The Labyrinth of Ebonridge Valley breathed.
Stone corridors shifted without warning, descending in spirals that ignored geometry. Gravity thickened in some sectors and vanished in others. Light bent unnaturally, as if afraid to travel too far ahead.
Executives moved within it like predators forced into the same hunting ground.
Not allies.
Not enemies.
Not yet.
***
Executives Deployed into the Pandora Race
Pandora Faction (All Executives)
Volt Kade
Nyssa Vale
Orin Vex
Korra Lyn
Darian Rho
Selene Myrrh
Thane Corvik
Liora Vex
Maelis Vane
Blade Faction
Ragnar Voss
Beast Faction
Garrick Fang
Syla Mourn
***
Illumination Faction
Phoros Kain
Seris Velar
***
Future Faction
Xylen Arctis
Kaelis Tron
Mendrix Sol
***
Cinder Vow Faction
Vareth
***
The Labyrinth accepted them all.
Volt Kade walked alone.
Lightning crawled faintly across his skin—not unleashed, not restrained. Just… restless.
"Everyone's circling," he muttered. "Like vultures."
A flicker of afterimages trailed him, not illusions—nervous habits.
From a fractured archway, Selene Myrrh emerged, her presence folding the air wrong. You noticed her only after she decided to be seen.
"They're avoiding us," she said calmly. "Which means they're afraid—or waiting."
Volt snorted. "Same thing."
Further back, Maelis Vane followed at a distance.
No one walked beside her.
She felt it—as always.
Nyssa Vale didn't meet her eyes. Orin Vex pretended to be busy mapping contract vectors along the wall. Even Korra Lyn, usually curious, gave Maelis a wide berth.
Maelis clenched her jaw.
They still blame me.
Her contracts—her ability—had been used by the old Pandora leader to bind the faction's fate to the Pandora Race itself. Without her, there would have been no forced loyalty. No guaranteed outcome.
Without her, many of them would be free.
Selene glanced back, eyes unreadable.
"You're falling behind."
Maelis replied softly, "I know my place."
Volt heard it.
He didn't respond.
Volt Kade slowed mid-step.
The lightning around his body stuttered—not flaring, not fading—reacting.
He stopped completely.
Selene Myrrh noticed immediately. She didn't ask why. She simply turned, eyes narrowing behind layers of obfuscation.
"You felt it," she said.
Volt didn't answer.
The air ahead felt wrong. Heavy. Dry. Like the aftermath of something already burned.
Not fire.
Cinder.
His jaw tightened.
Nyssa Vale glanced back. "Another exec?"
Volt's violet lightning snapped sharply across the floor.
"Yeah," he muttered. "And he's not subtle."
Maelis Vane stood further behind, alone as usual.
Volt took a breath.
Then another.
And then—
"I'm moving ahead."
Orin Vex frowned. "Alone?"
Volt's eyes glowed brighter. "This one's mine."
Selene studied him for a second too long.
"Don't die," she said flatly.
Volt stepped away from the group, lightning swallowing his silhouette as he vanished down a fractured corridor.
Maelis watched him go.
No one followed.
Mid-Labyrinth – Cinder Territory
Ash drifted through the corridor like snow.
The stone walls weren't burned—they were reduced. Ground down to gray remnants that still glowed faintly, as if remembering heat that no longer existed.
Vareth walked through it calmly.
His presence pressed outward, not aggressive—but oppressive. Like something that had already decided destruction was inevitable.
Cinder Dominion wasn't flame.
It was aftermath.
Matter erased past the point of recovery. Explosive ignition layered over absolute reduction.
The same power that had nearly killed Akdi.
Vareth was in a foul mood.
Due to the fact of being incapable to erase Akdi due to the space fracture.
Too many eyes on Pandora.
Too many awakeners pretending they deserved to stand here.
Then—
A spark.
Violet lightning cracked in the distance.
Vareth stopped.
