Old Friends

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I'll be honest here, I have no idea where this story is going. Any ideas would be helpful.

P.S. do you like my puppy? Isn't he so dam cute??

The Hunt was an impressive sight. Compared to the Hunt, the campers looked like scraggly runaways. The campers wore standard orange T-shirts and jeans. Ariston could see rips and holes in them from where he stood. The words Camp Half-Blood were faded and stains covered the shirts around old wounds and the rips in the shirts. Ariston could see the praetors of Camp Jupiter some where in the crowd, trying to get to the front where Camp Half-Blood's leaders stood, weapons drawn.

Speaking of whom, Annabeth, Leif and Clarisse were standing in front of all the other campers, drakon sword and spear ready. Leif had now weapon out and Ariston wondered what that meant. He probably assumed that with all the armed demigods around him he could happily let the others take care of them selves and not get into the fight. The coward. Nothing much changed about them; Annabeth still wore her hair up in a ponytail and her Yankee's cap attached to her hip. Clarisse still wore that same red bandana and her spear crackled with electricity.

Glancing subtly back at his hunters, Ariston smirked at what he saw. The Hunt was dressed in their armor and hoods up. The gold and cream uniform they all wore outshone even the sun that was shining above them. Shooter and Luminous both had bows slung over their shoulder along with the standard set of hunting knives everyone in the Hunt received. Phoenix and Dove both had swords at their left hips. Shizzle had a large hammer along with his hunting knives hanging at his waist. Shade held a battle axe which startled some campers, especially the Ares kids with his small size. No one had their weapons drawn, unlike the campers on the other side of the hill.

Ariston believed that the state of a warrior's clothes said a lot about what the warrior was like. If his clothes were worn and had holes in it, then either they had gone through a lot or they were not skilled enough to fight with out being hit or both. Ariston thought that the scars told more about a warrior than their clothes. Scars on the face normally meant that said person did not know how to duck. Scars on the back meant torture and scars on the arms and front of the torso meant each had a story of their own. Ariston held more scars than most.

After Ariston had spoken via telepathy, he noticed the shocked and even frightened faces of the campers. Chuckling a little, Ariston turned his head to Phoenix. Care to explain that for me? He inquired slyly. I have already done so today with the Olympians. His words reached everyone around him, not just Phoenix.

Phoenix sighed over dramatically. "Fine," he slumped slightly and stepped forward to speak. "We are a hunt much like Lady Artemis', however, as you can see," he chuckled, "it is a hunt for males only. We swear off girls and we have been around just as long as the Huntresses have. Our hunt chose to take the appearance of disbandment but instead we have been hiding from the presence of anyone but Lord Apollo. He is our patron, not the leader like Lady Artemis is for her hunt. There is a different god of the male hunt. That is Ariston here, he was the voice in your head earlier. It is how he normally communicates with everyone." Phoenix gestured in Ariston's direction. "Do not antagonize him, he has a short temper for most of you because of your traitorous past. Just so you know, he is not restricted by the Ancient Laws, they have been absolved anyway so he does not need an invitation."

When Phoenix spoke of their traitorous pasts, some of the older and immortal campers shifted nervously. It seemed as though he had looked directly at some of them accusingly, as if he knew what they did.

That is enough Phoenix, thank you, Ariston interrupted before he could say more.

"But I wasn't finished," he whined now. "I was on a roll."

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