"renjun! renjun!" yangyang exclaimed as he dodged a griffon while running towards athena's son.

"y-yeah?" the boy answered, struggling to kill a chimera.

"i need to ask you something important." yangyang declared, fighting the creatures that were trying to go up on the tower.

"i'm quite busy if you hadn't noticed." renjun spoke through gritted teeth as he pulled his spare out of the chimera's flesh.

seeing renjun's struggle to aim for the goat head that kept moving, yangyang pulled his bow out and didn't waste a second to shoot an arrow.

the boy didn't need to take his time to aim as this ability was in his genes, making the arrow pierce through the goat's head, mand making the chimera fall of the tower, freeing renjun.

"thanks." renjun breathed out as he made his spare spin inside his palm.

"please, tell me you listened in physics class." yangayng said, almost sounding like he was begging.

"yeah, i did. why?" renjun raised a brow.

"is iron conductive?"

renjun stared at yangayng for a second, not quite understanding why this question was relevant in this particular situation.

"why would you- "

"renjun, i need an answer." yangyang cut him.

renjun tried searching inside his memory for flashes of this lesson. they came pretty quick, but not clearly. "i think it is." he told.

"you think? or, you're sure?" yangayng questioned.

"i'm sure!" renjun answered. "well, almost sure."

"renjun, it's a life and death question." arthemis' son said.

"i'm almost sure it is." renjun nodded. "but why does this help in any- oh... i think i know..."

renjun thought for a few seconds, tons of ideas and strategies colliding inside his head and he searched for the best one.

jeno controlled lightnings, and so, he controlled electricity.

he could send a huge electroshock through the tower, the iron conducting the current to the very top.

the electric shock would kill all of them on the spot, and the war would be ended.

great strategy.

"you want jeno to electroshock them all?" renjun questioned, just to make sure this was what yangayng had planned.

"yeah. but iron needs to be conductive for that." yangayng specified.

"it is. go tell jeno to do that." renjun stated. "i'll warn the others. tell us when we need to get off the tower."

Ω

"excuse me?!" jeno yelled as his whip strangled a manticore.

"you need to electroshock the whole tower. they will die that way." yangyang repeated, actively fighting a few monsters as well.

"if i do that, i'll kill all of you!" jeno spoke angrily.

"we'll all go down. but the creatures are going up too quickly, we'll never manage to block them."yangyang explained.

"donghyuck and mark are still at the top. they don't know about this plan." jeno declared. "and even if i may not be against killing mark at the moment, i don't want to hurt donghyuck." he added.

"we'll find a way to warn him." yangyang explained. "i saw mark's dog fighting with us. he'll tell mark."

jeno pushed the manticore away, not forgetting to cut its tail to kill it.

he faced yangyang, looking at him while breathing hard.

"we need to act, jeno." yangyang informed. "we're outnumbered. we are going to lose."

jeno didn't take long to nod his head. "let's go."

Ω

"ahh!!" donghyuck screamed as he felt his body falling through the thick amount of mist that was surrounding the eiffel tower.

the gorgeous boy's body was left in the air, slowly approaching the ground and threatening to crash there. it felt like his fall was lasting forever, and the fact he was surrounded by mist didn't help anything: he couldn't even see the ground, and he didn't know how long it would take for him to die on the spot.

all of his life flashed in front of his eyes as the gravity did its job of approaching him from the surface of the earth.

donghyuck revived all those times he spent with jeno at school, and how protective of him his best friend was.

he revived the first time a mythological creature attacked, and how jeno was here to save him.

he revived his first days at the camp and his discovery of a new world to which he belonged.

he revived the fight in the camp, when everybody was fighting for him and their blood.

he revived him and his friends being on the run.

he revived tokyo and las vegas.

he revived vancouver and meeting mark's mother.

he revived new york and the boat trip.

he revived paris, and his and mark's blossoming love.

he revived the betrayal, but also the way mark helped him.

he revived everything that made him himself to this day.

and he was proud of it.

he was proud of where he had arrived from where he had come from.

he could say he would be able to die without regretting anything – which didn't mean he actually wanted to die, but was there any hope at that point?

