The day before the last MD began with glorious weather, plenty of sunshine and lots of bubble wrap.

  It promised to be even worse than the MD before: No getting through anywhere.

  “You're all ducks!” shouted Just Nakash across the GW map. This exclamation had been almost the only thing he had uttered for weeks. Constant, penetrating, incessant.

  “Fun fact!” Lipsyte shouted back, ”did you know Just Nakash used to be in RxW and got kicked with the knock-knock joke?”

  “I don't care!” yelled Just Nakash, ”you're still all ducks!”

  _____________________________

  Thunder sat in his office and stared at his whiteboard. Todo lists, urgent entries, things that couldn't be postponed, lots of important mail. And he was supposed to take care of it all. He sighed. He had slowly reached the point where his own members were getting on his nerves more than the enemy; his predecessor Mink had also had this situation in the last GW. All that was missing was for them to demand that he open a complaints office!

  There was a knock on the door, and the next moment Benexi entered the room.

  Thunder closed his eyes in agony. When Benexi stood in front of him, he already knew what was coming. “Whose rights are you representing today? Those of the cats, the donkeys or the - what else do we have - dogs? Pigs?”

  “I,” Benexi said, piqued and dignified at the same time, ”represent the rights of the employees. We already had this in the last GW, you'll remember. We demanded overtime pay, a restriction on night shifts and a maximum daily working time. None of this has happened! That's why I wanted to inform you today that I'm going to form a union.”

  Thunder gasped: “A union. I see. I suppose I should say thank you for at least informing me?”

  “That's exactly what it looks like,” Benexi explained calmly, ”and by the way, the Muslim cat actually has a complaint to make too.”

  “I knew it was about cat rights again!” cursed Thunder, ”it's always about cat rights! Every damn time!”

  “Just the Muslim cat, boss. Just that one. Otherwise it'll be about duck rights later.... But I don't want to confuse you unnecessarily.”

  Thunder already looked confused to the max.

  “So,” Benexi continued, ”the Muslim cat has been chasing elephants for the last two days. And ate them all. There are no more elephants now.”

  “And now it's demanding that special cat food again, which has to be halal? Like the last GW?”

  “No, she's asking for new elephants. Please have some delivered to the GW map. For the last few days. She'll hunt and eat them herself. No need to worry about it. And she sends you her thanks in advance.”

  __________________________________

  “Where's Thunder?” asked Evelyne in the kitchen, packing up her thousand lists, ”I've got a lot of work for him, and I get the impression he's hiding from it a bit.”

  “He was just in his office!” explained Benexi helpfully, who was just passing by outside in the hallway, ”I think you'll find him there!”

  Unfortunately, Evelyne was unlucky when she got to the office: The boss had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  “Maybe he's upstairs in his own room?” Kodaxx gave the helpful hint.

  While Lady Evelyne quickly made her way to the stairs, Thunder hurriedly closed the door to his room upstairs and turned the key. Good heavens! After Benexi, he couldn't put up with Lady Evelyne! That huge pile of paper she was dragging in alone didn't bode well. He had fled upstairs from the office as quickly as he could, but now she was coming after him. He quickly went to the window and opened it. He was on the second floor, but that wasn't a problem.

  “Thunder, are you in there?” Lady Evelyne knocked energetically on his bedroom door from outside, “I've brought the documents for your coronation ceremony! We need to discuss the program! We have to decide on the dress code and the seating arrangements. And then you still have to write the farewell letters to the other cities...”

  Thunder hooked a thin steel cable onto the sturdy metal fastening of the window frame, swung himself over the parapet and elegantly abseiled down.

  “He's running here!” he was immediately told off by the Thunder brothers, who had observed his action from the entrance hall.

  Lady Evelyne angrily tore open the upstairs hallway window: “Thunder, come back at once! You still have to write the invitations too!”

  “I can't write at all!” Thunder shouted back hastily over his shoulder as he tried to put as much distance between himself and the clan castle as quickly as possible.

  “At least you have to sign the invitation cards!” shouted Lady Evelyne angrily from the corridor window.

  “I can't sign anything either! I only ever make three crosses!”

  “That's not true at all! Come back here at once! You also have to read through the planned program...”

  “I can't read at all!”

  “Of course you can read!” raged Lady Evelyne, “you always read the book, remember? Wait, I'm coming down. That's not possible, you have certain obligations too!”

  “Exactly!” roared the Thunder brothers, hooting loudly and enthusiastically in agreement, ”he has to write invitations. He has to welcome guests. And be nice to them. And eat with thirteen kinds of cutlery!”

  “That's right,” said Lipsyte with satisfaction, ”why should the boss be better off than us? Now he's got the dragon by the neck, muhahahaha!”

