Beating Hearts

Why We Fight

So, first off, I just want to say that I 100% got choked up reading the comments on my last chapter, so thank you, so much for those. Next, I'd like to address that that is absolutely my favourite chapter in this book, and I'm so glad people enjoyed it. Lastly, I want to state and make it clear that I will not be writing the big fight scene, since I've never been good at that kind of stuff, and continue to struggle with it. I will write this chapter, maybe including a rough poem next, and then the epilogue. Or, you know, you could just stop reading here and imagine whatever you want- I can't please everyone after all.

P.S. I am like, super done right now and I had the rest of the book finished before this one chapter. And I still hate this one. You can skip it. Like, I'm totally fine with you skipping it.

P.P.S. I've finally decided to just cut everything, write a short little paragraph, and include some of the could-have-been-usable bits at the end for anyone who wants to know what I was so frustrated on. I'm sorry, I just couldn't force anything to connect, and I can't stand to sit here any longer. There is no way I can finish this and be satisfied, so I'm making the only 100% canon bit this first part:

"We must fight together, but most importantly, we must stand together, and be the cane to help others stand themselves. We must win this final battle not because our parents want us to, not because of lust for glory or power, or any other reason besides this; we must win, because winning means survival, and survival means that your brethren will not be hurled into mourning once more. It means that, if you watch each other's backs, you will all live to see another day.

"So many of us are world weary. So many of us are tired of fighting battles to seemingly no end. So many of us do not wish to see another shroud burned, another grave dug, another headstone being carved.

"So we are going to turn all of them to dust, and live to watch another sunset by our friends'- our family's- side. There is no such thing as good luck. Just the hope and courage you have yourself, through the faith of your companions. Even if you had nothing but your bare body and a stick, I want to know you would fight just as eagerly as you are about to now, then I want to see your spirit amplified by the army surrounding you.

"I'm sorry you aren't kids anymore. I'm sorry that you missed out on your childhood. But for every person who ends up like us, there's another hundred families out there, laughing together because we won.

"So let's get out there and obliterate some monsters."

The heroes' battle cries unified, and echoed across the valley, competing with the stomping of feet, the clashing of swords and armor, the growling and hissing of monsters before dying away to make room for the cacophonous symphony of war.

That's it. Sorry. The rest of this would've come before Percy's big speech here, as a sort of flashback, but then I couldn't choose a character, and couldn't write enough for Bruce, or Loki, or Thor, so I was forced to leave it.

~1 hour previous~

~Tony~

Tony was running calculations with JARVIS, constantly asking the AI about odds and past battles and different breeds of Greek monsters.

His suit was completely coated in celestial bronze, and the parts that weren't had been treated with a unique method some Hephaestus kids had come up with decades ago. 

Under normal circumstances, Tony would've been distressed and embarrassed to find a group of children smarter than him, and capable of this. Under normal circumstances, he might've tried to uncover all of their secrets and read into everything about them, with no heed for their privacy. Under normal circumstances, Tony wouldn't even have access to the children, or their techniques, or their metals, because they were used exclusively for demigods and turning hellish monsters into golden pixie dust.