"Wake up!" Sensei Wu exclaimed, walking into the ninja's room, smashing two steel plates together, creating a ruckus that would wake the deepest of sleepers.

Jay was the first ninja to sit up, and when he realised he had fallen asleep in his binder he swore very loudly.

Wu clanged the plates together in Jay's direction.

"Language!"

Jay fell back onto his pillow, groaning.

"Sensei... I'm not a kid anymore... I'm allowed to swear."

"It's bad etiquette for role models such as the ninja, don't you think?" Wu added with a sly smile.

"Why are we even getting up this early? I thought Sunday was our lie in day?" Cole asked.

"You've all gotten slower and sloppier. I've prepared a number of exercises to tone your reflexes."

With that, Sensei left the room, and the ninja knew he wouldn't be happy if they took ages getting ready.

"Jeez, so what if we're a bit slower? It's not like anything's going to happen." Kai muttered as he grabbed his ninja suit and started to change.

Jay bit his lip. It wasn't the time to bring up the very real threat of Dei Noctis, but he knew he would have to at some point.

"He's right though, we are quite out of shape." Cole shrugged, looking down at his chest, grabbing at non-existent flab.

"Oh purleeeease Cole, you're bordering on an eight-pack." Jay joked, putting on his own suit.

"Actually, there is no such thing as an eight-pack. There are only six abdominal muscles." Zane pointed out.

Kai at first didn't believe him, and they entered a brief argument about it. Brief because Zane easily won with facts and a cool head.

Heading outside, the ninja realised that it was going to be a very very hot day, considering it was only morning and they were already too hot in their suits.

Sensei's 'activities' were hardly forgiving either, and soon enough, the ninja abandoned their suits and wore nothing more than shorts and t-shirts.

First of all, they all had to complete an obstacle course which was very demanding in the endurance aspect, then they were set up with boxing equipment. The aim was to get as many jabs in within 5 minutes and to simultaneously avoid your partner's jabs.

Jay couldn't help but smile a little bit when he realised they would be boxing. He had spend a lot of free time in the last two weeks hammering away at punching bags and sparring robots alike.

Cole and Zane were chosen to spar first (Zane won), and then it was Jay and Kai. Jay had noticed that Kai had a habit of feinting a direct jab then going for a wider hit, or vice versa, and he used this to his advantage. During his wide swings, his ribs were left unprotected, and by the end of the session, Kai's ribs - as well as his flaming pride from the start of the session - were quite bruised.

Sensei had quite a lot of praise for Jay's technique, and set him know through the occasional nod of approval.

After their fight, it was Lloyd and Nya's turn, and the tournament of sorts carried on.

Eventually, Sensei realised it was getting way too hot for training to continue, and he gave the hard working ninja the rest of the day to do what they wanted with.

"... ughhh... who's gonna go and get the ice-lollies out of the freezer?" Kai groaned, leaning back on the moth-eaten deck chair he had found in the Bounty's lower deck.

"Jayyyyyy... why don't you go and get them eh?" Cole grinned, already taking his shirt off.

"... Pfff. You can't make me."

They ended up deciding with Rock, Paper, Scissors. Best of three.

Jay lost, so he - begrudgingly - ventured back inside to retrieve the lollies from the freezer.

The Bounty was a fantastic keeper of heat. Great in the winter, awful in the summer.

While he was inside, he grabbed a bottle of 80 spf suncream from the bathroom and also carried out an umbrella to shield himself from the sun.

When he walked outside again, his friends all cheered sarcastically.

"Woah, you're really going all out, huh?" Lloyd commented, joyfully grabbing a lolly from the box.

"I'm pale and ginger, Lloyd, I burn about as easily as anything Cole tries to cook." Jay teased, plastering sun cream over every exposed section of his skin.

"Hey! My cooking isn't that bad!"

Everybody turned to glare at Cole, remembering the revolting macaroni cheese he had attempted last time he cooked.

"... ok, ok, I could do with some improvement."

"... Christ Jay, you even brought out an umbrella?" Kai chuckled, lifting up his sunglasses to see better.

"DIBS!" Nya yelled, rushing over to him and sliding under the umbrella next to him, relishing its cool shade.

"Hey Nya! No fair!"

"Jay's my boyfriend, maybe you'll get half the umbrella if you start dating him!" She smiled teasingly.

As the day went on, more and more shirts came off. Even Zane had to slip his off, since even his inbuilt ventilation system couldn't combat all the heat.

At one point, Nya rushed inside, and came back out wearing a very pretty red and gold bikini top and a matching skirt. Jay started plastering more suncream on his face to hide the massive blush that arose. He almost couldn't believe how attractive she was.

But... the real problem with shirts was that... Jay couldn't take his off, and only he knew why.

He was absolutely boiling, wearing both a binder and a t-shirt in the sweltering weather, even underneath the umbrella. He was fanning himself with the empty ice-lollies box.

"Jay, you're sweating out a swimming pool, just take your shirt off." Lloyd suggested. It was nothing malicious, but the statement gave Jay copious amounts of anxiety in an instant.

"... I don't know... I really don't want to get sunburnt."

"You have an umbrella and spf 80 suncream, you'll be fine." Cole said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

Jay bit his lip and refused to let himself panic.

"Funny. I don't see you saying that to Nya."

Cole was quiet for a second before getting flustered.

"B-But... that's because... she has... well... you know."

He started waving his hands in front of his chest in a circular manner.

"They're called breasts Cole, it's not a taboo." Nya rolled her eyes, though secretly a little bit amused.

Jay felt quite bad for moving the focus from him to Nya, but it did give her a chance to start up a political conversation, something she was rather passionate about.

"How come guys are allowed to show their chests but not girls huh? What's with that?"

Cole tried to think up a suitable argument, but was unable to.

"Like... I don't know?"

Nya was holding in laughter.

"It's centuries of misogyny! Let's say I took off my bikini right now. I guarantee all five of you would freak out and cover you eyes. But let's say I was a guy, but I had moons bigger than most girls, you wouldn't give a damn, would you? Even though they're both basically the same thing. Sacks of flesh that are low-key kinda annoying and really don't mean much."

Lloyd nodded along, agreeing very strongly.

"I read an article about that. It was from that website you suggested to me."

Nya swelled up with pride at that, ecstatic that Lloyd had actually acted on her suggestions.

All talk about Jay taking his top off was gone, which he was very thankful for, and Nya had now started ranting at the boys about feminism and how even if it didn't seem it, misogyny was still everywhere.

The afternoon went on quite pleasantly, and once evening came, none of the ninja could be bothered to cook, so they simply ordered pizza. The delivery person wasn't too happy to find out that their destination was 100 or so feet above Ninjago City, but after a lot of yelling and many phone calls, the Bounty was steered to the ground and the ninja collected their pizzas.

Despite the heatwave, Sunday had been a very enjoyable experience, and many good memories were made.

They all slept well, tired from the day's events, and before settling down to sleep - unlike the previous night - Jay remembered to take off his binder.