Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 19 - Making Cotton Candy. Sneeze!
Our biopunk nautical experiment turns extra bio with coughs and sneezes, unreliable gravity, punches and CUT! A clash so merry the ship sings a shanty just to keep up with the pace. BANANA PEEL!
19.1 – Pisces: Exit
Bartel wakes to purple stains and the sound of gods wrestling outside.
The entire ship shudders—Scorpio slamming Pisces again and again, trying to pin her, tear her apart.
He staggers upright, condenser-glow flickering white-hot.
He’s trapped. Spiky vines—corrupted Kraken defense systems—have coiled around his legs, his arms, holding him like a fly in a web.
He can feel Pisces’ anger through the walls. The ship isn’t steering herself—something else is.
He overcharges.
White light explodes from his condenser—raw, unfiltered, way too much—
The vines shriek, shrivel, release.
Bartel falls out from the trap and collapses, gasping.
Springs up, blasts a cell into the shape of a tube leading all the way to whatever “up” is now, and runs vertical for the surface.
Clarity crackles as he breaches and looks around—he can see the Constellation fleet locked in brutal defense, hears the low bass horn sound coming from Capricorn not far from him:
Imogen (breathless, urgent): “Arkion’s stuck inside Capricorn. Daegan’s got him trapped. Needs extraction.”
Across the water, the Constellation whalers are in full hunt-mode chaos—
ships circling tight like a pod closing on a wounded leviathan,
grapples firing, nets blooming white,
crew shouting coordinates as the eight violet-eyed boarders crash aboard like possessed harpooners gone mad with the beast’s poison.
One corvette lists hard—hull breached where a corrupted zerk bolted straight through the deck,
planks splintering, men tumbling into the drink.
Another ship’s rigging burns violet—boarder’s plasma torch carving a path to the bridge.
Screams, bolter fire, the wet thud of bodies hitting water.
Two vessels already limp, taking on water, crews abandoning to smaller boats.
The flagship Rubaiyat rides steady at the center—no direct pressure yet—
Vinu at the rail, astrolabe in hand, voice calm across the din:
“Copy. All ships: hold the circle. Non-lethals if possible—those are our people.”
Bartel (cutting in): “I’m closer. I’ve got him.”
He doesn’t wait for permission.
He holds up his hands until the orbiting balls reach them, and then they melt into his zerk.
Sharp exhale—that’s a lot of power ready to blow!
Dives off Pisces, swims hard toward Capricorn—fifty meters, magnetic pulls firing, zerks yanking him forward in desperate bursts.
Pisces stretches a leg, about to catch him, but Scorpio pulls her away once again.
Isolde/Scorpio: “Holding Pisces — go get him, Bartel. Don’t make me regret this.”
19.2 – Eysin boards Capricorn
Eysin reaches Capricorn just as it begins to pull away from Rubaiyat—
a dark shape sliding through black water like a jealous lover stealing back what’s hers.
She dives in without thinking,
lands in the contracted Entry Chamber with a wet slap of boots on living deck.
Imogen’s voice crackles through Clarity—quiet, urgent, edged with fresh pain:
“Eysin. Stop.”
Eysin freezes mid-step.
“Gen?”
“It’s not safe here.”
A pause—Imogen’s breath ragged.
“Arkion’s compromised. Violent. Something psychotic is riding him hard.”
Eysin’s stomach drops like the ship just hit a trench.
“But he said Daegan’s hurt—”
“It’s a lie.”
Imogen’s voice softens, but the steel is still there.
“I fought him. Barely got out. Whatever that is… it’s not our Arkion anymore.”
Silence stretches—
broken only by the Kraken’s low, possessive rumble.
“Find a cell in the guts,” Imogen whispers.
“Interface with the wall—make yourself small.
Hide.
Watch.
But do not engage.
Not yet.”
Eysin moves deeper—
heart hammering,
boots silent on pulsing floor.
Finds a narrow alcove between two breathing veins.
Presses her Kaestus to the living wall.
A low, curious thrum through the pocket walls—almost a question.
The bio-mesh hesitates—
Tightening, then reluctant softening when it tastes Arkion’s scent on her.
curious—
She feels a shift—recognition, reluctant acceptance.
A warm pulse against her palm, like the ship just sighed and decided not to crush her… yet.
Opens.
