AN/ I know it has been a while since I updated any of my stories, but I have had a pretty bad case of writer's block and lack of inspiration.  since it has been so long I decided to give you a longer chapter than usual.  If anyone is still reading this, I hope you enjoy it. 

 Perseus smiled down at his son who he was holding in his arms. When he heard someone enter the room they were in he looked up, "Mom," he said, smiling as he spotted Thalessa. He did love her, she and Pontus had been kind to him, and he was thankful for that, but she would never replace his birth mother Sally Jackson. "How did you find out already?" Perseus asked, assuming she was there to see the babies even though he hadn't contacted her and told her that they had been born.

"After you dismissed her, the nymph that helped you with them came and told me. Your father doesn't know yet, he has been in a meeting with some of the other primordials, although that will probably be over soon,"

Perseus nodded, "Did she tell you their names too then?"

"Yes, I think you both chose well, they are very nice names and fitting for children who will most likely be gods in the future,"

By now she had picked up Melissa, while Khione was holding Sally, and Perseus was still holding Alexander. Orithyia was napping in a crib that Perseus had created using his powers. Alexander had dozed off in his father's arms but Perseus was hesitant to move him to a crib as well because he didn't want to wake him.

Smiling, Thalessa said, "I suspect you two will have your hands full with these four. I won't mind helping if you need it though," perseus smiled and thanked her, he suspected they would need her help at some point. Perseus decided he would try and put his son down in one of the cribs. He walked over to it, and set his son down very carefully in an attempt to avoid waking the infant. Much to Perseus's relief Alexander stayed asleep. Thalessa stayed for roughly an hour, and Perseus's father Pontus also stopped by for a visit a little while later. By the time his father had left, Perseus knew he should go as well because he had to meet with Nico to find out if anything important had happened that day at Camp Half Blood. There was one other thing he wanted to do after that, before he would return to Khione and their newborn children. Before leaving though he gave Khione a quick peck on the lips before asking how she was feeling, and if he should get another nymph to help her while he was gone. In the end he did send in another nymph even though Khione wasn't sure if she needed the help or not.

Once Perseus got to his base to meet with Nico he quickly noticed that the son of Hades wasn't alone. Piper McLean stood beside him, a determined look on her face. Perseus spoke, "hello Piper, I assume Nico succeeded and you have chosen to switch sides in this war,"

She replied, "yes I have, I hate how my mother manipulates people's love lives for her own amusement, and Zeus is a tyrant and the other gods just go along with whatever he wants, but please why can't we spare the demigods, they were your friends once, and they have been through enough already,"

Perseus replied, "I will spare the ones who are on our side or who are smart enough to remain neutral. As for the ones who choose to fight against us, only the ones who survive the upcoming battle will be spared,"

Piper sighed, that wasn't really the answer that she had been hoping for, but she suspected it was the best she was going to get. It had already been evident that this was not the same Percy who had been her friend during the giant war. Regardless she didn't change her mind and swore that she wouldn't betray him. She already knew the gist of what had happened to Will solace when he had tried to betray Percy, and she didn't want that to happen to her as well. She had been conflicted about where her loyalties truly stood ever since she had spoken to Leo during the first battle. She didn't like how the gods were running things, and if Percy still had some decency left, maybe he would make things better.

After he finished talking to Nico and Piper, Perseus decided that it was time to go teach Artemis a lesson. He went down to his dungeons and headed toward Artemis's cell. On the way there he passed Ares's cell, ever since he had captured the war god he had spent a decent amount of his spare time torturing him. He enjoyed every minute of it, he had hated Ares ever since his first quest, Ares always acts super tough and has an ego almost as large as his father's, but Perseus was glad to knock him off his high horse and show him that he's more like a weak bratty child. Perseus wasn't going to torture Ares right now though, it was finally Artemis's turn to truly experience Perseus's darker side.

When he reached her cell, he opened the door and walked in he could tell she was sleeping, but as he arrived she must have woken her because as he entered her cell he could see that she was stirring a bit. To speed up the process he concentrated for a moment and drenched her with water. She jerked awake and sat up scowling, Perseus grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Before he did that Artemis was about to say that she still wouldn't join him, but she quickly realized that wasn't why he had come this time.

Perseus wasn't surprised when she tried to escape and failed, and he ended up practically dragging her to the room at the end of the hall. Once they were inside with the door shut and locked Perseus concentrated for a moment, and Artemis went from standing beside him shackled, to hanging from a rafter on the ceiling, by a chain connected to a shackle that larger than normal because it confined both of her wrists at once. Instead of simply being above her head, which certainly would get uncomfortable eventually, her arms were stretched out behind her in a way that was even more uncomfortable and would surely dislocate her shoulders if she stayed hanging like that for too long. The other end of the chain was connected to some sort of metal contraption on the wall, after her weight was added to it, the chain jerked until it was tight, causing pain in Artemis's shoulders, but right then it was nothing compared to the time she had spent holding up the sky.

