Blood Sacrifice

• Writer - Fabian Nicieza
• Penciler - Rob Liefeld
• Lettering - Virtual Calligraphy
• Lettering - Rus Wooton
• Colorist - Matt Yackey
• Ass't Editor - Stephannie Moore
• Ass't Editor - Sean Ryan
• Editor - Mike Marts
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

Summary

  X-Force and the MLF have been fighting the Skorrn for two hours; half their members are down, and the Skornn is only growing in size and power, feeding from the mutant and cosmic energies of the heroes. Sam sees the slump in Cable's shoulders, but knows he'll rally the troops with a joke; Cable tells Skornn they'll stop fighting as soon as he qualifies for his own zip code.

  Sam wishes he didn't have the world on his shoulders, but he joins when the heroes attack again, while Skornn mocks their futile efforts. Sam thinks it's like when his mother would wring a chicken's neck for supper. They hit Skornn with everything: psionic, fusion, heat, flame, plasma. Cable knows they don't have enough to defeat it, and thinks it's like as hopeless as a revolt of chickens against a man with an aluminum bat. Skornn grabs Tabitha; Sam rescues her, but Skornn doesn't understand human emotion. Wolverine jumps on Skornn, slashing to little effect, so Sam grabs him and flies away.

  Shatterstar and Spectre, meanwhile, battle the Helix; Spectre goes down quickly, and the Helix says he's studied Shatterstar's fighting style and beats him down, as well. Sam observes but can't stop to help; he senses the Helix feeding off mutant energies, like Skornn. Tabitha picks up Shatterstar's sword (she's been training), impales the Helix, and uses the sword to channel her plasma, exploding inside him and destroying whatever was letting him draw in mutant power. Cable observes and is ashamed of how brutal he trained her to be.

  He jams his psimitar into the Skornn; Cable hears the psi-message, "I'll die to destroy you," and when Cable cuts himself with the Five Fingers blade, he realizes it's literal. Blood empowers the magic blade, forged by ancient mutants including En Sabah Nur and Garbha Hsien. Sam tries to stop Cable, but he says the only thing that can stop the Skornn is the one thing it doesn't understand: self-sacrifice. Sam flies Cable toward the Skornn; he jams his psimitar through its skull and uses it to channel the power of the Five Fingers. As D'Narda explained to him, for it to take a life, it must receive a life in return. Both Cable and the Skornn disappear, teleported by the Celestial technology in the blade.

  In space, the Imperial Guard detects a Celestial teleportation matrix and realizes they arrived too late. Gladiator is glad at least the Terrans found a way to delay the Skornn.

  Sam tells his allies he's sure Cable survived, somehow. He always through Cable's attitude was just "macho bull," but he sees that while Xavier fights for a dream, Cable fought so they could have a dream. Neither fight ever ends, and both are worth the cost.

  Note: in parallel to this story, Cable was busy sacrificing himself in Cable & Deadpool 10. No explanation is given of how these stories fit together.