AN: So not a bad reception to the last chapter, as such I thought it might warrant a second one.

Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or Danmachi.

( - )

(Last Time)

Maybe he had died in Tartarus, and had then been raised via necromancy?

It was a possibility.

But until he knew more, it was still just speculation.

Keeping that thought in mind, he tried to sheath his sword, only for it to slide across his hip bone.

Looking down, he saw nothing but bone.

Apparently, not only was he dead, but he was also apparently naked, or at least as naked as a skeleton can be.

Humming silently to himself at that thought, he eyed the dead bodies around him.

They were all clothed...

And from what he could see, they probably weren't going to have much need for their clothing any time soon either...

( - )

Chapter 2

( - )

(With Percy)

Lifting the glittering gemstone to his non-existent eyes – and he really wasn't sure how that worked – he shifted the small jewel about in his skeletal fingers.

The edges of his vision were dark, and everything else he saw seemed to have a monotone filter over the top of it, dulling the colours of the world. All save for the golden glow emanating from Anakusmos, and the glittering of the gemstone in his hand. Those were the only things that seemed to retain their true colour.

Shifting his attention away from the small stone, he impassively observed the deceased bodies around him, and the myriad of scattered bones and glimmering gemstones.

Looking down his gaze fell on a small leather sack of similarly coloured gemstones on the ground a few feet away.

From what he could see it had been dropped following the death of its previous owner, with the contents being scattered across the floor.

Lurching forward awkwardly, he shuffled over to the discarded sack and looked down at the scattered gemstones.

His mind still felt a bit muddled. He was having difficulty categorising his fragmented memories and disjointed thoughts into any semblance of order.

It was like his entire being was running on base instinct alone. Though considering his skeletal physiology his baser instincts didn't seem to include the traditional need for sustenance or procreation. Instead, he only felt only an insatiable hunger for death, and the desire to hunt and kill the living.

He brought his hand to his skull and scraped his bony fingers against his temple.

Now that his thoughts had drifted in that direction it was difficult to ignore the almost overwhelming desire, he could feel to end all life, no matter where he found it. A large part of him desperately wanted to turn away from the freshly cooling corpses and search for yet more blood to let.

His other hand clenched tighter around his sword for a moment as he tried to force his intrusive instincts away.

Fortunately, his newly found consciousness swiftly reasserted itself, which in turn allowed him to regain his composure.

Looking back down at the scattered gemstones, he once again found himself entranced by the energy swirling about within it. It was multi-coloured, he could pick out golds, reds, purples and greens.

It was beautiful.

Staring at it entranced, he felt a well of desire form up in his non-existent gut, and with that desire, came hunger. Only this time, he wasn't hungering for flesh….

His head tilted to one side and his bony jaw chattered.

How could a skeleton even be hungry?

Pushing his odd thoughts to one side, he once again felt his instincts take over as he brought the gemstone to his mouth and bit down on it.

It resisted for a moment.

He could feel his jaw creaking, only for the gem to crack and then shatter.

The moment it did, he flinched as a sour, acrid, burning taste filled his mouth.

It was like acid.

The shattered remnants of the gemstone fell to the ground like rain. The shards rapidly began to disintegrate even as the light the gemstone had once held surged into his being.

Almost at once, he felt a sharp lancing pain in his brain – or at least in the area of his skull where his brain had once been.

His teeth chattered and his sword dropped from his hand and clattered onto the ground.

Pain.

He could feel a pain lancing through his skull, and strangely, he welcomed the feeling of it.

The pain in his head sharpened his mind and brought with it a sense of clarity that had been missing before.

He sagged down to his knees and clasped his skull.

He suddenly felt a little stronger than before, and also more… awake.

It felt less like he was sleepwalking and instead more like he had just woken up from a very long nap.

He was still disorientated, his mind was still a mess, but it was better than before.

He felt clearer.

Lifting his head he refocused his vision on the rest of the tunnel his gaze inexorably shifting to the scattered bag of gemstones and all the other ones he could see scattered across the tunnel floor.

Hunger filled him.

Only now, he knew how to satiate his hunger.

Scrambling forward across the rocky ground he grabbed another gemstone and shoved it into his mouth, before biting down on it, crunching it between his teeth.

He felt the same surge of energy as before, and with that energy came a renewed sense of focus.

