Authors Note
I'd like to present my first attempt at fan fiction, having recently rediscovered Power Pack after perhaps more than twenty five years, following a Wikipedia trail all the way from the specifications of a military aircraft right through to the eponymous foursome whom I first met in the back of my younger brother's Thundercats comic. I am not, and never really was 'into' comics, least of all the superhero variety, but there was something complex and dark about the Power Pack stories that appealed to me. Back then, I admit, I also had a minor kid crush on Julie Power.
Upon meeting the Power family again, I found that since that original comic was cancelled, the canon had fragmented as a result of crossovers and re-inventions, with an older and almost unrecognisable Julie finding her own path in Los Angeles, while a much cuter and only slightly older version of the siblings began to readventure, apparently remarketed and with a new approach (and I should say a charming drawing style) and teaming up left right and center with every superhero in New York City. It's difficult to tie up all the branches neatly, at least without having all the source material to hand, but all seem to agree that Julie consider and, in some cases, attempts to turn her back on the life of a hero, to choose her own path. As perhaps befits a series which was surprisingly and refreshingly dark (and darkly funny) for one featuring children under the age of 13, I have chosen a less glamorous location and a less exciting path for an older, post-hero Julie, now a history post-graduate at University College London. She has had to struggle with two difficult and very ordinary problems that I am sure some readers can relate to - self-doubt and loneliness - and the result is a more subdued, sadder Julie, far away from family and home. I hope you will like the Julie I've imagined, and the story in which she features.
PS: One branch of the canon dealing with Julie's future life suggests that she is bisexual; I have taken pains to ensure my story neither confirms nor denies this interesting possibility.
Chapter 1: The Power of Fear
In her best dress and a pair of acceptably matching heels, she rolled fragments of bread nervously between her fingers and watched the door. The restaurant was small and elegant, lit entirely by candles which flickered on the tabletops and cast a warm glow across the brocade walls from their inset iron and glass torches; her own candle guttered a little, reflected in the smallest wine glass the house possessed, and she reflected too: this was a side of London she had never seen since she stepped off her flight seven months ago. Of course she knew it existed - or at least she had hoped it had existed, having found so much of that grey city disappointing in her brief residence - but between studying her post-grad and waitressing in order to pay for it, she had little time for meeting people, or at least that was what she told herself. At any rate, the few previous dates she had been on had involved going for pizza or to the cinema, a far cry from this exclusive part of town and this establishment, where every diner seemed to get royal treatment, and the menus didn't tell you any prices.
Feeling out of place already, even more out of place than she usually felt, she'd swapped her Convex hi-tops for the heels on the step of a building around the corner and checked her make-up in a shop window - she was out of practice, but it was okay. The table was set slightly away from the others, one of two with more elaborate chairs close to the piano. She found herself wishing someone would sit down and play it, a distraction from her unsettled emotions, but it remained silent and she felt conspicuous, the feeling she hated above all others. Crazy, she thought, to long for something, and when you experience it, find yourself right back where you started - with a complex.
She'd walked in with tolerable style, and told the impressively dressed gentleman who she was meeting. They knew who he was; they were deferential. The bottle of wine had already been chosen, and was brought to table in some splendour, beaded with condensation and bearing a faded French label; she had asked for a smaller glass. Glances were cast from the other tables, more little rolls of bread accumulated between her knife and fork, and she began to curse herself for arriving so early. And then, in the midst of her silent self-reproof, in he walked.
A familliar pang sounded softly in her stomach, a flurry of nerves and uncertainty and, perhaps, excitement. After the briefest of words with the head waiter, he was coming towards her, and she rose, steadier on her rarely-worn heels than she expected to be. Then she remembered the bread, and hurriedly brushed it away.
"Julie," said Deacon with a smile and that ever-present, unearthly calm, "you look wonderful."
Julie Power had felt the pang many times in her life, felt the sudden resonance, usually soft but on occasion sharp and hot and in more than her stomach. She'd felt it more since she left home, and with it left a big chunk of her childhood, something she'd first felt somewhere on the way to becoming an adult. Often, she'd ignored it; sometimes she'd cherished it privately; occasionally she'd acted on it; always, she was a little wary of it. She had been out of the world, out of the dimension, countless times before her sixteenth birthday, but only when closing her parents' front door behind her, sealing off her past and stepping out into the world, the ordinary world, did she realise how much she had missed, and how much less she knew about people, ordinary people, than her friends. She'd studied, but not learned about life, and certainly not learned anything much about feelings or relationships. Boys and men had been tricky subjects through high scool, college and through her illness, and now, still a stranger in London, she didn't go anywhere that she might be approached. Barring the odd bold but indifferent attempt at a pickup in a public place - all politely and a little nervously rebuffed - she had largely gone unnoticed; it was convenient and uncomplicated and, when this invitation had come, she was surprised to hear herself saying yes. She had felt the pang then, and when he now lightly brushed her hip with his hand as he planted a greeting kiss upon her cheek, she felt another - the hot, sharp kind, warming her right through in a moment.
The invitation had not come at their first meeting, a chance encounter reminiscent of the days when she used her abilities, saved this world and others, found herself in a freaky situation almost every week. Then, in the moments before things got strange - although admittedly, extremely tame in comparison to the Snark Wars - then, there had just been curiosity, and the sudden pleasurable ping of attraction in the brain. He had noticed her, too, and he'd even smiled, which never happened in London between strangers. He was past before she had time to smile back, and she walked on at the same pace, easily resisting the slight temptation to look back. Still, she smiled to herself, and that was something that didn't happen often to her in London either. She noticed a large black car moving slowly along the street towards her, but her mind was elsewhere, and she watched it absently, deciding it wasn't a threat. A dark-haired woman was driving it. She didn't even look at Julie, and it had already gone well by when her bag was suddenly tugged from her shoulder.