  And to the sound of enthusiastic cheers, the Thunder brothers fought for the best seats by the window so as not to miss any of the fun chase outside.

  ________________________________

  A late visitor had arrived in the kitchen. She was from a smaller faction from the city of 641, and as Lady Evelyne was busy chasing Thunder to get him to write the invitation cards, set the table arrangements and go through the program with her, the visitor told her story to the other women in the kitchen.

  “I'm just telling the truth,” she began, placing a whole pile of screen shots and reports on the table, ”and I'm really glad that someone is listening to me and that some of you have helped us too. We've been under threat for weeks. The way people treat each other on the 641 is just terrible. We're subject to major restrictions on robbing and on the buildings, we're not allowed to rob the larger tiles or take part in anything. Then they tried to take the faction away from us and our members are told to leave if they don't want to burn. Anyone who stayed with us was branded a traitor. I was also immediately labeled a traitor, even though I didn't do anything. They locked us in... and then pushed us forward when the front came, we were supposed to shield them. I was always cooperative. But when we asked Insane Wayne for help, he didn't help us. None of us were allowed to touch a tile higher than lvl4, nor a police station higher than lvl4. We'd get burned if we did. Wayne came by once just to give orders, other than that he never bothered with us. So what good has my cooperation with the city's leading factions done me? - Nothing at all. Afterwards they claimed they never said or did any of this. But here's the evidence.”

  The women leaned over the visitor's reports and screenshots with interest.

  She continued: “Wayne is always threatening us. But he's afraid of you, he hides as soon as one of you shows up. We've always been told, RxW, they're rich people with no morals, they don't care about anyone, and they'll just use any account that switches from 641 to them as a resource bringer. But my experience has been very different. RxW is exactly what Synergy only pretends to be. And that's why they hate you.”

  ___________________________________

  Thunder had managed to get away from Lady Evelyne. He had made an elegant escape, lost her behind the clan castle and crept as quietly and stealthily as possible back to his office, where the faithful Thunder Boo was already waiting for him.

  “I think you've made it, brother,” he reassured him, ”she's looking for you in the garden outside. She hasn't noticed that you've come back in here yet.”

  Thunder dropped back into his chair, exhausted. He was beginning to understand Mink! Leading a faction became more and more exhausting as it progressed. And whoever had thought up this silly nonsense with the big closing event including coronation celebrations in the government building had to have all his socks wet anyway, so he wouldn't be able to find a single dry pair in his drawer.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I really need to keep these people busy,” he sighed, ”especially that one!” - he gestured outside to the still searching and shouting Evelyne.

  “And of course that one...” he added with another sigh and pointed to the closed door, behind which you could clearly hear the roaring, belching and farting of the Thunder brothers in the entrance hall.

  “Hm,” said Thunder Boo, ”maybe you could combine it? Think about it - you brought this dragon over to us so she could bully us. Now you're not so happy when she does that to you, it seems to me...” - at this point Thunder patted his forehead with his hand, and Boo continued, “but maybe she could do it to our guys out there?” He chuckled, “Those classes: Mindful Murder! Torture sensitively! Insult respectfully! And then etiquette classes - eating with a knife and fork - eating off the plate - politely greeting players from other cities - being kind to others at the closing ceremony... that could be a lot of fun.”

  Thunder looked up and grinned: “Boo, you're the best. You always have been. This idea is perfect. The guys get a governess who will bully them from morning till night with her rules of etiquette. Evelyne has a job to do. And I have my peace! I'll initiate the necessary measures immediately!”

  ________________________________

  The MD himself started even worse than the MDs before. DmenAce cleared what was clearable of the map within 15 minutes, as everything else was a single expanse of bubble wrap.

  Some therefore shifted to the city map to collect at least a few UBs, but even that became difficult. Lipsyte scoffed that this was clearly the end of the world: when the big kill event degenerated into a mere collection of UBs and thus into Pokemon Go.

  The donkey stood in front of the gate of the 652 clan castle, singing and roaring at the top of his voice: “Roses are red, my hair is grey, donkey is straight, you're all gay!”

  “I wish there was a way to cut open the enemy's bubbles with our rectangular super weapons,” complained DmenAce.

  “Oh, there used to be that option,” chuckled Fluffy, ”but then there were too many complaints about it, and it was abolished.”

  “We got past GW under the shield!” cheered Semruk1 from SY4, ”strictly speaking, I'm like Norway!”

  “I'm done with MD,” Maximilian announced early in the morning.

  “Damn, it's only just beginning!” Benexi shouted over to him.

  “They're doing all this on purpose!” growled Marzzzz, ”They want to annoy us! Or let us die of boredom, like that Renaisssance guy back then.”

  “Who is that anyway?” asked Hensolo.