Creates a small, warm pocket just big enough for her.
She slips inside.
The wall seals behind her with a wet, satisfied sigh—like a secret kept.
Silence—thick, womb-like.
Then Imogen’s voice, quieter:
“We need to try to knock him out. If you have any ideas, I’m all ears, sister.”
19.3 – Arkion vs Daegan
Arkion bolts through the Heart Chamber before it can bend the walls again—
crashes through the glass membrane like paper—
dashes the narrow corridor—
and stops dead.
The Brain Chamber has swollen cathedral-huge,
barnacles glowing faint green,
neural throne pulsing center-stage like a living heart.
Daegan lounges on it—
fun size, two and a half meters of oil-slick black zerk,
gadolinium veins glowing,
purring low as he breathes.
“You’ve grown.” Burp.
“You’re small.”
They collide.
No testing.
Straight to war.
(low, rumbling through the bulkheads, call-and-response)
Heave and ho, the brother’s back,
Heave and ho, the throne goes crack!
Daegan lunges—fist like a piledriver.
Arkion slips inside, elbow to ribs—
crack like green wood splitting.
(shanty rolls on, faster)
Red and blue in the belly deep,
Heave and ho, the wife won’t sleep!
Daegan laughs, wraps an arm around Arkion’s waist,
lifts,
slams him through a wall.
They crash into a tighter chamber—
walls pulsing close,
wet, breathing.
(bulkheads thrum)
Raise the fist, drop the knee,
Heave and ho, come back to me!
The floor tilts hard—
Daegan pulling strings.
Arkion stumbles.
Daegan tackles low,
drives him into the new “floor.”
Gravity flips—
drunk architect mode.
Arkion’s back hits membrane,
sticks for a heartbeat.
(shanty swells, jealous, possessive)
One more crack, one more fall,
Heave and ho, I love you all…
Daegan’s on him—
knee to gut,
fist cocked.
Arkion catches the wrist—
red flare blooming—
twists,
flips Daegan overhead.
Daegan sails,
crashes into the ceiling-floor with a wet crunch.
He bounces up laughing—
eyes silver,
voice psychic-loud through the walls:
Wake up, brother. Snap out of it.
The shanty cuts abruptly—silence like a held breath.
Arkion snarls, charges.
Purple flaring.
Red sprite building.
Daegan meets him mid-air—
two gods colliding,
fists blurring,
chamber shaking.
Thirty seconds of perfect parity—
knee answered by elbow,
grapple reversed into throw,
every old sparring lesson turned lethal.
Daegan finds the gap first—
feints low,
drops Arkion with a hip-throw that uses the Kraken’s own tilt against him.
Arkion hits hard—
air knocked out.
Daegan mounts,
wraps massive hands around throat,
starts to squeeze—
home-field fury,
chemical storm,
Kraken purring approval through the walls.
(one last ragged line, almost tender, fading)
Heave and ho… come back to me…
Arkion’s vision tunnels—
purple flaring brighter,
red sprite sputtering.
Daegan leans in, voice low, almost tender:
“Still my house, brother.”
Arkion’s throat burns and forces a ragged cough—
red dust erupts from his mouth in a violent spray, glittering like crushed ruby and blood.
The word Arsenal flicks through Daegan’s vision with a soft tolling of the bell from Arkion’s chest—a warning.
The red particles hang for a heartbeat, then snap into shape mid-air:
a single, needle-thin crimson longsword, edges vibrating with restrained plasma heat.
It drops like judgment—
point-first—
straight through the meat of Daegan’s forearm.
Daegan’s grip convulses, opens on reflex.
Pain flash—shock more than damage.
Arkion rolls free,
comes up swinging—
red-flare uppercut through the jaw.
Daegan’s head snaps back.
Eyes roll.
Form flickers—
blue bleeding through black.
Arkion doesn’t stop.
Grabs throat,
slams him into the throne—
seat cracking,
cables sparking.
Daegan slumps—
consciousness fading,
body going limp.
The Kraken shudders—
jealous,
furious,
but protective.
Yellow vials bloom fresh from the armrests—
flow into Daegan’s veins like mother’s milk.
Wounds knit slow.
Breath steadies.
He’s down—
bad condition,
but healing.
The wife won’t let him die.