Over the next half an hour he scoured the remainder of the tunnel for gemstones, picking up the ones that were just lying out in the open amidst the piles of bones, and those that had once been in the possession of the now dead bodies. He didn't discriminate, even as he tore open their bags and rifled through their pockets looking for every single gemstone he could find regardless of the size of the gem and hue.

Every gem he found he ate, and with everyone he consumed he felt more of his consciousness returning, and with it, he felt his memories both old and new start to slot into place.

He could now remember elements of his life.

He had memories of growing up in a small apartment. He could remember hiding under his bed as a loud, ugly, fat man screamed and shouted at him and a woman… his mother.

It wasn't all bad though… he could also recall that there had been happy times too…. He could remember going to a sweet stall with his mother, and her smile as she treated him. He also had memories of eating blue cookies and feeling an odd sense of happiness and love, even as warm arms enveloped him in a hug.

But those weren't the only things he could recollect as he could also remember shuffling through dimly lit tunnels very like the one he was currently in and being ambushed and cut down many times.

During some of these times, he never saw his killers and at other times he could see humans with pointed ears or animal features. Sometimes they struck him down with weapons, and at other times they attacked him with fire, water or blasts of pure energy.

His new memories didn't just show him being killed though. Many times, he was the one doing the killing as he ambushed the unwary and butchered them – but in those memories, he wasn't wielding Anaklusmos.

He gritted his teeth as yet more memories of battle assailed his mind.

So much death…

So much anger…

So much hate…

He grabbed the sides of his head and hunched over his jaw open in a soundless scream.

It wasn't all pain though….

He could remember the joy of spending time with his mother and the excitement of spending time with his friends….

A pair of grey eyes loomed forth within his memories.

He could remember a girl with golden blonde hair and stormy grey eyes.

As he closed his non-existent eyes, he could see the quirk of her lips as she smiled at him and the sparkle of her eyes.

He could see her full, pink lips moving as she said something… but he couldn't hear what she said.

Raking his hands along the ground, he clenched his jaw shut and tried to remember.

He tried to force more memories to come forth.

He felt incomplete.

It was horrible.

He knew he was called Percy Jackson….

But he still didn't fully know who exactly Percy Jackson was….

Had he been human, or something else? A part of him remembered being human, but at the back of his mind, there was a niggling feeling that that wasn't the whole story.

Also, who was the grey-eyed girl in his dreams, and why did his chest constrict painfully at the thought of her?

What was his mother's name?

Why was he a skeleton?

And more pressingly, where exactly was he? The place looked familiar. He could remember roaming its cavernous depths many times, and yet he didn't know what it was called.

He had so many questions and no answers.

The pain in his head grew sharper.

It felt like someone was repeatedly striking him on the skull with a sledgehammer.

Forcing himself up onto his head, he grabbed his head.

It felt like his skull was splitting in two.

Clenching his hands into fists, he tried to ignore the pain in his head as it continued to build.

Only for it to suddenly extend from his head into the rest of his body, as all the energy he had absorbed seemed to surge through him in a single instance.

It felt like he was being bathed in liquid fire – and it was odd that he remembered how that felt.

His body was practically glowing with restrained energy. Looking down, he could see that small cracks had begun to form along his bones, and out of those cracks poured yet more wispy, whitish gold energy.

He was lit up like a miniature sun.

He gritted his teeth and once again tried to ride out the pain, even as the wispy energy oozing out of his body began to coagulate and gain physical form.

Rotting, greyish-coloured flesh quickly took shape along his bones. Though parts of the newly formed flesh already looked like it was on the verge of sloughing off. More flesh covered his torso. The greyish skin now cloaking his ribcage was ragged, patched and he could see through it into the inside of his ribcage where emaciated, decaying organs also started to take shape.

He opened his mouth to scream, and as he did so he felt the flesh around his mouth shift and tear and his through bubble.

A guttural, raspy groan left his lips.

He could actually hear… and what he was hearing was his own muted scream.

The light oozing out of his body started to disperse, and as it did, so too did the pain that had for the last however long epitomised his entire being as the pain quickly faded away, first to a dull ache and then to nothing.

Gasping, he could hear air whistling through his ragged throat, perforated lungs and the tatty skin covering his ribcage.

Looking down at his body, he placed his hand on his chest.

He could feel… something.

It was muted, but still there.

If he concentrated, he could almost feel the… mushy… feeling of his own flesh shifting beneath his hand as he dragged his hand along his ribs, his rotting fingers drumming against his ribs.

