both donghyuck and mark stood frozen for a few seconds after hearing the sentence that had been pronounced.

"turn around!" the man repeated as mark and donghyuck obeyed, their hands raised in the air.

donghyuck knew the voice that had threatened them sounded familiar, but he didn't expect to actually know the person.

"renjun?!" he asked, perplexed.

"donghyuck?!" renjun gasped.

"god, you scared the shit out of- "

"keep your hands in the air, traitor!" renjun yelled, pointing his spare at mark and making him rise his hands above his head again.

"it's okay, renjun, he's with us." donghyuck assured.

"he betrayed us." athena's son glared at the boy that used to be his friend.

"yeah, i did, but i realised my mistake and- "

"it's too late." renjun shut him. "i don't care about how you literally stabbed us in the back, i can handle it. but you hurt donghyuck. you broke his heart, and you brought him to the enemy, which are demi titans who will try to use him to defeat the gods for good. this is unforgivable."

mark jumped back a bit when renjun pushed his spare forwards, making it poke his stomach.

"renjun, stop!" donghyuck intervened, stepping between mark and the spare.

"how can you be defending him after what he did to you?" renjun growled, his grip on the spare getting firmer.

"i trust him, and i love him." donghyuck declared.

"donghyuck, he used us... he used you." renjun tried explaining.

"we'll have him explaining everything once we'll be out, and then, we'll judge if we forgive him or not. but for the moment, let him help us getting out. we need him." donghyuck begged.

renjun looked sceptical as he studied mark's face for a while.

once he had made up his mind, renjun pulled the spare back, making both mark and donghyuck sigh in relief.

"if he dares trying something, i'm hurting him." renjun declared with a head motion towards the boy who had betrayed them.

"i won't try anything." mark stated.

"you better." renjun warned.

"let's go now, we'll get busted otherwise." donghyuck told as he turned around to run towards the nearest exit.

"wait, where were you going?" renjun questioned.

"mark said there was an exit over there. it brings inside a park." donghyuck explained, making renjun shake his head.

"no, we made sure to lock all the possible exits so that the titans were stuck inside. the only way out is by the tourists' entrance." renjun said.

"which is on the other side of the catacombs..." mark completed.

"exactly." renjun nodded. "so, get ready because we'll surely need to fight. and mark?"

"yeah?" mark asked as he pulled his scythe out.

"i'm keeping an eye on you."

Ω

seungjun – one of the demi titans that had tortured donghyuck – whistled on his way to donghyuck's cell, swinging his keys on his long finger.

hyojin had ordered him to bring donghyuck to his room, and seungjun knew better than to annoy his leader.

after a few turns in the gloomy corridors, seungjun reached the room where donghyuck had been locked and held captive.

"time to use your body, little- where the hell is he?!"

seungjun looked at the open grill of the cell, gasping when he saw no one inside.

donghyuck was supposed to be locked there, but he had escaped, and he was surely on the run now, trying to slip out of their fingers.

"i need to tell the others." seungjun declared as he turned around to run to their common room, where the other demi titans would be.

however, someone was standing in the way when he wanted to leave the room.

"how about you stay here and keep your mouth shut?"

seungjun's eyebrow raised as he stared at the male standing in front of him.

"who the hell are you?"

"xiaojun." the demigod replied. "son of hephaestus. you know what that means?"

"oh my titan, we're under attack!" seungjun gasped as he pulled a sword out from nowhere.

"well... yeah." xiaojun nodded, pulling his own sword out.

seungjun lashed on xiaojun, the demigod blocking him with his sword as he pushed him away again.

the sound of swords colliding deafened them inside the room, but they were too occupied saving their lives to care about it.

"ah! fuck!" xiaojun winced when seungjun cut his arm open with the tip of his sword.

as he saw the demi titan charging on him again, xiaojun snapped his fingers, creating a spark that he blew onto to transform it into a burst of flames which made the titan back up.

once the fire had died down, seungjun tied attacking once again, but xiaojun dodged him.

however, by dodging him, xiaojun got out of the way, making it possible for the demi titan to leave the room running to warn his friends about the attack.

"we're under attack!" seungjun yelled as xiaojun ran behind him, trying to stop him.

xiaojun created a flame once again, making it fill up the whole corridor and burning the demi titan's back.

"ouch!" seungjun fell to the floor, his back still in pain. "guys!!" he tried screaming.

xiaojun approached his limping body as the titan on the floor still moved his sword around, trying to harm the demi god.

"seungjun!"

xiaojun lifted his head, gasping when he was kicked to the floor an fell next to seungjun.

the girl that had hurt him checked her friend's condition before running away, screaming that they were under attack.

however, she couldn't go far as she was hit by a scythe at the end of the corridor, making her scream in pain, and then vanish in a cloud of black smoke.

xiaojun pulled himself up as renjun, mark and donghyuck ran to his side, mark planting his scythe in seungjun's chest on his way, making him disappear just like the other girl.

"what did you do to them?" xiaojun asked.

"locked them back in the tartarus, where they belong." mark informed.

"we need to go now. we have donghyuck." renjun informed.

"yeah. we need to inform the others."

Ω

"whatever happens, promise you won't let anyone hurt you."

