Hello, children!

I am back.

So in this chapter, I have decided to cover the Fall of Troy, because considering that this singular event set off a chain reaction that would accumulate in the flipping Roman Empire, did you really think I wouldn't?

Yeah, you probably did. Still, though, what is the point of covering the ancient times if you can't learn some stuff? No one said FanFiction couldn't be educational!

Now, unto announcements!

The thing is, I really, really like reviews. And thank you if you have already reviewed, but I, being the greedy author that I am, want more, from even more people. I could hold a chapter hostage unless the reviews come in, but I don't have the patience to wait. Also, that would be mean. Then I realized, there is a tactic used by many people, and it has been historically proven to be effective!

Bribery.

But what can one measly fanfic author possibly offer to their audience?

More fanfic, of course.

Bonus content, to put it bluntly. Those who review...shall we say five?...different chapters will get bonus chapters in the form of author-character interactions and jokes at the author's expense. Heck, I'll even accept PM if you're not comfortable with publicly sharing your reviews. Just give me a way to make sure it's the same person reviewing (like using distinct names if you're reviewing as a guest), and fill out the google form in my bio once you hit number five. Make sure the reviews have stuff that relates to the actual story, though. I do not count reviews that say stuff like "apple pie" and no explanation. If you've already reviewed five times, just fill in the google form in my bio.

So, to summarize, five reviews per bonus chapter. Google form in bio to figure out how best to get said chapters to you. Reviews have to relate to the story.

Got it?

Sweet, enjoy the chapter and review!

Eventful.

A lot had happened in twenty years.

First, there was the matter of Orion getting stung by a scorpion and dying. Then, because Artemis loved to torture herself, she tried having another male companion on the Hunt, just to prove that having males in close proximity to her wasn't going to end in disaster.

Yeah, that didn't really work out. Hippolytos barely lasted a year.

Having males on the Hunt wasn't...completely horrible, though things got a bit messier than she would have liked with Orion. Still, she should probably take it as a sign that this whole coed thing wouldn't work out. One unusually gory death was a data point. Two was the start of a trend.

And then, because the Fates have clearly decided that they had been slacking in the Major Events department, they decided to spice things up by starting a war.

It was a big one.

The thing about warfare was that up until that point, most of the skirmishes Artemis and most of the gods had seen were rather small. After all, Greece wasn't really a unified country, so conflict between city-states was to be expected. Most battles amounted to what was essentially a staring contest between the two sides. Casualties were low, most barely lasting more than an hour, and considering that the belligerents were usually city-states, armies were usually tiny. With the exception of Sparta, most soldiers weren't even trained in combat, and were required to bring their own equipment to the army. [1]

The "small armies" thing went out the window because ten years ago, a man named Odysseus had the brilliant idea to propose an alliance between the suitors of Helen so that they would come to defend her matrimony in the unlikely event that she got kidnapped, or something. That seemingly throwaway oath came back to bite when that exact eventuality happened, and suddenly, the biggest and most disorganized military Greece had ever seen found itself on the shores of Troy. [2]

The low casualties bit got nullified through the combined efforts of Achilles and some godly intervention. Achilles had been rather...upset about the death of his lover, Patroclus, and proceeded to express his utmost displeasure by cutting down entire Trojan armies before her twin brother, Apollo, had the sense to guide Paris's arrow into his one mortal spot.

Everyone on the Trojan side breathed a sigh of relief at that. Seriously, that man was a monster.

That, however, was nothing compared to the effects of godly intervention. Artemis's mother, Leto, had been rather fond of the city Troy, so naturally, she and Apollo fought on the Trojan side of things. That had been the first time they talked in a decade. It was a shame, really: she had really hoped it would be longer.

But no matter. She made it clear that she wasn't going to forgive him any time soon.

Aphrodite was on the same side as her, for once. Her boyfriend, Ares, joined as a gesture of support.

Fortunately, she and Ares had an agreement to never tell the love goddess that they were involved in her lover's death. Unfortunately, it was the only thing they could agree on.

Why was it that she was at odds with all her allies?

(Except Mother, of course. Mother was the best and shall remain that way.)

Long story short, everyone really let themselves go. Ares was doing his usual stabbing-everyone routine until he got stabbed back by a mortal, of all people. Not even a demigod. It had been rather satisfying, watching him get chewed out by Zeus. Apollo later got into a fight with the same mortal, though he was able to intimidate the man into submission. [3] Artemis's own head still smarted from the time Hera smacked it, which was a rather devastating blow to her pride, if nothing else. Say what one would about that old cow, but she was dangerous when slighted.

Somewhere down the line, the king of the gods had noticed the sheer level of damage they had been dishing out and forbade them from interfering further. None of the gods were happy about it, but since the decree had been addressed to both sides, they couldn't say that it was unfair. Most of the gods were now confined to Olympus, not allowed to do anything but watch the battle unfold beneath them.

Artemis said most, because she was pretty sure Athena was up to something.