"…Pandora," he muttered.
***
Volt stepped into the ash-filled chamber.
The air resisted him.
Lightning lashed outward instinctively, violet arcs burning paths through drifting cinder—but the ash didn't disperse. It simply absorbed, then reignited in dull explosions.
Volt felt it.
Strong.
His expression darkened.
"So you're Cinder Vow," he said.
Vareth turned slowly.
Their eyes met.
The Labyrinth sealed the exits.
Vareth tilted his head slightly. "Pandora's hound finally breaks formation."
Volt laughed once—sharp and humorless.
"You're standing in my way."
Vareth's cinder flared, ash spiraling upward like a storm.
"And you're all circling my patience."
The pressure spiked.
Neither man was calm.
Neither wanted to talk.
Lightning screamed.
Cinder detonated.
Volt moved first—pure aggression. Violet lightning exploded from his body, not shaped, not refined. Raw voltage tore across the chamber, shattering stone and collapsing pillars.
Vareth answered instinctively.
Cinder Dominion surged.
The lightning didn't burn the ash—
The ash burned the lightning.
The collision detonated outward, shockwaves ripping through the Labyrinth's walls.
Volt snarled, lightning claws forming as he charged straight through the explosion.
Vareth met him head-on.
Cinder-coated fists slammed into violet arcs.
The impact cracked the floor.
No words.
No strategy.
Just two enraged beasts tearing into each other.
Volt struck again—faster, harder—electro illusions splitting his form as he unleashed a storm meant to overwhelm.
Vareth roared, cinder erupting violently, turning illusions into ash mid-motion.
"Everyone wants Pandora!" Volt shouted, slamming a lightning-charged knee forward.
"Every faction thinks it's theirs!"
Vareth grabbed his arm.
Cinder flared.
"Then let them burn with it!"
The Labyrinth trembled.
Elsewhere, executives felt it.
Selene Myrrh smiled faintly from the shadows.
Maelis Vane felt her contracts tighten uneasily.
Ragnar Voss paused mid-step.
Garrick Fang grinned.
Two executors.
Two bad moods.
No restraint.
The clash only grew worse.
***
The Labyrinth did not favor anyone.
It only allowed survival.
The chamber where Volt Kade and Vareth of Cinder Vow collided was no longer a room—it was a wound carved into Ebonridge Valley itself. Stone had been reduced to powder, then to nothing. Walls existed only where the Labyrinth had not yet decided to erase them.
Violet lightning tore across the air.
Cinder bloomed in its wake.
Speed met inevitability.
***
Volt moved again.
Not stepped.
Vanished.
A thundercrack detonated where he'd been standing as his body converted fully into lightning motion. Violet arcs stitched across the chamber in fractured lines, ricocheting off broken geometry.
Vareth tracked him—not with sight, but with pressure.
The air screamed.
Volt reappeared behind him, knee already chambered—
BOOM.
Cinder Dominion detonated outward.
The space between them ceased to exist.
Volt was flung backward, skidding across the ground in a spiral of sparks, boots gouging trenches into stone before he snapped upright mid-slide.
He laughed.
Not joy.
Relief.
"So you are worth it."
Vareth didn't respond.
Ash rolled off his shoulders like a living mantle. His presence felt like the aftermath of a massacre—quiet, choking, final.
"You move fast," Vareth said at last. "Fast enough to delay dying."
Volt's eyes glowed brighter.
"I don't delay," he snapped—and disappeared again.
Velocity vs Dominion
Volt's speed escalated.
Not just faster movement—compound acceleration. Each burst fed the next, lightning stacking on lightning, velocity folding inward until the chamber filled with overlapping afterimages.
Electro-illusions split from him—six, twelve, dozens—each striking from different vectors, lightning blades, spears, raw discharges meant to overwhelm perception.
For a heartbeat—
It worked.
Vareth was struck.