What Artemis didn't know was that this was Perseus's modified version of strapado, a torture method that was popular during medieval times. The original method simply used cords to restrain the victim, but Perseus needed something stronger since he wanted to use it on the gods. This wasn't the only thing he had in mind for Artemis though, he knew she probably had a high pain tolerance after her experience holding up the sky, she might be harder to break than Ares had been, but he was determined to succeed where others had failed.

Once she was hanging there, Perseus walked closer to her intending to speak before the next torture he had in mind for her. Although Artemis's ankles were shackled, she could still move her legs and feet, those shackles were mainly there to help suppress her powers. She was also hanging low enough that when Perseus got close enough for her to do it, she did her best to aim a kick at his groin. The kick would have connected too if Perseus hadn't anticipated Artemis trying that, or something similar so he dodged it.

After that he spoke, "Really Artemis, you are only making this more difficult for yourself, I'm done trying to convince you to join my side, now I'm going to teach you a lesson that you should have learned a long time ago, but you were just too fucking stubborn and refused to acknowledge the truth,"

Artemis didn't know what he was talking about, All she had ever done was help young girls, punish men, and hunt monsters, and most of that was her duties as a goddess, technically she didn't have to punish men, but all they ever did was hurt women and girls She had never seen a good man so the various ways she punished them were justified as far as she was concerned. At one time she thought Perseus might be the first good man she had met, but then he had fallen into Tartarus and it had twisted him into the epitome of the kind of men she despised so much and she would punish him too if she could, but it seemed that he had gotten the better of her.

She continued to hang there, her shoulders aching, as Perseus continued.

"Artemis, what you refuse to accept is that not all men are terrible, sure most of the male Olympians are assholes, and I don't blame you for hating them, but Mortals aren't all the same. They may all originate from the original humans created by Prometheus, Athena, and Epimetheus, but that doesn't mean they are all the same as those originals or the gods they were modelled after. I know I'm not exactly a prime example considering my hobby nowadays is torturing people who piss me off, but I am also no longer a mortal and Torture is one of my domains, so you can hardly expect me to be anything else now can you?"

"Not all the girls that you recruited into your hunt, had bad experiences with men, yet you brainwash them all with your promise of immortality and a new family, and your all men are assholes attitude, you don't even give them true immortality, just partial immortality so many of them still end up dying at some point sooner or later. Newsflash Artemis, Women can be just as terrible as the men you hate so much, and you are one of those women. Your hunters are more like a cult than a family, and you have wrongfully punished many men who didn't deserve it. You have also delivered punishments that are much too severe for the crime and you teach your hunters to treat men the same way you do,"

Despite her pain, Artemis managed to say, "I don't believe you,"

Perseus wasn't surprised, he knew this wouldn't be easy but he hoped to break her and make her feel guilty for how she had hurt or killed so many innocent men, and also for how she had basically brainwashed her hunters into hating men for no good reason.

Perseus continued, "I think I need to knock you down a few pegs so you don't keep thinking you are so much better than everyone else. Because for your information you aren't, and I think I know just what might work,"

He concentrated for a moment, and then in his hands appeared Artemis's bow and a quiver full of silver Arrows that she had been carrying the day Perseus had caught her. He set them aside for a moment and her hunting knives joined his arsenal, and Artemis hated seeing her weapons in his hands, and knowing that he was probably going to use them on her.

Sure enough, he picked up her bow and Arrows again before speaking, "I'm sure you've probably heard that I have never been good at Archery, but some of my powers can be helpful when it comes to making sure arrows fly straight. He wasn't lying, since it wasn't long after that she had her own arrows in each of her already aching shoulders. Perseus notched another arrow, before shooting it at her side. He wasn't going to shoot her anywhere that could kill her.

He knew what would happen if he did that, she would go to Tartarus to reform, and because Tartarus was one of his allies, he would most likely speed up her reforming process, once she reformed Tartarus would probably spend some time torturing her himself before sending her right back to Perseus. That probably doesn't sound that bad, except Perseus knew that Tartarus is usually a much crueller torturer than he is. Perseus knew this because after he had received that domain, Tartarus had taught him most of the torture methods he now knew and used regularly, not to mention a lot more that he had chosen to never use.

He shot another Arrow but this time he was aiming it at her leg, then he shot her other leg, After that he started stabbing her with her own hunting knives, and he was enjoying every second of it. He also used his power over water to manipulate her ichor. While all that was happening, he was showing her images in her mind of the innocent men she had "punished" and also showing her scenes that proved they were innocent good men rather than the monsters she had accused them of being. Sometimes he would add images of good men who she hadn't harmed to help prove that there had actually been many good men in the world, although Perseus was sure that there weren't as many now as there used to be. One of the good men he showed her was his own memories of his former stepfather Paul Blofis. He wasn't sure how long it would take him to break Artemis, but he was determined to succeed no matter how long it took him.