"When you said we would go after Sylux, I didn't think that involved so much waiting around," quipped Rundas to a silently meditating Samus. "Your silence doesn't phase me Samus, I will keep bothering you until you agree to come up with a plan of action."

Samus reluctantly opened her eyes. "Rundas, I'm busy mediating. You should be relaxing too. It's only the second day of school and I'm already worn out. We've been doing so much recently that revenge plotting hasn't exactly been the first thing on my mind."

And it had been a busy couple of days. The hunters had to sit through hours of lectures about bounty hunting code, Galactic Federation history, and tips to being a successful bounty hunter. The latter was obviously the most intriguing to Samus, but she still wished there was more time in the day to actually train. Most of the work outside of the classroom for the first few weeks would be intense PT to prepare them for upcoming tests and missions. They were woken up at 6 am to go on a 5 mile run. Between lectures, they were drilled by Admiral Dillon and a few GF Troopers, whose names she honestly do not remember.

"We gotta make sure you all are in tip top shape for the trials!" crowed the overly enthusiastic admiral. Rundas had said to her in a false chirpy voice, "Well if this guy is the one to drill us we might as well just be doing trust falls and team bonding activities! How fun!"

"Excuse me, Phygrisian, what did you say?" replied the admiral, still grinning widely. "Oh did you want to demonstrate our first drill? Thank you so much for volunteering!"

Samus remembered watching him run back in forth carrying a humongous log, an she didn't know whether to feel sorry for Rundas or chastise him for his big mouth….

"Samus. Hey. Samus! Did you just hear what I said?"

Samus was jolted out of her silent reflection and turned her attention to Rundas. "Sorry, I was thinking about something."

"I should be used to that by now."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh it always seems that you are thinking about something. But whatever. What I was saying is we should go talk to your little robot friend Ghor and see if he wants in on our little Sylux mission. Which is what it is, Samus. This is our first mission as bounty hunter potentials and though Admiral Butterflies and Flowers didn't assign it, I think it is a legitimate as a mission can be! Ghor may not be cool and powerful like us, but we could definitely use his brains."

Though Rundas and Samus weren't on the same page as the Sylux problem, they both wanted more hands on bounty hunting action rather than being mentally and physically overworked.

"Missions are going to be tiring and demand a lot of mental and physical balance," the admiral had explained earlier that day in a more serious note. "We want to make sure each of you are prepared. We don't want to have any unnecessary accidents."

Samus remembered how Ghor had looked down sadly at this statement. I'll have to ask him more about what happened eventually. Ghor, however, was thriving in the classroom environment. He seemed to know everything about the Galactic Federation. Samus knew that if he could match his brains with confidence, he would become a very powerful bounty hunter. It would be good to include him as an ally. But not a friend…

"Samus… you're doing it. AGAIN. Now answer me, are we going to talk to Ghor?"

"Okay, lets go find him. I think he is in his room." She replied.

Rundas did have a point. Plotting against Sylux would be an invigorating experience. She needed to keep her senses sharp and the way things were going now she would keep getting more and more worn down.

"Well let's get going now!" said the ever-impatient Rundas. Samus gave him a tight nod and lead him to Ghor's room.

xxx

"You want ME to go against the most powerful and the most cruel person at this school?" questioned a perplex Ghor.

Rundas snorted. "No, no. We are not asking you to go against me. We are asking you to go up against Sylux!"

Samus rolled here eyes at Rundas's not so subtle implication. "You honestly don't have to, Ghor. We just thought it would be good to include you because you're definitely the smartest person here. I understand if you're nervous."

"Samus, I am much more than nervous. Sylux isn't just cruel; he's dangerous. I don't need to be exposing myself to unnecessary danger, especially in the condition I'm in."

"Yeah what even happened to you anyway," asked Rundas rather callously.

"That really isn't polite," interjected Samus giving her head a disappointed shake.

Ghor chuckled. "People ask me all the time what happened. I'm used to explaining it. During my evaluation mission as a potential, I was sent to investigate an abandoned Space Pirate base that was rumored to have valuable weaponry. Little did I, or the Galactic Federation, know that the whole place was booby-trapped and set to explode. Somehow the GF managed to preserve my consciousness and a couple of vital organs and reconstruct me into a cyborg."

Rundas looked at him in disbelief. "I honestly didn't think was possible, Ghor. Geez that sucks."

"It wouldn't normally be possible! But the base was also built over a store of a glowing blue liquid called Phazon. I would explain what Phazon is but nobody even knows what it can do, just that it has an incredible, untapped potential. Somehow this Phazon was able to link with my consciousness and preserve it until the GF found it in the form of a glowing orb. I won't go into detail about the body parts…"

"Yes, please don't," blurted Samus and Rundas nearly simultaneously. The two of them looked at each other an exchanged a brief grin.

Ghor gave them a dry look but then continued on with his story. "Anyway, I took a break from the academy to learn how to use my new body. I studied up on technology and worked tirelessly at upgrading the equipment that now makes up my body to its best form. In my free time, I read up on Galactic Federation history to see if there were any records of past experimentation with Phazon."

"So you're kinda like a human experiment. Cool!" said Rundas.

"Rundas, calling people experiments isn't polite," chastised Samus. When will this guy ever learn to be a decent being…

"As abrupt as Rundas sounds, he isn't wrong," continued Ghor. "I've been unable to find any other situations like mine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It perplexes me why the GF is keeping this so hidden."

Samus stopped to ponder this. The GF seemed to be an honest organization but all organizations have their secrets.

"So are you in?" asked Rundas, once again interrupting Samus's thoughs.

Ghor looked down pensively, eventually responding "I'm in. Might as well take down a bully while I'm here. This is kind of like an unofficial mission."

Rundas high-fived him. "You bet it is! Now where should we begin?"

Ghor's mechanical features formed what would be a mischievous grin on a human. "I know exactly what we can do to bring down our little friend."

A/N

Hi I'm back! What is Ghor's plan? The action will start soon, I promise!