Lightning tore into his side, across his back, through his shoulder. Violet arcs exploded against his body, chewing through layers of ash and cinder.
But where flesh should have burned—
Cinder consumed the damage.
The wounds sealed in smoking eruptions.
Vareth raised one hand.
The chamber collapsed inward.
Cinder Dominion asserted itself—not fire, not heat—but absolute reduction. Matter aged, decayed, and detonated all at once.
Volt barely escaped.
His body flickered—lightning shedding mass to avoid erasure—reforming meters away as the ground where he'd stood vanished entirely.
Volt panted once.
Just once.
"…Yeah," he muttered. "You hit like a guillotine."
Vareth's voice was calm.
"You mistake speed for control."
He stepped forward.
The Labyrinth recoiled.
Lethality vs Momentum
Vareth attacked.
No theatrics.
One forward motion—cinder compressed, ignited, and detonated in a directed blast meant to erase everything in front of him.
Volt moved before the explosion finished forming.
Lightning wrapped his body, snapping him sideways, upward, downward—he threaded through the blast like a needle through fire, emerging close enough that the heat singed his coat.
Volt struck.
A direct hit.
Lightning condensed into a focused spear and drove straight into Vareth's chest.
The impact cracked the chamber open.
Vareth staggered half a step.
Only half.
Cinder surged violently, exploding outward in a ring that tore flesh from lightning, ripping voltage apart into screaming arcs.
Volt was thrown again—harder this time—slamming into a wall that shattered on impact.
This time, he didn't laugh.
Blood ran from his mouth.
But his eyes—
His eyes were alive.
I'm faster, he realized.
And he knows it.
***
The shockwaves reached other sectors.
Ragnar Voss (Blade Faction) halted mid-advance, sword humming uneasily.
"Two executives," he muttered. "Neither backing down."
Garrick Fang (Beast Faction) crouched atop a fractured ledge, teeth bared in a grin.
"Good," he said. "Let them weaken each other."
Phoros Kain (Illumination) shielded his eyes as violet flashes bled through walls.
"Lightning," he murmured. "Pandora."
In a deeper sector, Kaelis Tron (Future Faction) frowned as space-time fluctuations spiked.
"This fight is destabilizing the paths," he said. "Interesting."
None intervened.
No one was foolish enough.
***
Selene Myrrh felt it clearly.
Volt was pushing himself.
Too hard.
Nyssa Vale tightened reality-threads around her fingers unconsciously.
"He's winning," she said. "He better" Orin Vex relief.
Maelis Vane stood apart.
As always.
The cinder pressure brushed her senses, and the old resentment stirred again. Vareth. Cinder Vow. Another reminder of how close Pandora had come to losing control before the race.
And how much blood it took to bind it.
Some of the executives glanced at her.
Not openly.
Never openly.
But she felt it.
***
Volt changed tactics.
Speed alone wasn't enough.
He stopped splitting into illusions.
Instead, he condensed.
Lightning tightened around his body, becoming sharper, cleaner—controlled velocity.
Vareth noticed.
"You adapt quickly," Vareth said.
Volt wiped blood from his chin.
He vanished again—but this time, the lightning didn't scatter.
It focused.
Volt reappeared above Vareth, momentum inverted, driving downward with a compressed bolt that struck like a falling star.
Vareth raised both arms—
Too slow.
The impact drove him into the ground, cinder exploding violently, Dominion flaring defensively instead of offensively for the first time.
The Labyrinth cracked beneath them.
Volt landed first.
Breathing hard.
Standing.
Vareth rose more slowly.
Ash rolled off him in thicker waves now, heavier, more volatile.
The balance had shifted.
Not decisively.
But enough.
Enough for both of them to feel it.
Volt smiled—tight, feral.
"Yeah," he said. "You hit harder."
Lightning surged again.
"But you can't catch me."
Cinder ignited brighter in response.
The fight was far from over.
And the Labyrinth—
Was no longer neutral.