Tuesday morning.

In the warm summer sun, Jay was rather nervously waiting for his turn on the obstacle course. Earlier that morning, he and his new friends – no, his teammates! – had all taken their dragons for their obligatory medical check. As Lloyd had predicted, they had been the only ones at the vet's office at that time, so Dr. Borg and a friendly veterinary intern named Pixal, who also happened to be Borg's daughter, had spend a lot of time not only to examine the friends' dragons and declare all of them fit to compete in the tournament, but also for a little chat with the five riders.

Dr. Borg had been particularly delighted to see Jay here at the Dragon Games. Over the years, the vet had become a regular guest at the Walkers' home, having taken care of all of Wisp's development checks and her immunizations, and he had grown quite fond of the energetic boy and his Lightning Dragon.

Afterwards, the teenagers had split up to each complete a first training round in their chosen events.

Jay and Wisp had flown to the racing area - and of course, they got lost on their way across the estate, and had to ask others for directions. But, they had eventually made it to their destination, the obstacle course.

While waiting for the pair before them to complete the course, Jay was given some more details on the competition by Dareth, one of the race officials: Due to its popularity and the limited space to accommodate only two dragon-rider pairs at a time, the competition would go over a few rounds, taking place on several days.

In a first qualifying round, although all contestants had to go around the course in parallel with another competitor, it was only their final times that mattered. The best four pairs would then proceed to the semi-finals, two knock-out races, the winners of which would face each other in the Grand Final.

When their names were finally called up, Jay and his dragon entered the race course, looking for the starting line. But to his horror, Jay discovered that starting gates were used for this particular competition. And he could immediately feel Wisp tensing up as soon as she noticed the tight metal cages. 

Lightning Dragons, just like their close relatives the Sky Dragons, preferred open spaces and many of them suffered from different degrees of claustrophobia. Having been raised by humans, Wisp was used to staying inside, but both at the Walkers' home as well as in her temporarily domicile on the Garmadon Estate, she had been given plenty of room in a very generous box.

Jay patted her neck. "It's alright, girl. You only have to go in there for a very short time. And then you can fly, okay?"

But the dragon wouldn't calm down. She was outright refusing to enter the gate, no matter what Jay would say or do.

He could hear snickering from the other racers in the queue.

"I didn't know they had a clown competition!" One boy exclaimed. He was wearing a jacket made of blue leather that resembled the skin of his red-eyed dragon.

"Hey, why don't you just leave the racing to the people who actually know how to train their dragon?" It was older looking boy with slick black hair and a large moustache of the same colour. He was sitting on an intimidating large dragon with dark grey scales that looked like they were made of metal.

He was leaning against the barrier, with two of his teammates by his side, all of them dressed in an orange jersey and dark green track pants, all embroidered with the skull and crossbones logo of the Sky Pirates team.

One of them was a short and very skinny pale boy with a bright green dragon. He remained silent, unlike the girl with wild shoulder-length black hair and an eyepatch over left eye.

"Yeah, there are people here who would like to finish this training run TODAY!" She shouted. Her dragon, who had some resemblance to a Water Dragon, laughed at his master's comment with a loud shrill voice.

"Damn, I should have brought my phone, that would have made a nice video for SerpTube!" The skinny boy complained.

"I'm sorry but we have to move on to the next ones, there's already a long queue." Dareth announced. "You can wait on the side, if you want, so that your dragon can watch them start. And then you'll get one more try, okay?" He suggested to Jay. "Next pair is Chamille with Shift, please!"

Jay was close to tears, but he would not give them the satisfaction to see him cry. He really wanted to be angry with his dragon, but he just couldn't, sensing how miserable Wisp already was as it is.

So instead, he climbed off his dragon and comforted her while they were watching the next racer on the track. It was a girl with purple hair. Jay remembered having seen her at yesterday's dinner at the Elemental's table.

Her dragon was not very fast but could adapt her shape when passing the different obstacles on the course, thereby compensating for the lack of speed. As they crossed the finish line, back inside the starting area, several people in the queue cheered and clapped.

"Look at this, she was able to finish the course, while other people can't even start!" Moustache-boy shouted.

On their second attempt, Jay could convince Wisp to at least partially enter the cage, but it was still not enough for the back gate to be closed behind them.

"Well done, that's some good progress. I am going to open the gate now, so you can go around the course." Dareth told Jay.

Wisp gave a nervous shudder, when the bar in front of them slid away with a loud squeak. But she relaxed as soon as they were on the track. The dragon accelerated and they went over, under and around all obstacles without any problem at all.

When they went across the finish line, Jay anxiously looked around, expecting some more nasty comments, but instead he found everyone staring at them, their mouths wide open.

As they exited the track, Dareth came over to talk to him.

"Really great job on the course, but you'll need to sort out the problem with the start!" He said. "Mr Garmadon has probably told you that you can still sign up for some of the other competitions. I'd recommend doing that, even if you don't want to do the actual race, but just to have more practice runs." He handed Jay a small sheet of paper. "Here's a list of races that use the same starting gates as this one. And I'm going to let the head coach know; she will work with your group this afternoon and she might have some tips or exercises for you."

Jay gratefully took both the paper and the advice and headed back to the registration office.

On the court in front of the main building, it was even busier now than it had been on the day before. For the duration of the competition, this was now the designated 'break time area' for dragons, where the animals were provided food and could get a rest, without having to go back to their houses.