It appeared he was no longer a skeleton. But was instead something… else. Not quite living, but also not just a pile of bones anymore.

It was like he had just gone through an existential evolution.

A wry – albeit very ugly – smile slipped across his lipless mouth at that thought.

This new form was definitely an improvement.

His head tilted to the side – creating a litany of muted cracks – as he processed the thoughts now swimming about in his head.

He still felt empty and hollow… but he also felt more… himself... than he had before. His mind was clearer and less muddled than it had once been.

Reaching out for some of the clothing he had already stripped off the dead bodies around him he slowly but surely started to go through the motions of getting dressed.

It just felt natural to him.

He had been asleep forever however long, and now he had woken groggy and confused. It was only natural to get dressed for the day ahead.

Shifting his head to the side, he once again pondered over his odd thoughts, even as he tugged an ugly green shirt over his head, and pulled on a pair of worn trousers, before then slotting his mouldering feet into a set of scuffed boots.

With that done he then used his stiff, clumsy fingers to buckle a breastplate over the top of his shirt. His hands went through the familiar motions with practised ease. It was almost therapeutic in a way.

Pushing himself unsteadily to his feet, he grabbed a bright red cloak from one of the bodies and slung it around his shoulders before he then flipped the hood up, casting his rotting face in shadow.

It wasn't a great disguise, but it sure felt better than wandering about naked.

Grabbing a belt from one of the older male adventurers, he buckled it around his waist and then after bending over to grab it from where he had previously discarded it, he slotted the bare blade of Anaklusmos into the space between the waistband of his trousers and the leather belt.

Taking a moment to orientate himself, and sort his still muddled thoughts, he sent one last look at the tunnel. His gaze took in the now partially stripped dead bodies and all of the scattered bones.

His gaze roved over the pale, twisted forms before him. The bodies were evidence that there were still living people around. Armed people who would no doubt try to kill him on sight. But people, all the same, and where there were people, there was also society.

He raised his hand and looked at the desiccated flesh covering it.

At present he could not pass as a living person.

But if eating several dozen of those oddly coloured gemstones had allowed him to turn from a skeleton into a zombie, then would eating even more of them allow him to evolve again?

If he killed enough monsters and ate the gemstones they left behind, would he be able to count himself among the living once more?

It was a heady thought.

( - )

(Elsewhere)

The Dungeon.

She had lived within its depths for all of her many lives, and yet still she found it hard to fathom just how mysterious and bizarre it truly was. The Dungeon completely defied any kind of logic or reason.

Depending on which floor of the Dungeon one ventured to they could find themselves wandering through dense forests of either trees, or on some floors giant mushrooms. That or they could find themselves wending their way around large canyons, fording gigantic rivers, plunging through thick mist, dodging through labyrinthine corridors, ploughing through frozen tundra, or crossing fiery molten landscapes.

Every few floors seemed to bring with it a change in climate, topology, temperature, humidity, and atmosphere, and often these changes came without any warning or reason.

It was just one of the many, many quirks the Dungeon seemed to have.

Her eyes narrowed at that thought, even as her red-eyed gaze shifted suspiciously to the dark, damp stone walls around her.

Many among her kind, herself included, believed the Dungeon was a living, breathing organism.

The entrance to the Dungeon on the surface – far, far above her head – was its gaping maw. The walls were its flesh and bones. The many tunnels, passages and corridors that connected every floor were its blood vessels. And the myriad of vast caverns and cavernous halls were its organs.

This in turn meant that the adventurers that ventured down into its depths were its prey and food source, even as the monsters that it spawned were merely an extension of the Dungeon's will and its primary method for hunting, killing and consuming its prey.

It wasn't a pleasant thought, especially considering she had originally been born one of those monsters.

The idea that she and her fellow monsters had been spawned as mindless vessels merely to kill and eat in service of some eldritch, primordial horror was not a pleasant one.

It was the kind of existential thought that kept her up at night.

Her expression hardened, even as she continued to lead her party through the dark, dimly lit tunnel ahead of her.

Where many of her kin remained as little more than the mindless, rampaging monsters they had always been, she and a select few had broken free. They had evolved from monsters into something… new, something better. They had become their own beings, with their own minds, personalities and memories.

Xenos.

That was what they called themselves.

Over the years the self-assumed title had taken on many meanings to her kind; such as different, strange, and outcast.

