"I'll do it!"

"Now hold up here darling. Did you not just listen to the last hour of what we've been saying to you? Worst of the worst convicts, unknown testing, all that shebang. I thought you said you had a clear head now? Clearly you don't if you're hopping onto this right away. We were gonna have to go all survivor and vote a member off the island," Rye said.

"Rye, I've been trying to get voted off the island for three years now. Let me go. I can do it. I'm not saying to go right away. We'd have to come up with a plan first and I'd need to get my hollopad back. Fennel, you'd have to come up with some way for my hollopad to connect on it's own server so I couldn't be tracked by the government but I could still contact you guys from Earth. We'd need an escape plan for once I get down there, which we can't have unless we have more information about what exactly is down there and what's going on down there. Which means... I have some serious convincing to do of my guard friend." 

The group stared at Hazel for a long moment.

"You're insane, little one. It's fantastic."

"Truly it is. You've saved us up here a probably very difficult decision and you've gotten us closer to a solution in a couple hours than we've been able to get to in months," Rye said.

"Magnificent job darling. So glad we found you," Ruby said.

Hazel smiled, then noticed that the rest of the cafeteria had emptied.

"Hey, where did everybody go?"

"Oh, we've been sitting here talking for almost two hours now," Fennel said, looking at the time on his hollopad.

"Great. Well, now that we've got this discussed, Clover, I believe we have a tour to finish." She smiled and nodded, getting up from her spot at the table and waving goodbye to everybody.

"I don't know how you did that or what species of alien you are, but well done," Clover said, once they were out of earshot. Hazel turned to give her a confused look.

"When I first got here I wouldn't talk to anybody. Not even Rye. It took me almost a month to work up the courage to talk to him, and then Kudzu showed up and got in with Rye right away and I barely talked to him either. It was Kudzu who brought me out of my shell. I mean he kind of does that to people. But then there's you. You're in here one day and you're already friends with all of my friends, you've been integrated into the plan, and you solved like two of our problems within minutes. You're like... superhuman," Hazel smiled.

"Not super human. I just want to go to Earth."

Clover chuckled. "I know."

...

"So what are the chances of us starting that training right now?" Hazel asked. Clover had showed her practically the whole prison and had saved the weight room for last.

"You want to start right now?" Hazel nodded.

"How much do you think I should start with?" Hazel asked, looking at all the machines.

"I think we should start with fighting first. If you're gonna be the one..." Clover let that trail off and stepped closer to Hazel. 

"This room is heavily surveilled because of the fighting  that's done in here." 

"Then you're going to need to know how to fight with the strength you have right now to survive. We can work on building muscle once I figure out how well you fight and what you need to work on." Hazel nodded following Clover onto the mat.

"I took all kinds of fighting classes when I was younger so I'll try to teach you a little bit of everything. First lets test your instinctual knowledge. I'm going to come at you and you try to defend yourself however you feel comes naturally. Don't worry, I'll go easy." 

Hazel nodded and stood to one side of the mat, keeping her feet shoulder width apart. Clover moved to the opposite end of the mat then looked to a corner of the room where there was a surveillance.

"Just sparring. No need for worry," She yelled across the room to the camera. She must have been talking to the guards. "Right Hazel?"

Hazel turned to the camera and nodded. "Just sparring."

...

By the end of it all Hazel was spent and sweating like a pig. After Clover tested Hazel's instinct skills, which Clover called pretty decent, Clover had complained about the other convicts while they took a break to get drinks.

"There's a bunch of fat lards in here that don't do anything that involves exercise. Back on Earth working out was the thing to do in prison. Now, less than half of us even try to stay in shape. It's saddening."

Once they were finished Clover brought Hazel out to the mat again and worked on punching technique. She taught her a couple of different styles to try and find one that suited Hazel, and she seemed most fit to punch like in boxing. She seemed more the type for kickboxing or street fighting than for fighting with organized moves like martial arts. Clover said that she tended to mix martial arts and street fighting for herself, but she liked street fighting a bit more as well.

"Less rules. In my experience I've also found it to be the most fulfilling as well." She had an odd glint in her eye that told Hazel that by more fulfilling she meant caused the most damage.

Hazel was not as bad at fighting as she thought she would be. Clover said she was a pretty good fighter for the leader of a pacifist group. Hazel blushed at that before gathering up her suit and heading back to her cell before showering and washing her clothes and wandering around in attempt to find Cory. She checked near the rec room, the cafeteria, and she was tempted to go into the "no convict" zone. Eventually she found him out in the open courtyard. 

"Hey there Cory. Best guard buddy pal friend! We have something to discuss."