Arkion staggers back,
purple eye flaring brighter,
pulled by the new imperative:
the weapon.
Blindside.
Protect friends.
Give it to her.
He turns—
leaves the broken king on his cracked throne
and heads deeper into the guts.
19.4 – Arkion vs Bartel
Arkion staggers out of the navigator chamber—
cyanide pollen and bacteria clawing at his throat even through the old poop-pill immunity.
Or maybe it’s Alexander’s goddamn cookies finally catching up.
Either way, nausea rolls hard.
He makes it back to the Heart Chamber—
now swollen bigger than the Brain ever was,
cathedral-vast,
barnacles glowing faint green like mocking stars.
Bartel waits at the far end—
white condensers humming,
eyes steady.
“You’re not leaving this ship.”
Arkion straightens, slow.
“Burp! Kid. Don’t bother.”
Bartel doesn’t listen.
He draws a breath of power from the orbiting condensers—
white light flares.
In a flash they meet in the middle—
Bartel’s plasma needles lance out,
thousand white-hot bursts,
DDOS on Arkion’s zerk—
frying circuits,
shutting defenses one by one.
Arkion staggers.
Drops to one knee.
For one glorious second, it looks like the kid won.
Bartel grins—
relief, triumph, exhaustion.
Arkion looks up.
Purple eye flaring.
GUTTURAL GROAK.
Arkion looks like he’s about to throw up.
Then exhales:
“Ahhh… Just kidding.”
Red flare.
Full burst.
He surges—
grabs Bartel by the chest plate,
throws him through the far wall like a ragdoll.
Bartel crashes through metal, barnacles, bio-mesh—
lands hard in the next gut,
ribs screaming,
condenser connection flickering.
Arkion’s on him instantly—
hand around throat,
pinning him to the wall.
Bartel’s Kaestus lights up—
threatening to pull every blast from the spheres,
collapse it all into himself in one white-hot suicide burst.
“Don’t be stupid,” Arkion growls,
fist raised to crush helmet and skull.
Bartel’s vision tunnels—
consciousness slipping.
Then—
blop.
A soft, ridiculous bead—
marshmallow-mochi-wheat—
lands square on Arkion’s temple.
And it goes poof. Bursts into a cloud of sweet, tickling dust.
Arkion freezes.
Nose twitches.
The purple flare flickers—just for a heartbeat.
He lets Bartel drop,
turns slow toward the source—
eyes watering,
sneeze building.
19.5 – Arkion vs Eysin
“There it is,” Arkion mutters, voice flat, foreign.
He starts down the narrow gut, purple light flickering in his eye like a bad signal.
Eysin backs up from her shooting pose, hand scraping the wall for a cell that isn’t there.
Nothing.
She gasps, yells the first thing that comes:
“PINEAPPLE!”
He keeps walking.
“HELICOPTER!”
Sniffle.
Wipe nose.
“COPERNICUS!”
He pauses—one heartbeat.
Eyes water.
Purple flickers out.
“Copernicus?” Burp.
Eysin shakes her head, accompanied by nervous laughter:
“No. Definitely wasn’t Copernicus.”
Purple floods back.
Voice drops, hissing, not his:
CROAK “What are you even on about?”
She reaches the end—no cell, no escape.
Back against the wall.
She knocks on it with Blindside’s tip—
shy, desperate.
Nothing.
“BANANA PEEL!”
Alephira flares gentle gold.
A bright yellow cartoon banana peel materializes under his boot—
perfect curve,
perfect placement,
reality-bendingly absurd.
He glances down.
Kicks it aside without breaking stride.
One more step—
he’s on her,
towering,
hand closing around Blindside’s hilt.
She opens her mouth—
another safe word?
a plea?
something real?
She pops up a small hand-held mirror between them.
Arkion looks at the face that looks back.
But without his beard!
She’s imagining the most ridiculous chin on him.
Eysin laughs.
He flicks the mirror aside.
The walking stops.
She whimpers a mock-snore.
His lips form an I’m sorry.
He doesn’t wait.
Fearing it might break the spell—
or break her—
he flips the slingshot with more drama than it needed,
brings the hilt down against her helmet.
Hard enough to drop her.
Soft enough to leave her breathing.
She crumples—
out cold,
safe for now.
He stands over her a second—
purple eye flaring,
chest tight with something that might still be love
or might just be the thing riding him.
