When Layla Tibbs returned home from school to find her mother pacing, she knew something was wrong. She had been raised by her mother, a former police officer who’d worked her hair to an early gray raising a young daughter sans husband while wearing a badge and pushing herself through law school at night; and all of this while struggling against a world that judged her on the color of her skin instead of the measure of her character. Now an A.D.A., Layla’s mother had never before shown her daughter the troubled and emotional face she was wearing that evening.

“He’s in the kitchen…waiting. You two need to talk,” her mother told her.

“Who? What?” was all her daughter could form in response.

“Your father,” Layla’s mother said bluntly, before grabbing a jacket and hurriedly walking out the door.

Layla had never met her father, had never even been told more than a simple “he left” by her mother when Layla brought up the subject. She was understandably surprised by this turn of events, and even more so when she walked into the kitchen and saw the towering figure waiting for her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but a white, Italian-looking man who made three of anybody else she’d ever met certainly didn’t figure anywhere into the equation. Turned out, he was Greek, not Italian. And not a man, either…not a mortal man, anyway.

It took a lot longer to process his story than to actually hear it told. He claimed to be Herakles. The Herakles. He also claimed to be immortal and to have actually fought crime on occasion – or “vile, base darkness,” as he called it. He had met her then-police officer mother while doing just that, and had quickly become enamored of both her striking looks, and her “fierce, warrior spirit.” He apologized for Layla having grown up without him, but claimed that his half-brother’s “machinations” had made it necessary for him to leave Layla’s pregnant mother while returning to Olympus to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, the problem wasn’t resolved, nor would it be between him and his sibling. She was known to his family now, the how of it all her father hadn’t a clue –but assumed it had to do with the abilities she had begun recently discovering, and hiding desperately from her mother and classmates. But, regardless, he could no longer leave her clueless and unprotected. His time on Earth was short, but he had brought a few things he referred to as her birthright, and a warning: “Find training, and friends. You’ll need both for what lies ahead.” When she turned around to face him, after having looked at the bag he left on the floor for her, he was gone. Looking through the bag she found armor, a shield, a wicked looking sword, and a small silver ball whose function mystified her at the time.

Soon after, The Pale Rider appeared in the city. An armored figure of spectral and monstrous demeanor, astride a demonic looking steed, The Rider immediately set to laying waste to a portion of her native downtown Chicago while calling her out to face him. The challenge was issued in an archaic form of Greek which Layla found she understood perfectly. Against her mother’s strident demands, Layla donned the armor and other gear her father had left for her and went to what she expected would be her death. Again, she was in for a surprise. When she went to confront the Pale Rider, she was joined by a number of other young meta-types equally new to the hero community: the wise-cracking Mustang, a mutant of inhuman strength and speed who seemed to only grow stronger and faster as his opponents tried to hurt him; Sideshow, a giant of a young man whose form seemed to suffer minor (and sometimes painful) changes in shape constantly; Nimbus, an energy being with a containment suit in the form of a young girl, and the personality to match; and Brainchild, a telepathic human computer with an endless reservoir of intellectual tricks and apparently little in the way or patience, self-restraint, or social skills.

Each, it seems, had been approached by a statuesque blonde woman wearing armor similar to Layla’s and warned of the calamity they faced and their part to play in it. Layla’s father, she guessed, wasn’t the only new-found relative wanting her to live to see another day.

Through determination, courage, and a substantial amount of luck, the young heroes persevered, gaining a healthy respect for each other in the process. They stayed together after their victory, quickly becoming celebrities to the people of the city, and either a boon or a headache for the local authorities, depending on the day and the person being asked.

The silver ball, as Layla later discovered, is a gate that opens to a dimension that apparently only consists of the structure and grounds of an ancient Greek mansion, where the skies are always blue and the weather always fair and temperate. Layla, or “Scimitar” as she has been dubbed by the press (after the sword she always carries), has gotten to calling it what her teammate Brainchild first named it, her “pocket Olympus.”

She has inhuman powers, cool friends, and a party pad to beat all party pads. Things can get rough sometimes, but as far as Layla is concerned . . .life is good.

Note from Editor: The Algernon Files, and all other related content is designated as Product Identity material of Blackwyrm Publishing and is used with permission.

The War of Pre-History | Atlantis | Organizations | Camelot, Gods and Metahumans | Groups and Independents | The Atomic Youth

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