Garfield's hands maintained their fluid motion above the observation deck, chalk-bright scripts spilling from his fingers in quick, precise lines as his right hand fed certainty into the main battery and his left kept the Nightshatter's outer defenses untouched.
Without shifting his gaze from the battle below, he spoke down toward the deck and the words carried cleanly through the noise. "Polk, select a position and commit to it. Presidroid Jackson, shatter any enemy formation that gets too close."
Polk turned into the role with crisp economy, raised both hands, and sent steady streams of lightning lashing down into the sea beside the hull until the water itself became hostile ground. Any body trying to ride the surge toward the ship hit that charged band and flinched away, while a second motion brought jagged slabs of earth up through the surface in ugly, practical teeth that broke the enemy's approach and forced them into bad angles.
Jackson came out of the bridge with the delighted expression of a man who had heard the word problem and taken it as a personal invitation. "Good, I was born for a storm," he said with a wide grin, lifted a hand, and spoke with the relish of a man dropping a bill onto a table. "Anti-magic: Bank War."
Black sigil-stamps burned onto the nearest shells with brutal finality, and whatever force had been wrenching those bodies into that stubborn sheen began leaking out in thin streams, the hardening bleeding away until the next smart shots punched through in the ordinary, satisfying way armor is supposed to fail.
Farther out, a thicker arm rose with an embedded jewel-eye set into its surface, and the angle of it sharpened until Garfield became the obvious target. The warning came from above and below almost at once, enough to make Hayes move before anybody had time to discuss it.
He planted his feet, lifted his hands, and brought the spell up in one continuous motion. "Defensive Magic: My Phantom Mounts."
Four spectral horses manifested around him with old purpose in their posture, heads lowering as the first compressed orb tore across the gap. One mount took that shot head-on and dissolved into pale fragments. A second orb followed and a second horse devoured it. The third was met by the third.
The leviathan adjusted, drew two jewels into alignment, and condensed something vile and heavier. The last horse launched into that larger mass, wiped out half of it, and Garfield's left-hand work caught the rest, the Ride of Chickamauga presenting itself as a shimmering shield shaped by calculation instead of force. The remaining energy spread across it in a blazing wash, rolled down into the hull as shallow scorch-lines, and left the ship intact.
Garfield lifted his left hand higher, held the defensive script steady, and turned his attention across the deck without losing the rhythm of the guns. Both hands kept moving as the scripts continued to pour from his fingers. Three shots took out as many isopods before he opened a channel to Serenity. "Permission to mobilize multiple base model units under my command," he said.
A chuckling Harmony cut in at once. "Don't you mean the Vice-Presidroids?"
"No," Garfield answered in the same flat tone.
A small wince slipped through Harmony's voice. "Oh, jeez. I thought that would be at least a little bit funny."
"Yes," Serenity said, stepping back into the exchange before Harmony could try again. "Take whatever units you need."
Garfield acknowledged with a slight tilt of the head, switched frequencies, and sent his voice across the ship. "Founding Unit, Antebellum Unit, Gilded Unit, Interwar Unit, Cold War Unit, report for coordinated deployment under my command. Move immediately, hold for sector assignment, and prepare synchronized elemental offense."
"Wilson," he called, voice carrying over the sea. "Take Gilded Unit and hold the starboard battery line. Keep the isopods from clustering there."
Vice-Presidroid Wilson answered first, already moving, his unit peeling off behind him in practiced order.
"Johnson," Garfield said next, "Antebellum Unit goes forward and low. I want a constant crossfire into the seams whenever the hardening thins. Don't waste force on the plates themselves."
Vice-Presidroid Johnson gave a sharp nod and started issuing his own commands before his boots had fully stopped.
A different angle of chalk flashed out in Garfield's right hand, and the main battery corrected half a degree.
"Nixon. Cold War Unit takes the long view. Watch the rhythm of the limbs, predict the throws, and interrupt anything and everything."
Vice-Presidroid Nixon's reply came without hurry. "Understood."
"G. Clinton," Garfield continued, "Founding Unit stays mobile and reinforces pressure points. I want fast response, fast repositioning, and no heroics." Then his head turned a fraction. "And Burr, watch for friendly fire."
Burr placed a hand over his chest with theatrical offense. "You wound me."
"I'm trying to avoid the opposite," Garfield said, and moved on before Burr could enjoy himself.
The unit lines spread quickly after that, each cluster of Vice-Presidroids flowing into place with their own tempo. Founding moved first, lighter on their feet and quicker to shift, cutting between positions as the deck angled under them. Antebellum Unit pushed lower and closer to the rail, bracing near the forward edge where the range to the nearest shells would matter most. Gilded Unit settled into a disciplined support line near the starboard battery housings, while Cold War Unit dispersed with more space between them, each one choosing a lane that gave a better angle on the creature's timing rather than its size.
Garfield watched the pattern form and adjusted twice with small motions of the wrist. "On my mark," he said.
The monster's tentacles tightened formation again, that ugly sheen creeping over the nearest bodies as they tried to turn themselves into armor too stubborn for normal punishment. Garfield saw it, so did the units.
"Now."