Looking around, Jay was happy to find Zane's dragon was already here, so he left Wisp right next to him. The Ice Dragon greeted her with a friendly snort to which she replied.

Jay entered the main building to register for two of the competitions from the list. Garmadon gave him an understanding smile, meaning Dareth had probably informed the organizer about what had happened too.

As he left the race office, Jay quickly checked on his dragon. Wisp was happily munching her food, and both her and Shard looked quite happy in each other's company.

Feeling a bit more easy now, Jay decided to have his lunch as well, hoping that none of the riders who had been present at his training fiasco would be there yet. When he entered the cafeteria, however, he saw a few people pointing at him, giggling and and whispering something to their seat neighbors. He could not hear their conversation, but was pretty sure what it was about.

Despite the exhausting training run, the auburn haired boy was not feeling very hungry after what had happened. So he just took a sandwich and a glass iced tea. Looking around, he found Zane sitting by himself at the same table they had been at on the night before.

"Hi Zane. Can I join you?" Jay asked.

Zane looked up. "Oh, hello Jay. Of course, please take a seat."

Jay gestured at the steaming bowl of soup in front of the other boy. "Warming up after your cool training?" He asked.

"Yes, the Ice Dome certainly lives up to its name." Zane replied. "How was your morning, my friend?

Jay sighed. "I'd rather not speak about it."

This was not true. He was desperate to talk about his problem and maybe get some advice, but he didn't know Zane well enough to predict how he would react. Jay had already been made enough fun of for the day.

"I understand. Your answer suggests that your practice run did not go as well as you had hoped. Just so you know, As your friend I am always willing to listen to your tale, should you change your mind."

"Thanks, I will think about it." Jay smiled gratefully. "How was your morning?"

Before Zane could answer, the cafeteria doors flew open and a very angry Cole entered the room. He walked over to their table and, without even greeting Jay and Zane, he muttered: "I am going to kill that bitch!"

Their mouths agape, Zane and Jay first looked at Cole, then at each other. Zane was the first one to recover.

"May I ask who you are you referring to, and what she has done?" He asked.

"This red-haired snake Skylor Chen." Cole hissed. He then recalled his morning for his two friends:

"After the check-up, I went to the race office for the Iron Dragon Competition. And guess who was already there? She spent over two hours talking to the race officials. And I patiently waited until she was done and it was finally my turn to talk to them. Which, by the way, took me less than half an hour and I still got all the information I needed. So when I was done, Skylor was still watching the video, constantly pausing and rewatching parts to make notes, and she outright refused to let me watch it with her. She told me she had arrived a day ahead of her team so that she would have more time to properly prepare for her oh-so-many competitions. And then she told me letting me watch with her would give me an unfair advantage over the other competitors as she might accidently reveal some tips. Can you believe she seriously implied me being unfair? So, I waited again. Until it was 1:30 and the race office had to close, because all race officials have to attend a meeting now, something about tomorrow. Which means, thanks to Miss Chen, I've now wasted pretty much the whole morning for nothing, instead of spending the time with Rocky."

"Why didn't the race officials tell her off?" Jay wondered.

"Because her father is very rich and very powerful." Lloyd had just joined them. "Master Chen's is one of the main sponsors of the tournament, so we just can't afford to annoy him, although many people here would love to."

He handed a little case to Cole, smiling apologetically. "My dad has asked me to give you this DVD with a copy of the film. Just, don't tell anyone else, please."

This, as well as the promised several servings of chocolate cake, improved Cole's mood significantly.

They then kept talking about their respective mornings, Jay carefully avoiding to mention his dragon's little problem about the starting gates.

Zane seemed rather pleased with his and Shard's training runs, one in the ice tunnel for the sledding event and another one on the snow slope for the slalom race.

And despite having spent most of the morning waiting, Cole had still got some information on the general outline of the Iron Dragon Race:

The endurance race would start and finish at the Garmadon Monastery and cross four different terrains – and climate zones – of Ninjago: The first leg was through the Sea of Sands (upon hearing his desert home being mentioned, Jay felt a little bit homesick and decided to call his parents after lunch), before the dragon riders would then have to cross Birchwood Forest followed by the Glacier Barrens. The final leg would be through the Badlands and across Crash course Canyon, back to the Garmadon Estate.

"I am okay with most of them, but Rocky and me are not very much used to snow and ice." Cole remarked and Jay decided to share the advice he had received earlier today.

"Can't you just sign up for one of the winter events, so you and Rocky get a few training runs there?" He suggested.

Cole laughed. "Yeah, sure. C'mon, you've seen Rocky! Can you imagine a massive Earth Dragon in the narrow ice tunnel? We'd probably get stuck..." He stated. "And he's rather crash through the slalom poles than go around them. That's one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard."

Jay lowered his head in shame. Great, I was just trying to help and got laughed at again. This is definitely not my day.

"I actually agree with Jay's suggestion." Zane chimed in. "You don't have to do the run, but one you have registered, you will be granted access to the Ice Dome to acclimatize. And what about the dragon downhill event? It doesn't require much technique but is all about balance and a lot of downhill force."

"That's actually true." Cole admitted. "I am sorry, Jay. I shouldn't have made fun of your idea before thinking about it properly. I just had a really bad morning."

Jay gave him a weak smile. "Sure, no problem..."

Guess what? He thought. So did I.