It was the rather voluminous wooden horse that the Greeks were constructing that first piqued her suspicions. After all, ten years of siege, and only now were the Greeks resorting to espionage? It seemed rather convenient that they chose to change tactics almost immediately after the gods withdrew from the war, though Artemis supposed that Odysseus of Ithaca was clever enough to come up with something like this.

But what really sold it was the serpents.

Which brought her to the present.

Artemis watched in fascinated horror as the old man, Laocoon, and his sons were strangled in graphic fashion as punishment for hurling a spear at the empty belly of the horse. [4]

Sea serpents with alarming mobility on land? Laser eyes? Really? [5]

Athena had always been creative when thinking up monsters, but damn. That was a bit overkill, wasn't it? Especially since the old man had been right on just about every count.

Still, Artemis supposed she shouldn't judge. Disproportionate retribution ran in the family, after all.

The deed was done, anyway. The Trojans dragged the horse inside, tearing apart chunks of their own wall to do so.

Artemis winced. This was going to suck.

Sure enough, later that night, Troy was in flames. [6]

It was not a pretty sight. Artemis had seen her share of brutality over the eons; dished some out, too. But for a supposedly benign race of lesser lifeforms, she had never failed to be shocked at the sheer cruelty mortals were capable of dealing unto each other. The slaughter of innocent children, the enslavement of the survivors, the massacres, the mass rapes...it was almost enough for her to turn away so the image of the burning city wouldn't be etched into her memory forever.

At least monsters were either being too mindless to comprehend what they're doing, or too bitter to care. What excuse did these mortals have?

Still, she felt like she owed it to the fallen city to pay respects, so she materialized at the hill where her Hunters have set up camp.

"My lady!" Zoe limped forward, surprised.

"Zoe," she greeted her lieutenant. During the war, she had thought that her Hunters would be more divided about which side to take. After all, she had recruits from most Greek city-states and then some. She was thus a bit surprised and also gratified to find that they had unanimously offered-well, insisted, really- to fight for whatever side she chose.

Still, the Hunters took casualties. Zoe herself took an arrow to the knee that put her out of commission for quite some time. Still, with a bit of nectar, ambrosia, moonwater, healing magic, a health restoration potion made from a blue mountain flower and a butterfly wing that Artemis had bought off some alchemist in the north, and the liberal application of willow bark [7], Artemis was confident that she would make a full recovery within a few decades.

"The city is burning," Zoe said. "Shall we mobilize?"

Artemis sighed, "Not this time. We're forbidden to interfere. I'm here to pay my respects to the city."

Zoe looked a bit upset. Understandable: the Hunters put a lot of work into defending Troy for it to just be destroyed. Still, the Fates had spoken: the son of Priam would bring about ruin to the city. Not even the gods could do anything about it now.

Artemis watched as the royal family got cut down at the altar of Zeus. Neoptolemus took after his father, for certain. Even still, at least Achilles had basic decency. Killing Polites in front of his father was just cruel. Killing Priam on the altar of Zeus was just rude.

In the destruction, she could make out a man-a demigod gathering up first his family and then the remaining survivors: Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite. That man wasn't bad, to be honest. Not too prideful, not too vain [8]. He was surprisingly skilled with a sword for a child of the love goddess.

She watched as the hero looked frantically for his wife, Creusa, and felt a sense of...not exactly foreboding. But she knew that the man was important for something in the future.

Aeneas never would find Creusa again, and that was supposed to be fine, because destiny and all that. Still, looking at the devastated expression on his face…

The Fates really were cruel sometimes, weren't they?

So yeah.

Fall of Troy.

So hopefully that wasn't too boring. I thought I'd give a brief rundown of what happened in the last twenty years before we dive into the next chapter.

[1] Ancient Greek armies generally consisted of Hoplites, which is a kind of heavily armed foot soldier. They're generally civilians, and are generally not trained (with the exception of Sparta, because of course). Their armies are also small enough that each soldier was required to bring their own weapons and equipment to the army. In battle, the two armies would meet, arrange themselves in a phalanx formation, which is a kind of a long line in which each soldier covers one side of the body with their shield and the person next to them covers the undefended half. They then push against each other and try to break the other side's line.

[2] As one might expect, previously loosely connected city-states suddenly forced to work together does not yield terribly harmonious results.

[3] Diomedes. Seriously, the dude was a badass.

[4] This is taken from the Aeneid. It's from this dude that we get the infamous quote "I do not trust the Greeks, even those bearing gifts."

[5] Yes, this actually happened. No, I did not make that up. I was, in my senior year of high school, tasked with translating the Aeneid from Latin, and there was a line about the serpents having flames from their eyes, or something. In other words, laser eyes.

[6] Actually, the Aeneid referred to the city of Troy as Ilium, which is where we get the Iliad from, and the Greeks as Achaeans. I didn't put it in there, because I thought it might be confusing.

[7] Early form of Aspirin.

[8] Believe it or not, Aeneas's fatal flaw isn't hubris (I know, gasp!). There are a lot of people who argued that his fatal flaw was indecision, as in, he never really had autonomy over his own life.

So, that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed, and leave a review!