The first answer came from Gilded Unit. Wilson dropped one hand and drove the other forward, and a roiling plume of fire screamed across the water, broad at first, then narrowing as the others joined him and braided their streams together. Orange-white heat washed over the nearest shells in a continuous blast, not trying to pierce, only to cook, soften, and force stress into the outer layers.
Antebellum Unit followed half a beat later. Johnson's group raised both hands and answered the fire with pressure, great twisting surges of water slamming in from an oblique angle, each impact hitting right after the heat and hammering the same weakened points. Steam burst upward in shrieking clouds. The shells took the alternating punishment badly, hot and then crushed, softened and then shocked, until the hardening stopped looking like protection and started looking like something being torn loose from within.
Cold War Unit, led by Vice-Presidroid Nixon, held them a breath longer, watched two limbs begin to align for another throw, then cut his hand sharply to the side. Lances of compressed magic force and narrow lines of lightning hit the joints instead of the shells, spoiling the timing, breaking the coordination, making one arm recoil into the path of another. The giant body still had strength to spare, but its rhythm lost coherence for a precious second.
Founding Unit hit where the openings appeared. Vice-Presidroid G. Clinton drove his unit forward in quick bursts, one volley of fire low, one burst of wind to throw spray out of the way, then a sharp crack of stone and ice where exposed seams showed themselves through the steam. They were not trying to overpower the creature. They were making every new wound easier for the next group to find.
Out across the water, the combined assault began to take on a method that the monster could feel. Flames softened, water hammered, and force disrupted before precision followed. The units synchronized their magic in cycling layers, each group setting up the next, until even the monstrous outer bodies spent more energy enduring than advancing
Garfield watched it all happen, corrected the timing of the main battery with two brisk motions, and fed the ship's guns into the same rhythm. "That's it," he said. "Keep the order, up the pressure and do not admire your work until it is dead."
Burr's voice carried back from the Founding line a second later. "I admire my work while I'm doing it."
"Then admire it in the correct direction," Garfield replied, and another shell left the Nightshatter's battery.
Harmony's voice cut through the bridge noise before anybody else could decide what the next problem mattered most was. "Under us, now!"
The sea was already swelling in the wrong place, too centered under the hull to ignore, and the order to drop charges was being carried out almost as soon as she gave it. Dark shapes disappeared into the bulge below while Harrison reached the rail in a doctor's outfit he clearly regretted having worn in the first place. He stripped it off as he moved, tossed it aside, vaulted cleanly over the edge, and landed on a hardening plate of ice that spread from his boots across the surface.
Both hands dragged low through the water while his voice came out with crisp irritation. "Arcane Arts, Cryomancy: 31 Days of Winter."
Ice surged outward in counted pulses, each arrival thickening the next, each layer locking into place fast enough to build a real platform under the ship's belly. Something struck the underside with a dull bonk.
A moment later Kaelor surfaced onto the fresh ice with the expression of a man personally offended. "A little warning would have been great," he complained with newly practiced respect.
The platform answered by exploding upward. A tentacle burst through it in a shower of ice and spray, scraped the hull in passing, and sent an ugly vibration through the Nightshatter's bones. That tremor carried all the way down into the brig, where Lady Brinevein sat with her head slightly tilted, watching the battle unfold on the monitor with cool, aristocratic disdain. Her attention stayed on the screen long enough that she only noticed Skellbro when they paused outside the cell and caught her eye.
The moment their gazes met, the unamused calm in her face tightened. "My apologies," she said with careful elegance, the words chosen fast enough to show she meant them. "I did not intend to hold your attention."
Skellbro let out a short laugh, bright with old irritation rather than surprise, and leaned just enough toward the bars to make the mockery intimate. "You always do," they whispered, their voice sharp as glass. "All those years of needing eyes on you, and you still haven't learned to look after the pieces of yourself we left behind."
Lips parted, then closed again, as Lady Brinevein held her tongue.
"Speak!" Skellbro yelled.
"T-the same could b-b-be said of you, bu-but now you have a third set of eyes on you…" the answer came with bitterness wrapped in as much grace as she could still manage.
That got Lady Brinevein another laugh, this one sharper and more entertained. "Ha! That was very good," Skellbro said, slowly turning their head away. "You finally beat me one time. Took ten thousand years, but who cares, right? Cheer!"
"Yay?" Lay Brinevein whimpered as Skellbro moved on, leaving her with the monitor, the trembling deck, and the knowledge that the exchange had gone as well as it ever could have.
Up top, Kaelor had already thrown himself back into the fight. Water spires rose around the leviathan in fast, spiraling columns that became tunnels, and he rode them with open delight, diving, reappearing, and slamming into arms and appendages with impacts big enough to look meaningful from the ship. The spray was a spectacle with every strike, and each pass showcased how perfectly he fit the environment. Despite this, the core body persisted.
On a steadily firing turret, Sorrowclaw continued to dance, hands tracing patterns only she could see while her illusion-mites poured out in swarming masses thick enough to make the water look crowded even where nothing physical stood. Tentacles scraped and snapped at them, arms collided with each other trying to clear false targets, and stray strips of flesh tore free. Sorrowclaw kept dancing, the strain showing in the tremor of her breath between lines and in the way her illusions thinned at the edges.