  “Yeah, who's that Renaissance figure?” asked Vengeance2 as well.

  “An unimportant one!” shouted Tommy, ” let's look at the important ones: Maximilian saw that the ducks were destroying all the famous charlatans and decided to react, but it didn't work!”

  “What ducks?” roared back from the clan castle of 641.

  “Those ducks!” Just Nakash interjected, ”they're all ducks!”

  “Come on then,” giggled Lenebell, ”if we're all ducks, they'll get the ducks. I renamed our city Quacksylvania. Has everyone moved?”

  “I don't fit into the costume!” whined Kodaxx, ”I've lost weight, but the costume is still too tight!”

  “I cut it open at the back,” explained Krypt, ”it's enough for them to see from the front that I'm a duck.”

  “And then they can see your bare ass from the back, or what?” mocked Dimented.

  “I didn't even put on the costume,” jeered Underground Zero, ”but I've got a huge bag of plastic ducks with me! And now let's finish them off!”

  And then the bunch of Thunder Brothers, led by Lenebell, took off in the direction of City 641 - some in duck costumes, some with duck names, some with duck PFPs, and the really bad fanatics had all three at the same time!

  All of Synergy sat under glass domes and felt safe.

  When the RxW horde showed up in duck costumes and the battle cries rang out, they suddenly weren't so sure they were really safe.

  “The revenge of the quacks!” shouted QuackheadDemon, 'Quackocalypse!' yelled Quackptyd, 'Quackmageddon!' laughed Lene Quack.

  And the next moment they were standing right in front of Synergy's glass domes.

  “What are they doing there?” Saint asked in horror, desperately holding his dome from the inside so that none of the enemies could lift it, ”Are they throwing rubber ducks now? What are they doing out there?”

  The Thunder brothers were indeed carrying huge bags of small yellow squeaky ducks, which they now unpacked.

  “What have they got there? What's in the tubes? - Oh, crap, they've discovered the superglue in the church that we used to stick the mission magazines to them! Damn it!” screamed Insane Wayne.

  The Synergetics watched helplessly as the Thunder brothers glued masses of squeaky ducks to their glass domes and then began to happily squeeze them. The squeaking and squealing echoed inside the glass domes and made a horrible noise. “Stop it!” the Synergetics howled desperately and covered their ears in horror. A few promptly forgot that they actually had to hold the domes from the inside, and a few bubbles burst.

  Some of the unwary were caught out after all: Grandpa Bluey was zeroed by Yüce and Saint suddenly found his UB sitting in QuackheadDemon's prison.

  “Quack, quack!” the Thunder brothers dressed as ducks happily shouted to any Synergy member they could catch, and ‘Waddle, waddle!’ to anyone they chased. It really was the duck apocalypse, there was no other way to describe it!

  Fortunately, in the evening, some sensible people came up with the idea of attacking a Synergy base to bring some seriousness to this MD - in memory of Lil Arrow, who was no longer part of this bracket, but had always characterized it with his very serious attitude to the game.

  And this is where Synergy was no slouch, showing a clear edge, not hiding and attacking again and again to reclaim the base. In fact, some members of RxW needed a big helping of raspberry cream pie afterwards, and even if RxW did win in the end, it was a great night and a dignified end to the last MD, for which Synergy received well-deserved praise in the SC.

  The only one who wasn't a bit happy was Just Nakash.

  In despair, he wrote in the SC: “You're all rats!”

  Too bad nobody cared anymore.

  __________________________________

  Much, much later, when some were already asleep and others were still partying, the door to the kitchen, which was completely in the dark, suddenly opened and Marzzzz and Evelyne crept in as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.

  “Do you think anyone has noticed anything?” asked Marzzzz after a careful look in all directions.

  “I don't think so,” Evelyne reassured him and lit a small lantern on the shelf. “We were discreet enough. They didn't even notice us sneaking off. They're all still partying.”

  Marzzzz smiled. With a quick sweep, he lifted Evelyne onto the kitchen counter in front of him. “Do you think it will be very hard for us?” he then asked seriously.

  “Tremendously hard!” she replied, trying to remain just as serious. “But it's important that we do this today. For the faction.”

  The corner of Marzzzz's mouth twitched treacherously. “It's happened so damn quickly now...”

  Evelyne managed not to make a face. “Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary actions. Think of it like a quick formation change in the building. Sometimes you need a pairing that was never meant to be. But if it's successful, it will work.”

  “And you're sure it will work?”

  “Absolutely,” smiled Evelyne, ”look: Thunder is someone who sticks to his word. Always. What he offered us a few weeks ago is practically a contract. You have to think about what he wrote back then in reverse. If we fulfill one thing - then he can't do the other. We are at the end of GW2 and are now fulfilling our side of the contract. And we both - we have to be strong now. As I told you, extraordinary situations require extraordinary actions. And today it's up to us to sacrifice ourselves for the faction.”