"Hey," she shrieked, turning and seizing the straps before the man - a short, dark man in a padded anorak - could make off with it. There were three library books inside which, if lost, would incur a penalty, ill-affordable at present, and Julie had a real contempt for petty criminals.
"Give it, bitch, and you'll be fine," said the man in a disturbingly leisurely way, clearly confident, probably drugged, certainly mildly dangerous. Julie flushed with anger, but something in her long self-training, strictly enforced since leaving New York, prevented her from pushing out her fist, blinking into forward flight and hammering her assailant into the nearest wall. Don't use your powers, urged her inner voice, that's all behind you. With a fresh rush of emotion, this time frustration, she let go the straps, had time to see the thief's triumphant leer, and then suddenly, Deacon was there again.
"Give it back," he had said, in nearly an undertone, deathly calm. The man spun, staggered slightly, looked hard at Deacon; he took in the expensive suit, the visible watch, the smell of wealth. He thought for a moment, then decided.
"Okay, mate - wallet, watch, car keys, everything you got - fuck it, cufflinks too. Come on, now. Quick."
Deacon had simply shaken his head. "Drop the bag and run," he said. He hadn't moved, but suddenly the dynamic had changed. The criminal was staring, somehow thrown off balance, and Julie suddenly felt the urge to shrink back, if not to run but at least to back away, the feeling gradually getting stronger as seconds of immobile silence reigned. She recognised it, from way back: a fear, no everyday human fear but one she had felt only a few times in her many years of using her abilities, a fear of death. A real, present fear of immediate death. Her legs failed her, and she stood rooted to the spot, petrified. The robber seemed overwhelmed too, unnerved, his face aghast. And then suddenly, as if in panic, he thrust his hand into his jacket and produced a small, tatty handgun.
"Look out!" Julie heard herself screaming, suddenly released from the spell of terror by a rush of adrenaline, and in the next second she was on top of him, her upper arm connecting powerfully with his and striking him squarely into a lamp-post. Behind her, the street and the alley from which the attacker had emerged blazed, bathed in light of every colour in the spectrum, her rainbow-coloured trail streaking up to meet her. Silently she cursed (with an unusually strong word for her) as her powerful grip forced his wrist into the air, aiming the gun harmlessly at the sky. But something was wrong. He didn't resist, and seemed to be having some kind of fit, his eyes staring, his body convulsing; he was no longer standing; she was supporting his weight. And suddenly, her stomach froze again: that dreadful fear, the sensation of finality, was back. From behind Deacon had stepped a tall woman, walking towards her and her captive, her face fixed and contemptuous. Julie cowed back, dropping the twitching body to the floor, terrified but unable to look away. The woman came closer. Julie wanted to scream and run; she found she could do neither.
With a practised twist of her wrist, the tall woman took possession of the gun and stood over the robber, pointing the muzzle straight at his face. Almost immediately, Julie's abject terror melted away, leaving only astonishment, as if her old courage, many times tested, had experienced a brief but crippling power failure. The man, too, seemed quite recovered from his convulsions, but he was still scared, genuinely and honestly scared and trembling. The repeated instruction to drop the bag and run was obeyed instantly: he ran, he gibbered, he fell and picked himself up, he ran on.
"Please," Deacon had said, recalling Julie's attention to him, "don't be in any way alarmed about what just happened. We're friends."
"I'm fine," said Julie, untruthfully, picking up her bag and adding "and thanks."
"Not at all," said Deacon, "please don't mention it. And if you won't mention that strange and terrible feeling of fear, or the gun, we won't mention that curious streaking coloured aura. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me about it?" Then, "you don't have to, but..."
"It's... it's nothing. Really, thanks again..."
"Dedika," Deacon said, and the tall woman, giving him the briefest of looks, a sort of tolerant irritation, gave Julie a sort of smile, just the hint of warmth, but with eyes still hard and cold - it made her incredibly beautiful - and flashed onto another dimensional plane. Julie had seen enough inter-dimensional phenomena to recognise one immediately, but it was strange, somehow different, but somehow not alien either. In the centre of streaking light, the woman, clearly still Dedika, was yet more imposing than she had been, hardly human at all, far too beautiful for that. She was unclothed, a kind of dark haze clinging to what would be decency in a mortal girl, armed at the waist with light and, most awestriking of all, possessing a pair of black, long-feathered wings, unmoving, sleek and unlike any bird; folded against her back, they were as tall as Dedika herself and twice as wide. Julie's wide blue eyes were wider still, and she realised her jaw had dropped.
A taxi drove past, peering out to see if the small group was a fare; deciding against it, deciding they looked a bit strange, he passed on. "Only you can see, right now" explained the being that had been Dedika. When she had spoken before her voice had been deep, commanding, with an eastern European accent; now, it was musical and terrible, like an ominous fugue played softly on a mighty cathedral organ. For a moment, Julie stared, and then it was over, Dedika's now less perfect, human body clad in black clothing again, the light extinguished, that strange feeling fleeing. Deacon was looking at her keenly, wearing that slight smile she was to become familiar with.
"So you see," said Deacon, "we are special too. I'd just like to talk to you. My name is Deacon."
Julie had been habitually reticent since college, reluctant to trust, a tendency to assume the worst. She never talked about her powers - how could she? - and had tried to forget them, but after months of loneliness, being in the company of people with powers made her feel somehow less singular. She had surprised herself, let down her guard, agreed to talk. She was still surprised at herself when she stood to receive his kiss in the restaurant, and smiled at him with something of her old natural warmth and confidence. She was beginning to feel like her old self.