"donghyuck!!"

before donghyuck knew it, the mist had disappeared, the cement floor coming into view.

he was only a few meters away from it, and his death seemed to be imminent.

but it never happened. donghyuck never crashed against the concrete.

instead, someone caught him flying, bringing him up in the air again, and saving him from a painful death.

donghyuck's body acted on its own as he clinged hard onto the person that had saved his life.

his eyes were shut close, but he opened them slowly as his heart beat madly inside his chest.

he couldn't believe that he was alive after a fall from 300 meters.

donghyuck was placed back on the ground, the boy struggling to stand up because of the near-death experience he had just lived.

"are you okay?" chenle asked, assuring donghyuck was good.

he was the one who had saved him. he had seen his body falling from the top of the tower, and he had used his flying sneakers to catch him flying and save him.

"y-yeah..." donghyuck nodded weakly, his whole body trembling. "b-but w-why- "

donghyuck's sentence was cut as a deafening noise accompanied by a very bright light that blinded him.

he saw the source of this immediately: jeno was standing at one of the feet of the tower, both of his hands placed against the metal as donghyuck could see a huge wave of electricity running through the iron tower.

because the mist had disappeared, donghyuck and the others were able to see the way these death lightings ran up the tower and electrified the dozens of creatures that were making their way up the tower to reach for him.

the electric shock had an instant effect on them as all the creatures fell back, to the ground, their bodies paralyzed by the deathly shock that had hit them.

"MARK!!" donghyuck yelled when he realised the electricity running across the tower had reached the very top, where mark was standing.

tears left his eyes immediately as his heart clenched hard, images of mark's dead body already flashing through his mind.

"M-MARK!!" he continued crying as he yelled, running towards the tower he had been pushed off.

"oh my god!" xiaojun exclaimed.

donghyuck, despite his current preoccupations, lifted his head, seeing a body he knew too well falling from the sky, the same way he had before.

however, the body wasn't high enough for chenle to be able to stop its fall, so mark's corpse collided with the ground, making the earth around them tremble as the ground cracked the place mark fell.

"mark!" donghyuck sniffled loudly approaching the lifeless body of the man he loved. "mark! don't die!" he cried.

"hades has our bodies dipped in the styx to make us invulnerable to everything. he'll be fine." hendery informed approaching his half-brother's body.

"yeah, but the fall might have cut his breathing, and taking a bath in the styx doesn't prevent you to die from that." renjun informed.

all the other demigods walked around mark's body as donghyuck knelt next to him, crying hot tears on his bruised body.

"ahh!"

all the boys suddenly turned around, trying to understand why chenle had let out such a noise right now.

they were all horrified to see a demi titan holding chenle by his hair, a knife poking at his throat, threatening to end his days in a few milliseconds.

"the war is not finished as long as i'm here..." hyojin said, a nasty smirk decorating his face. "you may have killed all my creatures, but i can still kill all of you."

"i doubt this." jaemin declared, spinning his sword in his hand as he got ready to fight.

"try approaching and i kill him." the demi titan warned, poking chenle's throat harder and making it bleed slightly.

jisung's jaw clenched as he prevented jaemin to go any further.

the simple sight of hyojin hodling his precious chenle in such a horrible way was making him mad. and the fact he was threatening to end his days didn't help much more.

"hand me donghyuck." hyojin declared.

"never." jeno barked.

"ahh!" chenle squeaked as more of his bright red blood flowed out and tainted his pale skin.

"hand him to me!" hyojin repeated, as tears pooled in chenle's eyes, making jisung get even madder.

yangyang turned around, glancing at donghyuck who was paying no attention to the demi titan calling for him. all he cared about at the moment was his lover's body that was slowly and painfully dying.

"i'm not sure you'll convince him to come." he stated, facing the demi titan again.

"i don't care." hyojin rolled his eyes. "give him to me."

"he'll never accept to go with you." hendery replied.