The many races that called the surface home would never accept them.

The surface dwellers were far too narrowminded and full of hate to even tolerate their existence let alone accept them as equals. The surface dwellers would never be able to look past the Xenos's monstrous origins and appearances and see them for who they actually were.

The same could be said for the other monsters that called the Dungeon home. Their bestial kin who had not gained consciousness. Those savage beings saw their more evolved brethren as little more than prey and would hunt them just like they hunted the surface dwellers that dared to venture into the Dungeon's depths.

In the end, nowhere was safe for them.

This was why they separated into multiple different groups – to avoid attention – and maintained a nomadic lifestyle.

When last she checked. they numbered close to two hundred in total, and those two hundred had been split into eleven separate groups, each of which followed an elected leader. With all of these groups then cycling through the numerous boltholes and sanctuaries they had managed to discover and carve out for themselves over the years.

Every now and then a few groups would converge in one of the larger sanctuaries where they would share information socialise and when necessary, reorganise. Those kinds of meetups, however, were rare though and often occurred through happenstance more than anything else.

Looking back behind her, her red eyes surveyed the contingent of hooded figures trooping along behind her.

Many of them wore clothing and armour that had been taken from fallen adventurers. Sometimes the items had been looted from deceased bodies – they very rarely were the ones to do the killing – at other times they had just been stolen from the Adventurer's camps.

She wasn't proud of it. But scavenging was pretty much their way of life.

What they couldn't get from the Dungeon they took from Adventurers.

Thankfully, however, the Dungeon provided much of what they needed. If one knew where to look, they could get as much food and water as they wanted, and if they were not picky would could also acquire weaponry. However, the quality of the earthform weapons that the Dungeon provided paled in comparison to the adventurer's weaponry.

Besides, her pride would always take second place when it came to protecting those she was chosen to lead.

Her expression hardened.

As one of the chosen leaders the responsibility for the survival of her fellow Xenos, those who followed her and relied on her, was on her shoulders.

It wasn't always a pleasant task, nor was it one that she had volunteered for.

But as one of the strong, it was only right that she use her hardwon strength to protect the weak so that one day they too could become strong and do the same for those that came after them.

It was a solemn and lonely duty to be the leader, but one she would gladly accept if it meant the survival of her race.

Tightening her grip on her spear, and mentally reaffirming her commitment to the task ahead, she continued to push forward, only to then come to an abrupt halt as she caught the scent of fresh blood in the air.

"Halt!" She said, her spear raised.

Behind her, she could hear the rest of her group come to a stop. She could also feel their apprehension and concern.

"Aude, Cliff, take the rear. Check for an ambush. The rest, stay here and be on guard." She continued, her gaze shifting over the dark, dreary walls.

The corridor was dark and enclosed. It wasn't ideal for an ambush. But should one occur, it would still be a good place to trap a small group.

Creeping forwards, her spear held tightly in hand and her sharp teeth bared in readiness, she carefully peered around the corner.

She couldn't hear anything ahead. No breathing, or shifting of bodies. It was as silent as the grave. The only thing that tickled her senses was the sweet, cloying scent of blood.

Tasting the air, her eyes narrowed.

She could taste the rich, heady blood of an elf, and the gamey blood of a werewolf. Licking her lips, she could also distinguish the blood of a human as well.

Adventurers.

Three from what she could tell.

All dead.

Which was good in the fact that it meant more possible loot and that whatever was ahead was likely not an adventurer's trap.

But at the same time, something had to have killed the adventurers, and considering the floor they were on, it was likely something undead.

Her brow furrowed at that thought.

The undead were some of the more unpleasant monsters to fight.

Looking out from around the corner, her gaze quickly came to rest on three pallid corpses.

They were covered in blood and had gaping wounds on their bodies.

Her eyes narrowed.

More importantly, the bodies were half-naked, which meant someone had already looted them.

Which meant they could be dealing with another band of Xenos.

Or a group of vicious adventurers that gleefully preyed on their own kind.

Both were possible.

"Come on," She said softly into the silence. "We press forward, but be careful. We don't yet know what lurks out there in the dark."

( - )

AN: Have to say some of you reviewers were very sharp on the uptake when it came to guessing my inspiration.

Hope you like the chapter, and if you do, or if you do not, please feel free to leave a review or comment.

Cheers, and catch you later.

Seagate.