A Peculiar Time in 1944 - A Millard Fanfic (Miss Peregrine's Home) #wattys2020

Chapter 90

"Go for the eyes, fellows!" {Hugh Apiston, pg 351 book 3}

"You give the word, Mr. Portman." Miss Peregrine said turning over leadership to him. Everyone could see that this was the ymbryne's way of showing she believed in him, after all, look how far he'd gotten them already. However, before he could give an order shots rang out and a piercing scream came from above.

"Emma!" Jake shouted in fear as they all looked to the sky. She was waving her limbs trying to avoid being shot at as she flailed. There was no time to reel her in and Olive lit a flame in each hand.

"Let's give them something better to shoot at." She said and Jacob nodded hopping on his only hollow.

"LET'S GO!" he shouted and they all ran from behind the wall. The wights seemed to hesitate not sure to keep charging or stop and shoot, they'd clearly never seen such behavior from ymbrynes and peculiars, usually they fled not fought. It didn't take long for the wights to make up their minds though, they stopped and leveled their guns like a firing squad and let loose a volley of bullets. Most of the shots ended up in the hollow that Jacob was leading the charge with. Then they were suddenly among the wights. Jacob's hollow did a good job of smacking guns out of the enemies hands while using its tongues to throw the soldiers around. Olive swung her hands like flaming clubs cutting through the line of wights. Bronwyn hurled more bricks and punched and pummeled any solider that got close. Hugh's lone bee, Henry had seemed to have made some friends who now swirled and dove bombed the enemy whenever they could. The ymbryne's had the same tactic as the bees did, having now turned themselves into birds they took any opening to use their beaks and claws. Miss Bunting had ripped one wights hair out and pecked his head so hard that it gave little Claire the opportunity to get close enough to bite him with her wide sharp-toothed backmouth.

Enoch and Aurora had a similar strategy, while Aurora went touching ymbrynes and peculiars and lending them health and strength Enoch went around to downed wights and did what he could to reanimate them. It was only a half finished job he was moving so fast but it was effective. Half dead bodies crawled along the ground tripping up the remaining wights making it easier for their other friends to finish them off. All the while Emma shouted advice from her bird's eye view, sometimes even blowing down tornados of air to blast the wights away from their group.

Despite their peculiar ingenuity they were still outnumbered and the wights were fighting with everything they had. At one point a wight got in a lucky shot and knocked Jake on the back of his head with the but of his gun making him fall limply onto his hollow. One of the ymbrynes was caught and flung to the ground and among the bloody chaos the wights were gaining momentum and forcing their group back. Aurora looked around desperately for a solution then caught sight of the bunker where the other drained peculiars were, an idea popped into her head and she ran for the building. She felt Millard right on her heels deflecting and pushing any wights that tried to get in her way.

"Aurora what are you doing?" he asked when they got to the door and she couldn't help but smile as she answered.

"Getting reinforcements." The momentary silence that followed made Aurora aware of Millard's hesitation, she didn't have to see his expression to know he was worried about her, but she also knew he couldn't deny that she had done it once and it hadn't killed her then.

"Be careful." He finally said, "I'll stay out here and make sure none of them get in."

She nodded in reply before dashing inside. Her first goal was Melina and the brothers Joel-Peter. Since they hadn't been fully drained it shouldn't take as long as it did for Millard, the other fortunate thing was their was still the needle and the draining sacks that hung like black IV's next to each bed. Aurora took the needle from beside Melina and started dripping her soul back into her wounds. Then she moved on to Joel-Peter then Peter-Joel. It seemed to go faster now that she was moving between three people going down the line and back again. She gave small doses of healing to each as she dripped the black liquid back into their heels and when it was all gone she wobbled on her feet from the exertion but was glad to see that Melina seemed to be waking up, her head tilting from one side to another. Aurora used the end of one bed to help lower herself to the ground where she put her head between her knees trying to keep herself from passing out. There were several more beds and several more peculiars she needed to help and she was determined to get the job done.