, he begins creating a large nugget of ice above the puddle. Glacius finally breaks free and instantaneously reforms, only to be immediately grounded by the massive ice nugget.

The two then unveil an attack from below their opponent; a beam of light-like ice stumbles Sub-Zero while cold air lifts Glacius into the air. Despite this, he still musters his power to unleash three hail balls at Sub-Zero, who runs past them to avoid them. After Glacius lands on the ground, both charge at each other head-on with their respected shoulder charges, but even with the power of the Dragon Medallion, Glacius’ sheer size and power overpowers Sub-Zero’s, sending him rolling across the ground. To guarantee a kill, Glacius quickly creates and throws an ice spear. As Sub-Zero gains his footing, he sees it coming right towards him and knows he can’t create an ice clone in time to stop it. Instead, he simply falls back to avoid it, then turns into ice and teleports to the other side of Glacius.

Sub-Zero once again slides across the ground as Glacius fires multiple bouncing projectiles, which he maneuvers around. He follows up with more hail, which is also swiftly avoided. Glacius then begins firing multiple beams of ice from underneath the ground, all of which fail to make their mark... until one knocks Sub-Zero off of his feet and towards Glacius, who transforms his hand into a lance. He charges at his helpless adversary, ready to skewer him, but in that instant, Sub-Zero creates an ice clone and holds onto it like a shield. Just as the lance penetrated the ice clone and neared Sub-Zero's shoulder, Glacius was frozen solid. Sub-Zero collided with the frozen combatant, who then crashed into the ground, breaking off the ice that had covered him before retreating into a liquid.

Seeing that his foe was clearly starting to get exhausted, Sub-Zero went for the kill with his kori blade and swung it. In that instant, Glacius protected himself by conjuring ice armor, which absorbed the blow. Sub-Zero quickly followed up with more swings, but each swing is ineffective, as Glacius' armor absorbs the next blow. During one fateful swing, Glacius conjures arctic blast, which freezes the attacking ninja in his tracks. He found himself unable to move and soon met the wrath of the charging Glacius head on, who rammed into him with his shoulder. He struck Sub-Zero with a large combo of punches and kicks, which struck with incredible force, yet also kept the ninja in place for the remainder. Sub-Zero attempts to break free, but Glacius stops his attempt.

''KI Announcer: Lockout! COUNTER BREAKER!!!''



Glacius melted down and instantaneously uppercutted Sub-Zero multiple times, knocking him into the air. With Sub-Zero falling helplessly towards the ground, Glacius unleashed a plethora of icy spikes from the ground one by one, which also knocked him into the air. He stopped Sub-Zero’s descent once again by extending his arm and grabbing him, then repeatedly slamming him into the ground before tossing him. As Sub-Zero finally fell to the ground, Glacius showered him with ball after ball of hail, keeping him grounded. By the time he had stopped, the frosted dust made it difficult for Glacius to see what remained of his foe.

KI Announcer: ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!



Glacius watches as the dust settled and saw Sub-Zero get back up, but upon closer inspection, he was drained and seemed trapped in place. With his foe stunned, his mask breaking off and revealing Sub-Zero’s elderly appearance, Glacius does not hesitate and goes for one final move: he transforms his hand into a thin needle-like point, which would freeze his foe where he stood. As Glacius does this, Sub-Zero uses the last of his strength to muster up the cold air around him. Glacius aimed true for between Sub-Zero’s eyes, but in that instant, Sub-Zero unleashed one last wave of cold ice.

Glacius’ entire body was encased in an even greater layer of ice as Sub-Zero stood looking over at the pointed hand just mere inches away from making contact with him. He was incredibly lucky to have managed to conjure the move in time, but he knew even as strong as the move was at full power, Glacius would eventually break through one way or another. He summoned his kori blade, moved behind Glacius, then swung at his neck, to which he had barely managed to penetrate his thick body. He swung at it repeatedly, but he still found that the neck was still incredibly strong. He then began to see tiny cracks emerge across the body; Glacius saw what Sub-Zero was trying to do and was attempting to break free to avoid that fate.

Sub-Zero knew his actions with the kori blade were fruitless; Glacius would escape before he could successfully decapitate him with the sword. Then he realized that he needed to speed up the process and then picked up his ice hammer left behind from earlier. Putting all of his strength into his swing, he strikes right at the epicenter, the crack between Glacius’ head and the rest of his body. With all of that force in the hammer, Glacius’ ice-encased head flies off of his frozen body and soon goes straight toward the spaceship. Upon collision, the entirety of the head shattered into pieces.

With his alien adversary slain, Sub-Zero turned his weapons back into vapor and put his arms together as a small token of respect towards his fallen foe.

KO!

Sub-Zero walks away into the blinding blizzard as Glacius’ body slowly begins to crack and leak from the final blow before falling apart, leaving the liquid completely lifeless without the head.

Results
'''Boomstick: Whew! For an ice-themed Death Battle, that sure heated up in the end!'''

Wiz: At first glance, this was actually a tough call. Neither combatant was immune to or could hope to manipulate the other’s attacks.

'''Boomstick: But while Glacius had a lot of effective moves, Sub-Zero had the perfect counter to nearly all of them. He could block or avoid a majority of his arsenal thanks to his defensive skills and superior speed and agility.'''

Wiz: Both combatants were equally susceptible to being frozen, but Glacius’ focus was more on close-range combatant, which Sub-Zero could easily counter. Even his seemingly long-range ice spikes were extensions of Glacius’ own body, leaving it equally susceptible to freezing.

Boomstick: And even as a liquid, he couldn’t hope to swallow up Sub-Zero, whose mastery over ice was enough to stop Glacius from dragging him in while also allowing him to escape.

Wiz: And despite his ability of transformation, Glacius is incapable of regrowing limbs or surviving decapitation. Once Sub-Zero had frozen him with a full-powered wave of cold air, the layers of ice kept him helplessly in place, sealing Glacius’ fate.

'''Boomstick: Glacius was doing awesome... then he froze up.'''

Wiz: The winner is Sub-Zero.



Who would you be rooting for? Sub-Zero Glacius