  “Right,” said Marzzzz, barely managing to remain serious, ”we're sacrificing ourselves for the faction today. Honorable.”

  “Absolutely honorable,” confirmed Evelyne just as seriously.

  “Tell me - is it actually forbidden to have fun when you sacrifice yourself for the faction?” murmured Marzzzz and began to kiss Evelyne gently on the neck.

  “I don't think so. There's nothing in our rules about it. No, I actually don't think it's forbidden to have fun with it.”

  “Well then - for the faction!” declared Marzzzz solemnly.

  “For the faction!” confirmed Evelyne just as solemnly.

  “You have to start,” Marzzzz then explained with a smile and took a step back. “You know I'm shy!”

  “You're not serious now, are you?” Evelyne scolded and jumped off the kitchen counter, ”You're a miserable bon vivant! You just want to lie there and do nothing! I know you!”

  “No! You completely misjudge me. My problem is that I'm practically a virgin in this matter...”

  “Yes,” Evelyne almost choked on suppressed laughter, “you of all people are a virgin, I see. You tell me that all the time and I'm supposed to believe it. All right. You wouldn't have it any other way.” In one swift movement, she lifted Marzzzz off his feet and threw him onto the kitchen table. The next moment she was on top of him.

  “But don't complain afterwards that you didn't like it! If you're going to leave all the work to me. If it gets too bad, close your eyes and think of England, er, the faction, of course.”

  And with both of them giggling happily, the unspeakable took its course on the kitchen table.

  ___________________________________________

  When Ivy entered the kitchen the next morning, she could hardly believe her eyes: The kitchen table lay collapsed on the floor. Lady Evelyne was standing at the sink with a sponge and scouring powder, busily cleaning the basin.

  “What's happened here?” asked Ivy in horror, pointing to the smashed kitchen table.

  “Oh, that... it was like that this morning when I came in.” Lady Evelyne was so busy with the sink that she barely took notice of what was happening behind her.

  Ivy glanced suspiciously over at her.

  “I'll ask Dylan to come with the toolbox and fix the table,” Lady Evelyne said innocently. “He did a great job on the kitchen door the other day. It's solid again.” She turned back to the sink.

  “Someone - I won't say who - obviously did something to this table or on this table last night,” Ivy said tepidly. “You do know we have a faction log, right?”

  “Really? No, I wasn't aware of that.” The stains in the sink seemed enormously stubborn, as enthusiastically as Evelyne scrubbed at them.

  “It's like a surveillance camera. It hangs all over the place and records everything that happens. Everything,” Ivy growled, staring at Evelyne's back.

  “Well, that's something,” said Evelyne cheerfully, ”I didn't know that before. Would you please see if you can find Dylan outside, my dear? So that the kitchen table can be repaired as quickly as possible, we need it.”

  Ivy gave her one last look with raised eyebrows and then left the kitchen.

  _____________________________________

  “Don't look now, brother,” Thunder Cock groaned, ”it's horrible. This faction log shows how far our world has come.”

  “Yeah,” Thunder Horny said somberly, ”I mean, we wanted the kitchen table thing. Everyone wanted it to finally happen. But not like this!”

  Thunder Cock closed his eyes in pain. “They did Kill trade on the kitchen table half the night. Until it collapsed. But that's not the worst of it. The worst thing is that it's not HIM throwing HER on the kitchen table, but HER throwing HIM. What happened to the good old days when men were still men and women were still women? Why do women throw men on the kitchen table nowadays? That's just perverse!”

  “That's exactly why you're both gay,” remarked the donkey, poking his head between the two of them to catch a glimpse of the faction log, ”Look on the bright side: you'll never have to deal with this problem!”

  __________________________________

  When Thunder came into his office in the morning, he immediately noticed the pink letterhead that someone had obviously slipped under the door during the night.

  Puzzled, he picked it up. Someone had attached two more pages of paper to it with a paper clip. The first was headed “The contract” and showed a post he had made in the faction chat some time ago. The second was an excerpt from the previous night's faction log. On the pink letterhead itself was written in a handwriting he was very familiar with:

  “No one gets out of here alive. Not even you. Best regards from the kitchen!”

  Thunder smiled.

  Then he took one of his many credit cards with the four sharpened sides and pinned the pink letter to the pinboard next to his desk, where he immediately covered todo lists and many other things nonchalantly.

  =============================

  The contract:

  Contract offer submitted by Thunder on 03/07/2025

  Offer accepted and countersigned on 05/04/2025 by

  Lady Evelyne

  Marzzzz

  Marzzzz and Evelyne

  (Illustrator: Gladyus from 656)