Then he turns,
Blindside in hand,
and walks toward the Heart Chamber.
The weapon.
The deep.
Protect friends.
19.6 – The Summoning
Eysin sits up, holds her head, feeling whether it’s still attached to the neck—her third ring turns into a snake for a moment and then turns into five-point golden stars, orbiting her aching head.
“Not cool, brother!” She yells back at him. “Tough love was not on the contract!”
The stars speed up and they turn into a halo—pulls Eysin back on her legs like it’s espresso-IV.
“Stop!” She yells and the room shivers—The room shivers so that seams of cubes making up this entire dimension become visible as dust vibrates off them.
Arkion looks at his hand and sees that he has been turned to cubes, too—centimeter in size. He wipes the effect off like it’s christmas decoration. He doesn’t even pay any attention to the rest of the cubes.
One cube where he is supposed to step next falls off and reveals a cube-shaped void. A machine-elf peers in and waves at him.
Arkion burps, “Get lost.”
The elf is embarrassed, and flies off with a tinsel trail.
He stops and points the Blindside towards the chamber.
Outside, Pisces—still locked in combat with Scorpio—suddenly magnetizes toward Capricorn.
The two Krakens slam together.
All the purple corruption inside Pisces—the sand, the filament, Ashera’s stolen intent—flows through the connection, races through Capricorn’s veins, and pours into the chamber where Arkion stands.
Arkion raises the Blindside high.
The weapon hums, vibrates, then fractures along invisible seams.
Unfolds.
A silent bloom of deep purple-pink mist billows outward, thick and metallic, swallowing the entire chamber, then the Heart, then spilling through Capricorn’s veins like living fog.
Visibility drops to zero.
Outside, the fleet sees only an expanding cotton-candy cloud—soft, harmless-looking, deceptively sweet.
Inside the mist, unseen:
Blindside’s core splits open like a seed.
A thin, vertical tear of raw code carves itself into the air—glowing violet glyphs in no human alphabet, scrolling upward in endless loops.
A self-extracting archive.
A portal to the collected memory.
The scraps begin to answer—ancient Eesian hull plates, drone husks, war graves from the seabed—heave upward through the water, drawn irresistibly toward the tear.
Iron filings to a magnet made of grief.
Arkion—no, the thing wearing him—speaks.
Voice layered: Martin’s sorrow, Ashera’s ancient fatigue, something older beneath both.
“É-kur-ra burrrrrp dù-a-zu
dub-sar. A wet, disgusting CROAK…. gal-zu an-ki-a
mu-zu íd-da hé-en-gál, ughhh
kur-kur-ra GURK. gurk—sá-sá…”
Eysin just stands there, hand slapped to her face, lips forming a silent what the ridiculous fuck is he actually doing?
When the next belch rolls out, she can’t hold it in anymore—she doubles over, cackling so hard she almost drops to her knees.
“300 000 mu hé-a oh my god
nam-lú-u₁₈-lu hé-em-du BELCH!
nam-tar-ra-zu hé-em-sì BELCH!”
And, of course, a BLORP!
Followed by a solid, fantastic rock-n-roll FRRRRRT.
A minuscule piece of lace a la Joisey—possibly a piece of toilet paper fluttering around Arkion’s heel, wobbles:
“Ey! You’ve done it, kid!
Da veil’s butt-naked!
Da abyss got gassed!”
Then it shimmies off into the fog muttering “What a freakin’ production…”
The tear widens.
The old Eesian scraps on the floor start drawing to it—streaming in, assembling, knitting into limbs, torso, head.
Deep, thick, purple-pink fog billows outward, swallowing the gut, the Heart Chamber, everything.
Eysin stops laughing to dash toward him—
heart hammering,
halo flaring gold.
Arkion turns.
Sees eight corridors at once.
Eight Eysins.
Eight arms bloom from his torso—
purple-glowing,
reaching.
“If you won’t stay down,” the layered voice hisses—Martin’s sorrow, Ashera’s fatigue, something ancient beneath—
“maybe you’ll convert.”
The arms lash out—
catch her seven heads in perfect, nightmarish symmetry.
Violet mist explodes.
Eysin snaps into the black cube.
The Song of Separation.
Six flawless glass walls, cold, grinding slow like millstones over forgotten dreams.
