One of those schools was the University of Tulsa, and after his time as a small-time criminal in southern Platinum City was halted by Black Jag, Night Bird and Metro of the Platinum City Knights, Labyrinth found refuge at the school, which had been abandoned for more than 50 years. He found that the library was still filled with books, and that the digital archives just needed a little bit of electricity in order to be fully functional. For the next few years, he spent every waking moment reading and researching different methods for gaining super-powers. He did not have the right kind of mind for developing hyper-serums, however, he WAS able to decipher many of the secrets behind theoretical hyper-technology. In other words, he was able to figure out methods to naturally stimulate several of his natural anatomical functions in extreme ways.

After some time, and a plethora of experiments and procedures, along with strenuous physical training, he developed telepathy, telekinesis, hyper-strength, extreme agility, and enhanced durability. He then sought out the help of a hyper-villain known as Qatastrophe, who specializes in creating hyper-adaptive clothing and gear. They worked out a deal, and she built an exo-suit for him, which further enhanced his abilities and provided him with additional abilities, such as energy projection and limited flight.

Labyrinth then launched his revenge campaign against the Platinum City Knights. His new powers made him an extremely difficult adversary to deal with, and they clashed in numerous brutal confrontations over the next several years, as Labyrinth continued to attack and steal information from libraries and databases that would further enhance his powers. The villain was beginning to gain the upper hand in his war against the PCK, when suddenly he learned of a new source of power – an ancient collection of hyper-diamonds, each of which provided a different hyper-ability. The entire collection of hyper-diamonds had first belonged to a hero called Stratosphere, before being passed to his mother, Utopia, who served with the cosmic hero squad The Diamond Alliance.

The Diamond Alliance was eventually disbanded, and several of its members were destroyed during a battle with Carina, an incredibly powerful warrior from the Denizen Supreme warrior collective. Unfortunately, Utopia was among the heroes who fell that day – and the blast which caused her demise also caused the diamonds to be spread throughout the universe, with a number of them landing on Earth. A young teenager in the Bronx, who would grow up to become the super cop Brolic, came into possession of the strength diamond. Then, after years of making great heroic use of it, he eventually met his demise while working as a member of the Alpha Initiative during an outer space mission.

When Brolic’s body was returned to Earth, the strength diamond was removed from his chest, and taken to a containment facility at the NASA base in southern Platinum City, where it could be examined and protected. Labyrinth, however, became privy to its existence, and attacked the facility. At the time Madam Deadhead of the Sista Clique was visiting the base. She had come to get some work done on the Pink-and-Black Attack – an 18-wheeler she and her teammates use as a mobile battle station. Fortunately, she was able to confront Labyrinth and engage him.

They fought all throughout the NASA Station, with Madam Deadhead attempting to match her hyper-strength and metal-manipulation against Labyrinth’s plethora of powers. In the end the villain won out, as the hero’s attention was split between fighting him and protecting the innocent bystanders. Labyrinth escaped with the strength diamond, and made it back to his abandoned university, where he began to study the precious stone and the source of its power.

During his experiments, he found that the diamond gave off a very particular and unique energy signature. At once, Labyrinth calibrated a series of spectrometers to search the Earth for more signs of the what he was now calling “dynergy”. And boy, did he find it! Over a dozen more dynergy signatures popped up on his radars – which meant there were over a dozen more hyper-diamonds within his grasp. He immediately set out to track them down. For the next several months he traveled the world – he found a hyper-speed diamond in a cave in Mumbai; he found an invisibility hyper-diamond in the South Pacific Ocean; he found a durability diamond in a town on the outskirts of London; and he discovered a mystic hyper-diamond in Sierra Leone… just to name a few.

Despite his ever-increasing collection of powers, the road wasn’t at all easy for Labyrinth. Sure, his activities were able to fly somewhat under the radar, for at the time much of the world was attempting to deal with the the hyper-villain cabal of Edgar Lockhart, London Omega and Ramses Hondo; however, Madam Deadhead, and the rest of the Sista Clique, were on his tail constantly. He clashed with the hero squad at almost every turn, as Kharma Lucky’s ability to see a short distance into the future allowed them to keep pace with his diabolical trajectory. Furthermore, Brolic’s former super-cop partner, Ox was also pursuing him.

Eventually, a large group of heroes, including Ox, The Sista Clique, Torpedo Jones, and The Platinum City Knights, discovered his university base of operations, and launched a full-scale assault. Labyrinth, however, by this time had grown extremely powerful, and engaged the hyper-hero army head-on in what turned out to be a brutal confrontation! He was able to use his force-fields to deflect projectiles and bullets from Ox, Metro and Night Bird; his speed counteracted Torpedo’s quickness, and Girl Six’s multi-pronged attacks; his telepathy was able to match Kharma’s hyper-precognition; and the capabilities of his exo-suit were a little too much for Cybernetica’s technokinesis to circumvent. It was Ember Brook’s elemental fire attacks that eventually put the heroes in a position to survive the battle, and perhaps even capture the villain. However, Labyrinth had a contingency plan, and after several hours of fending off the do-gooders, he was able to trigger a massive explosion that pushed them back long enough for him to escape. Fortunately for Labyrinth, the battle had gone on long enough for a team of nameless-faceless minions he borrowed from friend and fellow villain, Qatastrophe, to pack all of his equipment and books, download all of his digital files, and remove them from the university, before the entire campus was blown to smithereens.

The heroes had definitely put a wrench in Labyrinth’s overall way of life, and they considered their hard-fought battle a victory. However, over the next few years Labyrinth would rebuild his base of operations at another abandoned university on the western outskirts of northern Platinum City, while continuing to track down hyper-diamonds, and develop new diabolical plans.

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