Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 168

All Cu Chulainn Alter wanted was to fight, he doesn't really care for the unimportant things like a justification or a consequence, or even a concrete goal.

Cu Chulainn Alter was the Altered version of the legendary hero Cu Chulainn, a companionable, approachable, loud, brash and always ready to fight or duel kind of guy, eager to act according to his purpose and his moral code. As far as he himself understood it at least.

As is often the case with the Alter versions of the Servants, Cu Chulainn Alter was literally like a mirror image of Cu Chulainn.

Cu Chulainn Alter was not loud, he saw no point in getting into conversations other than answering someone else's questions. He was not the kind of person to seek out battles, or even challenge someone to a duel. He saw no point in moving out of his seat until the fight itself had already begun, not wanting to inflict a new battle on himself by his actions. And he had no moral compulsion to do anything or other motivations whatsoever.

In the end, one could even say that Cu Chulainn Alter's life was so sad that even he himself could not appreciate how sad his current situation was.

If he doesn't aspire to anything, not even combat, what is the point of him shifting and doing anything? Waiting for a situation that forces him to act according to the Berserker program embedded within him? And if he felt no emotions and saw no goals in front of him, what was the point in enjoying situations he was already thrust into?

Cu Chulainn Alter felt no satisfaction in killing an enemy, he neither had Cu Chulainn's zeal, not even a Berserker's twisted pleasure. He felt nothing in getting wounded in battles, neither the pain of a soldier, nor the pleasure of a masochist.

You could almost say that Cu Chulainn Alter was nothing more than an automaton, even Edison's robots had more personality to them.

Certainly, he feels distaste at Medb's actions, her creeping toward him annoys him to no end, not that he could be bothered enough to do more than just toss her back to her side. And, if one tried to make sense of his personality and draw out his emotions, which perhaps only the most first-rate of all Masters could do, they would find a Servant bereft of emotions.

Sitting on his throne, Cu Chulainn Alter felt neither fear of the impending battle, and he knew it was coming, or anticipatory pleasure.

He did not care whether the battle began in a minute or a year from now, as long as it did not start yet, he continued to sit in his seat. Once the battle begins, with an equally senseless lack of purpose, he would then fight, because that was his duty as King. Nothing more and nothing less.

After all, fighting itself was not something he pursued, not a goal nor something he enjoys, just something that he has to do. Once he started fighting, he couldn't stop, continuing to kill his opponents until they were finished, or until his body was destroyed.

One might say that Cu Chulainn Alter was bored, but even that would not be close to the marks. Boredom implies an understanding that one had something else that they wanted to do, something that excited them, for a pastime to be more positively colored than another, and for Cu Chulainn Alter there was no such distinction.

So all Cu Chulainn Alter thought about, as he looked somewhere in the distance, as if he could see the incoming convoys of Edison's soldiers, was that he had to move again soon. Without emotion, just enumerating a fact to himself.

Scáthach will fight for sure. To meet her on the battlefield again, though one could hardly see, a shadow of emotion slipped through Cuchulain Alter's mind, it would be interesting.

Cu Chulainn Alter was not excitedly anticipating his battle against Scáthach. It was simply something that he noted.

Cu Chulainn had made his name killing monsters, but his Alter-version had not gone backwards, and became a human-killer, and so Cu Chulainn Alter had no anticipation of killing the Scáthach.