"jisung, i know how to fight, don't worry." chenle rolled his eyes as he walked by jisung's side.

"i know, but i'm scared you'll get hurt." jisung told.

"shouldn't you focus on yourself? you could get hurt too; you know?" chenle informed.

"yeah, but you're more important." jisung replied immediately, making the smaller blush.

"y-you're as i-important as m-me..." he stuttered.

"i don't want to lose you, chenle. be careful."

"be careful too, then. i don't want to pull your dead body out of this creepy place." chenle stated.

"i don't care how much i am hurt as long as you are fine." jisung repeated.

"i'll try being- "

"can you guys date and shut up please?"

both young demigods lifted their heads to look at hendery – who had been walking a few steps ahead of them.

he couldn't bear their sweet talk anymore, not when his two boyfriends were risking their lives, without him being there to protect them.

"they're close." hendery declared as he started walking again, his hands caressing the walls on his sides.

"what are we searching for again?" chenle asked.

"yeah, i feel like we have been walking in the opposite direction of their base." jisung added.

"right. we need to help the others or they- "

"found them!" hendery exclaimed.

hades' son positioned himself in front of the wall, closing his eyes as his hands slid against the dirty walls.

the corridor got suffocated in a dark smoke coming from hendery's aura, making it even creepier than it was before.

soon, the smoke faded away, leaving chenle, jisung and hendery facing a group of people who looked absolutely awful, their skin half-way decomposed, and some of their limbs empty in flesh, and consisting of simply bones. a horrible sight to see.

"w-what are those... things?" chenle asked, stepping closer to jisung for him to protect him if anything had to happen.

"those are some of the people who permitted the french revolution to happen. they're real fighters, and they will be useful to us." hendery declared, smiling at his pack of dead people. "now, let's find the others and fight."

Ω

"fuck, ouch!" jeno yelled as he was slammed to the wall by an inhumane force.

"don't you dare hurting him!" jaemin screamed as he immediately attacked the man that had thrown his boyfriend like a rag doll.

after a few hits with his sword and some dodges, jaemin was also slammed on the wall, just next to his boyfriend.

"where the hell is yangyang, he should be here to help us..." jeno whined as he tried standing up.

"tired already?" the boy that had thrown them to the wall asked, cracking his knuckles.

"as if." jaemin snorted before attacking once again, but failing miserably.

jeno, jaemin and yangyang had headed to the common room of the demi titans, knowing that they would find the majority of them there.

and they were right, four girls were there, discussing about things that none of the boys found interesting, and a male demi titan was also in the room, looking at the girls from afar.

this could have been a piece of cake for jeno, jaemin and yangyang, but the latter had left a few seconds before, claiming that he had an idea, leaving jeno and jaemin alone to fight against five demi titans.

"fuck, yangyang! where the hell are you?!" jaemin yelled as he painfully stood up after being slammed to the wall for the nth time – the wall even had a hold where his body had hit it.

"i'm here." yangyang appeared with a smirk

"is he your back up plan?" the demi titans chuckled.

"we could kill him in a flick." one of the girls declared.

"prepare yourselves, the sight can be disgusting when you're not used to it." yangyang stated.

"what?" jeno's brows furrowed.

yangyang whistled loudly, his smirk never disappearing from his face.

nothing happened for a few seconds, making the demi titans laugh, and jeno and jaemin sigh in despair.

however, a wave of smell made them conscious that something was about to happen.

"get rid of them." yangyang said simply.

and with that said, a full army of rats ran inside the room, jumping onto the five titans, and making them scream loudly as they started biting and devouring their soft flesh.

"that's fucking disgusting." jaemin declared, horrified by the number of rats.

"hendery is here, come out!" yangyang motioned them to join him.

jeno and jaemin raw away, trying their best to dodge all the rats of the catacombs that yangyang could order around – he was arthemis' son, and her being the goddess of hunt and animals made it possible for yangyang to control every animal on the planet.

"your time to shine." yangyang declared as hendery walked to him with chenle, jisung and the army of walking deads on his heels.

"ew... all those rats... it's even grosser than the half-dead we have behind us." chenle declared.

hendery didn't question himself too much, he penetrated the room, and after a few seconds, he had the five demi titans vanishing of the surface of earth to find them locked inside the tartarus.

"now, we need to find the others and get out of it the quickest possible." jeno stated, and they were back on the run in the gloomy maze that were the catacombs of paris.

Ω

"on the right!"

"it's a dead end!"

"left then! and right at the next intersection!"

jaemin ran in front of his friends as they searched for the main exit of the place.

they had found xiaojun wandering around the corridors a while ago, and then, they had bumped into renjun, mark and donghyuck who had just gotten rid of another demi titan.

now, the ten boys were trying to find the part of the catacombs allowed to visits so that they could go out of there and finally get safe.

the army of rats as well as the dead hendery had brought back to life were long forgotten. they had been ordered to make the three remaining demi titans loose time on catching them, but they couldn't be sure they had succeeded their mission.

"tourists!" chenle exclaimed as he saw a woman taking a picture of her husband in front of one of the cranes on the wall.

"blend in. stay by pairs. we meet each other at the entrance of the catacombs." jeno said quickly, making all the boys nod and separate each other to appear normal in a situation in which everything was far from being normal.