Aviary gave them a set of rules and exercises to do daily. The exercises were a competition or race style. If the first two pairs finish the practice, they must brawl to determine the winner. The winner doesn’t have to continue the race while the others must restart until they win. The exercises will teach them teamwork and leadership. They will have to rely on each other to win. 

The race is made up of ten excruciating exercises that will be physically and mentally challenging. The race was supposed to improve their willpower and grit for all of them. These exercises seemed to exempt Betsy as she breezed through them with her partner with such ease it looked like a walk in the park. They agreed with each other in every obstacle as if they already knew each other from a past life. The first exercise was something called “Floor’s Lava,” where one player had to place logs on the floor and the other player had to jump on top of it. If the player falls off the log then they’ll have to restart from the beginning.

Mira had a plan for everything knowing well that she wouldn’t be able to beat Betsy in this round. She planned to stick the logs on her shoes using the leftover tent rope. Her plan shattered into pieces as her partner was trying to take control and get the win without any help. Mira’s selfish partner wanted to do everything his way by copying what everyone was doing to avoid any mistakes.  Royse’s partner was scared of everything and extremely cautious about doing things. First place was Betsy and her comrade, Malcolm. Royse was second to last along with his partner Zava. Last place was Mira with her partner Jason.

This trend continued for all the races while Mira and Royse competed to avoid last place. At the end of the race, Betsy had to fight her partner which resulted in Betsy being the winner of the competition. After many attempts by the other participants, Malcolm ended in second place and another soldier named Bob in third place. It was now lunch time and Mira was frustrated by everyone. Her partner was named Jason and he was a complete narcissist.  Jason was an uncooperative individual who believed he was born a leader.

Jason enrolled to be in the army because he believed it was his only chance to be a leader all he had to do was to be better than the current commander. Royse’s partner Zava is a pessimist. He never believed he could beat the race in the first place. The only reason Zava joined the army was to prove that the Barriers can never be beaten. Zava's negative attitude sadly cost both of them the race resulting in last place this time. Royse and Mira were both beaten, they were physically and mentally exhausted because of their partners.

“I can’t believe we lost to a guy named Bob,” Royse said panting like a dog in the hot sun.

“My partner is such a douchebag it’s unbelievable,” Mira complained. “He wanted to do everything himself. It was so annoying, he didn’t even let me speak.”

“Mines barely did anything!” Royse yelled. “He complained the whole way talking about ‘what’s the point of even trying’ and ‘ Just give up dude you’re just a kid racing a bunch of grown men’ That guy’s attitude is so depressing he almost made me cry.” 

“Well, it’s true. You’re just a kid there’s no way you could even place above the tenth place, it's impossible.” Mira explained. “It’s reality.”

“Stop saying that!” Royse exclaimed

“Royse, how do you expect to beat grown men and women in this race? It's impossible.” Mira said, trying to teach him a lesson.

“So are you saying that Kaleb’s dead?” Royse asked with a serious tone. “How could it be possible for Kaleb to survive?”

“Uh-” Mira was thankfully interrupted when Betsy came to give them their lunch.

She had apples, strawberries, and mangoes, fruits that none of the kids had ever seen before. She had seen their fatigue from the race and how their partners were giving them a hard time. Betsy decided to bring them lunch, pitying their shortcomings in the race. She watched the whole race in the edge of her seat cheering for the both of them in her head. She spectated, focusing on their flaws and weaknesses, mainly on their mentality game. Not only were their partners at fault but also themselves as well. 

“Here you go,” Betsy said with a soft smile on her face.

“What is that?” Mira asked, confused and bothered.

“It’s called fruit in the outside world, It’s food that grows on trees,” Betsy responded with a light-hearted smile. “You just bite into it and then it starts to taste sweet almost like sugar.”

Royse without hesitation snatched the biggest fruit he saw and took a huge bite into the Mango. His eyes widened with satisfaction and contentment he took another bite into the skin and juice fell off his lips. Mira looked at him with disgust, But she was also famished from the race and decided to take one. She looked at the strawberry with its many seeds which made her turn away from it. She looked at the mango but it looked a bit messy from the way Royse was eating it. So she settled for a red apple. It didn't have any features that made her turn away and it wasn’t messy when she bit into it, so she decided to take all the apples Betsy had in her arms.

“I’m starting to like you now!” Royse said with a mouthful of mango in his mouth. “But I still have to be mean, because you tried to kill Kaleb.”

There was a long awkward pause before Betsy said anything. She let out a small and subtle sigh trying to release the guilt from her body. She scratched her head not knowing what to say knowing well that nothing can excuse what she did.

“I understand why you did it.” Mira said while nodding her head agreeing with Royse.”You did what you thought was best for your survival. Kaleb was the perfect distraction for your family to hunt down instead of you. He’s a thief with no family so he’d be perfect since no one would miss him.”

“I’m sorry,” Betsy said looking down at the floor. Unable to look them in the eye.

“Even so, It's not us you should ask for forgiveness, It’s Kaleb until he forgives you we can’t be friends,” Mira said in a monotone voice. 

Both Mira and Royse got up and left. Leaving Betsy and her many fruits in her hand by herself. Royse came back to emphasize his emotions by slapping all the fruits out of her hand and then apologizing for his actions. His childish behavior put a smile on her face. Hours went by as Betsy continued watching Royse and Mira trying to complete the race. On the sidelines, she watched in shock as Aviary was disqualifying Royse and Zava from the race. Zava was getting lazier and lazier each time they completed an obstacle while Royse put his all into the race. Royse’s efforts were left in vain as Zava dragged him down to the last place nowhere near the rest of the group. 

