AN: Ten chapters! Finally, we've hit the double digit mark! I'm happy with how this story is progressing in terms of the word count per chapter as well as the quality of my writing.

So, some people are still unhappy about the 'yes' winning on the harem, and guest reviewer 'LasVegas' raised a good point, so I want to address the people who are strongly opposed to the harem happening.

Guest Reviewer LasVegas said, "'Yes' is most likely gonna win on the poll so I just wanna say that it wouldn't fit the characters and completely undermines what made Percy 'him' in the original book hence why I think something like that shouldn't be part of this story, I just wanna say this since I don't have an account or can vote."

The intent of the harem is mainly to satisfy my readers. No doubt some people will be unsatisfied and or unhappy, but such is the way of polls. The original book details Percy's noble and self-sacrificing fatal flaw of loyalty. My Perseus has a much different character from Rick Riordan's Perseus in the PJO and HOO series, as well as TOA to some extent.

I do not intend this book's Perseus to convey the same sense of unwavering loyalty, since Perseus is/was king of the gods. Ambition must override loyalty at some point for Perseus, and his loyalty is essentially fractured due to his fall. As to the question implied about romantic loyalty, I do not see the harem as contradicting his romantic loyalty as long as I frame it correctly, provided that the harem option wins out.

Tallies: 79 to 53 in favor of a harem FFN, 25 to 4 in favor of a harem Wattpad.

I love reviews, so any form of reviewing (provided that it is non-toxic) is welcome! Following and favoriting are also great! Please share this story to others so that they can enjoy as well!

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A Blast from the Past

Ascension of the Fallen: Chapter 10

"Here, yes. Now draw back slowly… there you go."

Artemis released her hold on Perseus as the king of the gods fired his arrow straight into a tree… which tore straight through the bark and left a gaping hole in the center, ripping through another three trees before it silently landed a lake.

A water nymph rose from the lake, her features clearly angry as well as her body language, as her arms were raised to throw some kind of stick at the intruder (yeah, like that'd do much against an immortal) and she was fully ready to violently rebuke and yell at whatever idiotic moron that had shot an arrow into her precious lake.

Except it was Perseus, the king of the gods, and her, well, "celebrity crush", if you will.

The nymph quickly turned away, flushing green as she gave a shy wave to the king of the gods, who obliviously waved right back.

The nymph retreated into the water, surely to gush over and gossip with her sisters and friends about how the Perseus, famed for his prowess and looks across the entire mythological world, had looked at her.

The god of darkness turned back to Artemis, shrugging as the auburn-haired goddess stared at him with a mixture of disappointment, amusement, and… was that… jealousy?

No, he must be imagining things.

"Oops."

Perseus grinned sheepishly as he scratched the back of his neck as the moon goddess facepalmed, her auburn locks covering her face.

He had shot straight through a tree, destroying one for the third time in a row.

"At least you didn't break the string," Artemis pointed out sarcastically, causing Perseus to proudly grin ridiculously wide at her proclamation.

"That wasn't a compliment," the goddess deadpanned with a straight face, while the king of the gods shrugged nonchalantly, not caring, and pulled her into a hug, smothering her head with his chest.

The only thing that the god of time could see was his niece's mass of auburn hair shining in the sunlight. The goddess of hunting buried her head into Perseus' chest and inhaled deeply and quietly, her heart beating furiously as she prayed the dense god wouldn't notice.

He smelled of sandalwood, an exotic, masculine fragrance that she secretly deeply appreciated. It was much better than the disgusting amount of cologne her brother wore, and besides, she was pretty sure Perseus' scent was all natural.

But she had to keep everything a secret and "low key", as her rather idiotic brother Apollo called it.

If word got out that Artemis, the sworn virgin goddess of the moon, was head over heels for a certain king of Olympus, she would never hear the end of it, and no one on Olympus would ever let her live it down.

Anyway, she'd tried to drop several "hints", as the goddess of love coined them, but true to the rumors of Olympus, the king of the gods was as dense as a rock. It was simply hilarious how the elegant, charming god could have the entire female population of Olympus at his doorstep with the snap of his fingers, and he didn't know it.

Perseus released her and grinned at her, oblivious to the thoughts of her mind, "I promised Athena I would spend some time with her this afternoon after we got back from the hunting trip, and I'm running late. Catch you later!"

The king of the gods ran off without another glance, as Artemis sighed herself into oblivion and laid on the grass, staring at the bright blue sky while her mind wandered to… other places.

Line break

Perseus walked into Athena's personal library, admiring the intricate spirals upon the white marble pillars. They perfectly spaced, immaculate as always, with beautiful artwork on the doorway.

The god entered to abruptly find Athena hugging him tightly. Perhaps it was because he hadn't visited the goddess for over a month while Artemis and he were on a hunting trip.

Perseus could only awkwardly pat her head, which was full of wavy, blonde hair.

