Johnny Panic: We Got It From Here Part 6

Click here for previous Johnny Panic.

Life is so much easier when you don't have a family or love anyone more than yourself. I know it sounds super shitty but it is true. Before I had the love of my life Ronica and my baby Milly aka Portable Rave all I cared about was solving problems in time to go to the club or before In & Out closed and making sure my mom stayed away from tabloid racks. But as I fly below ginormous spaceships that are trying to destroy the planet and heading home I am more afraid of what my lady is gonna say and do to me than I am about the world being blown up. This sucks. On the bright side I took the full blast from a laser beam from an alien ship and all's it did was knock me out.

For six days.

I'm looking at this baby in my arms that has been fending off an alien invasion for the past few days and wonder how I'm gonna explain this to Ronica. You know what? I might not have to. Zazz would have filled her in on what he knows which thankfully is not enough. He knows about the underwater stuff and the volcano stuff but not, like, the moon stuff. The moon stuff was so cool! I wanted to see how long Milly could hold her breath and it turned out that its just as long as me which means...I don't know. We did learn that eating moon dust makes Milly fart something fierce. And the underwater stuff was just to punch tiger sharks because fuck those things, right?

I start to slow down a bit because Milly is asleep now but really. It's because I don't wanna land. I see our island down below and just hover far enough to not be seen in case anyone is outside looking up. And of course someone is. It's Ronica. She drops to her knees so I speed on down to her. She looks terrible. Her eyes are red. She looks like she has been wearing the same clothes for days. Zazz and Aimee rush out and see Milly and I and stop.

“I miss anything?” I ask. Ronica rushes up to me and snatches Milly away. Milly yawns, opens her eyes, sees Ronica, and giggles.

“What did you do?” Ronica asks me, like, in a really bad way. Like when I came home smelling like gumbo and didn't bring her any.

“I just woke up” I tell her.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do” I reply. “I just woke up. They said I was knocked out for six days. Isn't that crazy?”

“What. Did. You. Do. With. Mary?” she asks. Milly knows it is bad because she used her real name. Milly's lip starts to quiver and I reach for her only for Ronica to pull her away.

“I trained her” I say. “Right, Zazz?”

“Uh...” he says.

“Zazz told us what you did” she says. “Explosions. Lava. What else? Have you shot bullets at her?”

“Not me personally...”

“You put our baby in danger you fucking lunatic!” she screams.

“Language” I say.

“My swearing is not even kind of close to what you've done” she says.

“I'm getting her ready!” I shout.

“For what?” Ronica asks. “Millennium?”

I'm a go with your gut kinda guy and my gut told me to snatch Zazz and fly him up until he passes out...so I do. Years ago a psychic told me that my greatest enemy would be called Millennium and it was close to after Milly was first born so I freaked out when she was born having super powers. It took me a few years into being a kid to get mine. So my tests were not just to see how tough Milly was, it was also training her so that she didn't wanna turn around and, like, try to take over the world. I was raising her to be a good hero. Yeah, I kept it from her mother but I did it for all of us.

As I watch Zazz hurtling into the sky a small voice in the back of my head starts to say something. Maybe you should have told Ronica about the training with Milly. Better yet, maybe you should have asked her if it was okay to do it. Nah. This voice is being a silly voice. I need to ignore it before I forget to catch Zazz once he starts falling.

What if something had happened to Milly during “training”? What would you have told her mother? What if she could not breathe in space? Or underwater? You didn't go to those CPR classes with Ronica. You could have hurt your daughter.

“Shut up, logic!”

You've been very irresponsible lately. No just with Milly, but yourself. You sleep until you have to be called to save someone instead of looking for someone to save. Remember those days? You hated sleeping. You would jump out of bed excited to save people.

“Leave me 'lone!”

You started acting this way after Milly was born. Eat, sleep, stunt. It isn't good for you, your family, or this planet. You have wanted something to challenge you for so long and you finally get it and you lost. Instead of heading back into battle you are busy throwing your bestfriend into the sky. He's falling down now, by the way.

“Oh, shit!”