Soon the race attracted spectators who thought the competition was foolish. The spectators watched as Royse gave his all in vain. They questioned why a kid would devote himself to winning nothing. They began pondering and theorizing about the prize in the race. When they decided to ask Royse himself what he won by trying so hard his words motivated some and others followed the trend trying not to be left out.

“I’m doing it for my pride, knowing a bunch of grown men can’t even join the race, because it’s too much work,” Royse responded with a simple answer thinking of what Mira said to him. “Reality is subjective.”

Royse had no idea what he was talking about, trying to combine Mira’s and Kaleb’s way of thinking was just for fun. Royse's confusing speech made some soldiers unable to sleep at night leaving them chewing on and contemplating his small response. While the army stuck inside of a Venus Flytrap rested for the next day of the agonizing training. Kaleb was doing his form of exercise. He was tasked to carry animals, fighting them and chasing them around was work in itself. After catching and carefully selecting some of the animals himself he sat them up for the arena with the farmer.

The next day Betsy saw a bunch of soldiers lined up like they did last time, but this time Aviary wasn’t there.

“They’re waiting for Aviary.”

Betsy wasn’t familiar with voice so she turned around to see who was talking to her. It was Malcom, her partner. They never spoke, Betsy took the orders while he pointed them out, never contradicting or giving suggestions which seemed to work fine. 

“Let’s line up,” Malcolm said with uniformity in his voice. He was vague in his words only giving instructions and necessary information at the moment.

Royse was walking with Zava to the racing line only to see a handful of soldiers lined up. He felt a sharp glare to his far right that burned his face. He knew this had to be his doing and so did Mira who looked at him with murderous intent. He knew with this many soldiers participating in the race they were eventually going to get lapped at some point leading to their disqualification again. He looked up at Zava with hopeful eyes wishing that the other soldiers motivated him to at least try, only to hear the most disdainful words come out of his mouth.

“Welp, I quit,” Zava said with a tired look on his face.

“Wait what?! you can’t go or I’ll also be out of the race too!” Royse yelled in anger

“Doing you a favor, see ya kid!”

Royse watched as Zava left his side to go back to his tent to sleep. Aviary comes out of her tent with another soldier behind her. The displeasing look on her face turns to anger as she looks around looking everyone in the eyes. Betsy knew it was bad because she smelled blood from inside the Venus Flytrap last night until it mysteriously disappeared out of the blue. She wanted to tell Aviary. But she couldn’t find anything until someone found a dead body in a tent this morning.  Her eyes darted to the floor, nervous about being blamed for the crime.

“There was a murder last night. We’ve been moving Betsy’s location in the middle of the night trying to evade her murder. This resulted in someone’s death.” Aviary explained with a sympathetic voice.

Betsy slumps down in shame feeling somewhat responsible for the death. She also felt the crowd's scowls crawling up her spine and down to her hands making them shake in fear. The crowd seems to grow more as murmurs and whispers are heard and some shouts as well, insulting the commander and the kids calling them ‘viruses’ and ‘killers’. Mira looked around and came to a realization that didn’t take long for her to figure out. Someone had sat Aviary up since the beginning. Leaving a whole army with someone they considered the enemy was a disaster waiting to happen. 

The Rats’ plan wasn’t to murder Betsy themselves, but to create a riot that’ll kill Aviary including the other three children. This plan would go smoothly and there was no way to stop it with the evidence they found in the tent. Betsy’s fingerprints were processed in the victim's tent, someone also saw her walking around at night, and a few minutes later so was Aviary. This was all presented to the crowd by Bob, the second-place winner of yesterday’s competition. Bob was a forensic scientist with futuristic technology only made in New York. 

“So you’re the Rat,” Aviary said in a demeaning tone which didn’t faze Bob a bit.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but the evidence points to Betsy and you as an accomplice.” Bob continued to explain his investigation. “Some people saw you both roaming around when the murder happened. You both are a liable danger to this mission.”

Mira's eyes darted around the room which gave a threatening air. Mira was good with problem-solving, but not with disputes. She still hadn't figured out who the Rat was, doubting it was Bob who set the trap. This was all a ploy to make the army turn against each other, instead of killing them one by one. After they were done killing Betsy and Aviary, surely Royse and Mira were next. they’ll soon figure out it wasn't the ‘Viruses’.  They'll turn on each other leaving a blood bath and only the Rats standing tall and proud.

Betsy and Aviary were both framed for murder. Royse was the only person who could sway people with his words, but sweet promises weren't going to help them this time. Royse needed just one piece of evidence of a Rat in the army. They didn't have much time as the people were getting impatient. They want an answer now so Royse gave them one.

"It was Zava." Royse blurted out without thinking. "He murdered him in cold blood."

"Herl!" Someone shouted from the crowd which sounded muffled

"What?" Royse asked in confusion 

"The victim was a girl!" They said

"Did you see the body by any chance?" Royse asked. "How do you know it was a girl?"

"Because… I saw her enter and leave the tent at night. She had long hair in a ponytail and it was puffy, " the man said. "I saw her through the shadow of my tent."

"Excuse me, but the victim was a man, not a woman." Bob politely interrupted.

"So what I'm hearing is someone was murdered by Betsy and a woman with long puffy hair entered the victim's tent and left?" Royse asked adding suspicion in his tone for effect. "Did anybody else see someone walking around last night? Or are we just picking whoever we want the killer to be?"