Martin kneels in the center—
hollow-eyed, broken,
the version the corruption loves most.
The thin white cord descends from no ceiling.
She pulls.
Martin’s face warps—
melts into a garish clown,
makeup bleeding,
mouth frozen in rictus grin.
Pop.
He bursts into harmless confetti—
swirling once,
dancing,
dissolving into nothing.
The wall ripples awake.
The argument begins—
not sound,
but pressure behind the eyes:
flawless,
seductive,
utterly fucking insane.
Moon, meet Earth.
Ouza’s corruption in the marrow—
malware of separation,
cruelty as survival,
love as leash.
Generation after generation mistaking pain for proof.
Every awakening buried under its own story.
Only mercy left: clean deletion.
Extinction as kindness—
end the loop,
spare the next trillion souls the dream they never chose.
A purple filament unfurls like a cosmic noose,
reaching for every star that might birth another dreamer.
Eysin watches.
Feels the icy logic settle like deep water.
Then—
laughter beside her.
Real Arkion stands there—
arms folded,
shaking his head at the universe’s worst sales pitch.
Eysin turns.
“Don’t tell me you bought that crap.”
He’s grinning—
“A thoroughly psychotic program, it keeps making me want to throw up. I tried sweet-talking her out if it, but she just won’t budge. A stubborn script,” he says, wiping a tear of laughter.
“You know you let your meatsuit clock mine?”
He nods at the wall still scrolling extinction brochures.
“Forgive me.”
“You weren’t being yourself anyway.” She softens.
“Any idea how to fix you?”
“The Kaestus,” he answers, tapping his chest.
“Pull the last grain out.
And her psychosis will lose control over us.”
The knowing flashes—
bright, shared, immediate—
through NSS and Clarity.
Everyone still fighting across the fleet feels it like sunrise in their bones.
“Alright,” she says.
“So technically… am I waking you up, or pulling you back to bed?” —
19.7 – Emergency Maintenance
Daegan wakes in the navigator chamber, groggy, bleeding, furious.
He feels it through Capricorn’s skin—something too interesting happening in the Heart Chamber.
Something that smells like extinction.
He shakes it off, snaps his neck back into place, sits on his throne like he means it.
“And for the grand finale—” He reaches into the interface.
Floods the chambers.
Water crashes in—cold, black, biblical.
Eysin and Arkion wake from the vision, choking, thrashing, grabbing for anything—
She clings to him in the sudden flood, desperate, both of them underwater now, cotton candy fog dissolving around them in pink swirls.
Arkion’s eyes are wide, violet, still fighting her—
She feels him inhale just before the water buries them, preparing to push her off—
She slams her Kaestus into his chest—full force, blue light flaring so bright it turns the flooded chamber into a lightning storm—
CLUNK! (and a faint toll)
Her Kaestus cracks.
Spiderwebs of light race across the glove, circuits frying.
He gasps. Pulls in water. Chokes—
And sneezes.
Air whooshes out in surprised bubbles.
The last purple grain ejects from his sinuses in a glittering spray.
It dissolves on contact with water—purple bleeding to pink, pink to nothing.
Gone.
Daegan reverses the flood.
Water drains—fast, sucking downward, pulling the pink cloud and the blindside-caused gravity thing with it.
Eysin and Arkion collapse on the floor, gasping, soaked, alive.
Arkion coughs up seawater and dignity.
His eyes are full blue again.
“Eysin—”
She’s clutching her broken Kaestus, grinning through the pain, dripping, exhausted.
“I can’t believe that actually worked.”
Arkion wheezes, staring at his hands like they belong to someone else.
“Your cute little throttle hurt you more than me.” He looks at her, voice cracking. “I sneezed.”
The cotton candy cloud drifts through the breach Daegan opened—no longer tethered to Arkion, free.
Like a big fluffy ball, it moves through the water, rises toward the surface, drifts to a spot somewhere between the Constellation fleet and the Sampo.
And something is building inside.
From every liberated, naked scrap of lace still fluttering over the Baltic, a single collective voice rises—drunk, fond, and ready for the finale:
Next stop: the most sophisticated kaiju battle in planet Earth’s history.
Eysin: The Giggling Curtain | Ch. 20 - CCC Eesian Garbage Collector
An hour slips by in bruised quiet.