"as if i cared. i need him. and i'll get him. i don't care if i need to kill all of you to get to him, because that is what i am ready to do. i am ready to destroy the whole world just too get to him and finally be able to overthrow the gods and replace them by the great titans. i won't mind killing you, guys. and i could start right now with this pretty little messenger..."

chenle whined as the knife was pushed harder inside his throat.

jisung was the first one running towards the boy he had fallen in love with, willing to save him more than anything.

but he wasn't the one who managed to push hyojing away from chenle. he had been beat to it by a simple grey arrow that had hit is own throat, making him let go the knife and take a few steps back, freeing hermes' son.

jisung caught chenle in his arms, and all the boys turned around to face where the arrow had come from.

they were surprised to see donghyuck standing up, his tear-stained cheeks glowing under the sun as he took a few steps to approach the titan.

he had his beautiful golden bow in his hand, and another arrow had been placed on it to attack if he needed to.

"i will never let you hurt my family." he declared, staring at the demi titan whose throat was flooding in blood because of the arrow that had hit him there. he was slowly losing strength, and he had lost. "the titans were thrown to the tartarus for a reason. and the gods are the ones to rule the world for the same reason. you'll never manage to change this, because things can never be better than that."

"i love your sadomasochist side..." hyokin chuckled, coughing blood. "still loving the one that betrayed you... and more generally, calling your family people that lied to you on who you were... how can you be sure that they are not taking advantage of you? you are the forbidden child after all... everybody has something to envy you... and everybody has to reason to stab you- "

his speech was cut short when donghyuck shot another arrow in the middle of his forehead, finishing to kill him.

"i know they aren't using me because i can read their sincerity inside their hearts..." donghyuck declared. "and i couldn't find any ounce of sincerity in yours."

once hyojin was finally dead, hendery made his body disappear and join the others inside the tartarus, where they belonged, as donghyuck ran back to mark's agonizing corpse.

"mark?!" he asked, shaking the boy's body as mark let out a pained groan.

"he's close to death." hendery declared, knowing how to see things like those.

"no!" donghyuck started crying again. "mark, please!"

"d-dong... h-hyuck..." mark managed to breathe out.

donghyuck cried more vividly as mark's breathing slowed down even more.

"mark!" the golden boy sniffled loudly. "someone, do something!"

the demi gods around looked at the scene unfolding, not knowing how to act.

"jisung! heal him with water!" donghyuck declared, looking at mark's face getting paler every second. "save him!"

"we can't save a traitor to our blood..." jaemin said slowly.

"you need to save him!" donghyuck argued.

"he betrayed us. he used us to get power. he was too bad to get to the end of it, but he tried to." chenle added, looking at jisung as well.

"he helped me getting out. i love him! please jisung!"

the demigods around kept speaking all the bad things mark had done to them. well, chenle, jaemin and jisung did. the others stayed silent.

they voiced out how he needed to pay for everything he did, and how a god would have done it that way – make him agonize in pain.

they explained that they weren't even responsible of his death, it was a suicide, he had jumped from the tower.

"you can't let him die!" donghyuck cried louder than ever.

"he deserves to die." jaemin declared, still salty about mark's betrayal.

"losing him means losing me. and i can see in your hearts how the bond all seven of us created is important to all of you." donghyuck spoke quickly, trying to be very clear despite the flows of tears that escaped his eyes.

"you're too overwhelmed. you don't understand what you're saying." jisung stated.

"of course, i do!" donghyuck argued. "i don't want to see my lover dying. just the same way you were ready to fight for your life to save chenle a while ago. i want to save mark and be with him forever. i am in love! all i want is a man that loves me for who i am, and not the image of me. and this person is mark. letting him die is killing a part of me..."

the boys were silent again, the only noises perturbing the atmosphere being donghyuck's sobs, and mark's small breaths, which were getting less and less frequent.

"we need to save him." renjun said out loud, his head looking at his feet. "we'll regret it if we don't do so."

"but he betrayed us!" jaemin argued again.

"and he'll do it again!" chenle added.

"save him." jeno cut their arguing. "right now."

"but- "

"donghyuck is right." jeno spoke loudly. "we left as a team, and we'll come back as a team. we need mark with us for the well-being of our group, and for our happiness. so, save him."

all eyes got on renjun, the smaller demi god, blinking a few times.

he knew what this was.

they were all asking him if it was the strategy to adopt or not.

this was something they had learnt to do while fighting together.

renjun always knew what to do, and even if it seemed to be the most stupid thing, it always led to success.

"save him."

and so, in a nick of time, jisung jumped in the seine with mark in his arms, the water allowing jisung to cure the dying male, and make him come back to life.