Despite being surprised just a few moments ago, the god gently pushed the goddess of wisdom away from him, and nonchalantly led Athena to a table, where they sat down on some soft, intricate chairs.

The king of the gods awkwardly looked around while Athena strangely seemed to stare intensely at him, perhaps spacing out. He mentally facepalmed, slapping the back of his own head in his… well, headspace.

Perseus could never figure out what females were doing when they spaced out right in front of him, which seemed to happen often rather than not.

Like, damn, he didn't know he was that boring! He was trying to have a conversation, for gods' sake!

He grabbed a book from the shelf, making some noise as the book slide against the wood, and the goddess shook herself out of her reverie.

"Athena," the blonde goddess snapped her head and her attention to him, "do you want to read this book together?"

Perseus held up some random book named "the Art of War" by some random dude named Sun Tzu. The god of time definitely had zero clue who that was, and he definitely hadn't read this book before… no, whatever gave you the idea?

Athena shrugged, and Perseus smoothly indicated for them to move to a comfortable couch. The lovestruck goddess was more than happy to oblige, and the normally regal goddess hopped onto the king's lap, causing both of them to flush bright gold, resembling buckets of gold paint.

"Ahem. Okay. Alright. So… there it is," Perseus cleared his throat awkwardly while Athena didn't move from his lap, "Sun Tzu: Man's Nature is Evil."

The king of the gods admittedly hadn't spent much time on this section of the book when he had read it before, and so he began fervently reading like the goddess of wisdom would, while Athena lay on his chest, in another reverie.

An hour passed, then another, and then another. The god of time… well, lost track of time, immersed in the writing of some rando named Sun Tzu.

After three hours, Athena was dozing on Perseus' chest while the god of time was still absorbed in the book.

A person as bright as the sun fifty times over appeared in front of them, with a megawatt smile, awaking the goddess of wisdom and shocking the nerdy Perseus out of his engrossed state.

"Apollo! What the actual fuck! Turn it down, would ya?"

The sun god shrunk in embarrassment, the intensity of his light turning down as his uncle reprimanded him, "You of all people know NOT to go around showing off how bright you can be! Gods, and to think you are the god of knowledge… Why'd you do that?"

"I…uh-yeah, well, I-uhhh forgot?"

Athena opened her mouth, presumably to also yell in indignation at her half-brother, but another immortal appeared in front of Apollo, shielding him from her wrath.

"Uh-" the god of healing started to speak, but Hermes shut him up real quickly, "Thank me later."

"What are you doing here?" the goddess of wisdom questioned, still a bit drowsy from her afternoon nap.

"The REAL question is, what are you doing on Perseus' lap, Athena?"

Oh, that sure woke Athena up. She scrambled frantically off the god's lap, blushing a furious gold.

"N-n-nothing!"

The sun god and the god of thieves looked at each other, grinning with glee, something that definitely didn't assure Athena.

"I think-" Apollo started, then Hermes continued, "that we'll be passing this information-"

"to some select people," they finished together, their eyes twinkling mischievously as Athena grew nervous.

"C'mon guys, you don't need to scare her like that, just keep it to yourselves," Perseus stated, despite not knowing what was even going on.

The two troublesome gods shrugged as an embarrassed goddess of wisdom tried to regain her normally regal composure, and when she couldn't get rid of the blush, the goddess flashed away.

Perseus shook his head at the two gods' antics, as Hermes and Apollo high-fived each other.

"Caught in 8K ultra-HD!" Hermes whooped, while Apollo and Perseus stared at him in confusion.

"I made this thing called a camera that can take like portraits but in an instant, and I call it 8K ultra-HD because it sounds cool."

The other two gods had a simultaneous 'oh' look on their face.

"Honestly, I have no clue why I'm not the god of invention. Damn the Fates."

Perseus, sensing the third rant by Hermes in two days, flashed out, as did Apollo, leaving the messenger god ranting all by himself, looking like a complete lunatic.

"...and so I made the 8K ultra-HD camera, along with a bunch of other stuff, but-"

Hermes looked around, noticing he was by himself, "Guys?"

"How could this happen to me?"

AN: I know this chapter was a little short compared to my other ones, but that was because I really couldn't think about how to write out these scenes without it being too cheesy or corny. Pertemis + Perthena in this chapter for those of you who are percy x virgin goddess lovers! Guest reviewer Mark Andrew mentioned that I had Artemis in the tags and haven't really talked about her, so I added more lore and more background, since I honestly think I haven't gone over the background and relationships a lot. I also wanted to try to improve my dialogue writing because most of my writing has been centered on action and military stuff, with some dialogue, so I tried writing a scene where it was just Perseus and Athena chatting.

And yes, I know "real quickly" isn't grammatically correct, but honestly, who cares… I thought it fit better than "really quickly"

As always, read, review, follow or favorite if you liked it!