The superhero Kevin Jason, or Bolt, as he was more commonly known, had faced countless enemies in the past. From street-level purse thieves all the way to god-like entities capable of destroying the entire multiverse, Bolt could quite honestly say he had seen it all in his superhero career.

  But one thing Bolt hadn’t seen before?

  His universe slowly vanishing before his sight … and the mad woman responsible for it cackling about it to his face.

  Earlier, Bolt had received a call of a young woman—presumably a super, though one he had never heard of before and who didn’t appear to be a known superhero or supervillain—having a mental breakdown in the First National Bank of Silvers and going on a rampage. As Bolt had been the nearest active agent of the Neohero Alliance, the world’s largest superhero organization, he had answered the call promptly.

  Bolt had kept his expectations low. The report had been vague, merely describing the young woman’s rampage as ‘bloody,’ but Bolt knew from experience that most eye-witness reports varied in accuracy and detail.

  So when Bolt entered the First National Bank of Silvers, he expected to see building damage, such as destroyed walls or ripped floor tiles, maybe some injured or unconscious civilians … or even a few dead bodies.

  Bolt had seen a lot worse, so it took a lot to shake him.

  Which was why Bolt was shaken when he stepped into the Bank … and saw nothing.

  Well, not quite nothing. Only half nothing.

  Bolt had been to the First National Bank of Silvers many times over the years. It was where he did most of his banking, seeing as he lived in Silvers, Texas with his family. He knew the bank tellers who worked there, who had known his parents before him, who had also done their banking there. He knew the general layout of the building, including where they kept cash and other valuables. He had foiled more than a few bank robberies here over the years, so he always got excellent treatment from the staff of the bank. When his kids were little, they would sometimes even give them candy or other treats whenever they stopped by with Bolt or his wife, fellow superhero Blizzard.

  Bolt had a lot of fond memories associated with this particular bank.

  And, indeed, the lobby of First National Bank of Silvers looked normal enough. An ATM stood off to the left, next to a row of bank teller booths, while to his right were the offices of the investment banker, bank CEO, and other important individuals who worked for the bank. The center of the lobby had a few chairs and a sofa, along with a coffee table covered in dated magazines for patrons to read while they waited to speak with a banker or deposit money into their account. The bank smelled like fresh roses, thanks in part to the flowers sitting on the coffee table next to the stack of magazines. The cool air-conditioned air was a refreshing change of pace from the hot Texas summer air outside, which Bolt appreciated, as his black-and-red costume could sometimes get quite warm.

  But about halfway past the lobby, the bank just … ended.

  The vault, the doors to the bathrooms, the doors to the employee break rooms … they were just gone. A blank white wall had replaced them completely.

  And it was truly blank, as it had no features or anything else that Bolt could see.

  More disturbing than that, however, was the sight of the people who had been seemingly caught in whatever had created the blank wall of nothingness.

  Two people lay on the floor of the bank. One was an elderly black woman who he did not recognize, missing the entire lower half of her body, though she was not bleeding and did not appear to be dead. Where her legs had presumably touched the nothingness, they had simply … vanished.

  The other person, however, Bolt recognized as George Oliver, one of the bank tellers. Like the woman, he lay on the floor near the nothingness, though he lay on his back perpendicular to Bolt, so he seemed to still have his legs. He was also still breathing, his chest rising and falling with every breath.

  There was no one else in the lobby other than those two, but Bolt wasn’t surprised. The report had indicated that most of the bank’s workers and customers had already evacuated after the young woman’s outburst. That only George and the black woman were still here merely validated the report, although Bolt didn’t like how still they were.

  Regardless, Bolt rushed over to George and, kneeling beside him, said, “George, it’s Bolt. Are you—Oh my God.”

  George had been split cleanly in half down the middle. At least, that was what he looked like. It was as if someone had used a sword to cut George in half, starting from the top of his head and going all the way down to his groin.

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  But like with the legless lady, there was no blood or exposed organs and George, incredibly, still seemed to be alive.

  George’s eyes—well, his one eye on the half of his face that hadn’t seemingly been erased—flickered open, staring up at Bolt through the half of his glasses that was still intact. His youthful features were stuck in a dazed expression. “Mr. Jason? Is that you …?”

  Bolt nodded. “Yes, it’s me, George. What happened to you? How do you feel? Can you feel anything?”

  George’s eye widened in horror. “I feel … nothing, Mr. Jason. No pain, no joy … nothing.” His single eye fixed on Bolt unnervingly. “Kill me, Mr. Jason. I can’t live like this. No one can live like this.”

  The utter despair in George’s voice shook even Bolt, who had seen plenty of awful things in his life. This nearly took the cake.

  Even so, Bolt rested a reassuring hand on George’s shoulder. His voice was steady. “It’ll be okay, George. I don’t know what happened to you or who did this, but I am sure we can get you back to normal somehow. You and the other lady.”

  “No. You can’t.”

  A female voice, faint and mad, entered Bolt’s ears. It seemed to be coming from the white void before him, however, causing Bolt to raise his head to look into it.

  The faint outline of a female form slowly appeared out of the white void. It gradually gained more and more detail the closer it got to Bolt, until soon the outline turned out to be a young woman who couldn’t be older than her twenties. Probably about the same age as his adult daughter, Ashley.

  But the young woman looked strange. Scraggly gray hair curtained her snow-white skin, while she seemed to be wearing no clothes at all. But despite being naked, her body parts were totally obscured by the white void. If not for the faint outline surrounding her form and her voice, Bolt wouldn’t have even known she was female.

  Her face, however, was still visible. She had gray eyes that might have been beautiful at one point, but now they were the eyes of a mad woman, twitching slightly as if she had been staring at a screen for too long.

  Or into the void itself.

  Bolt rose slowly to his feet, allowing the red electricity inside his body to make the red lines on his black costume glow crimson. The woman had not made any threatening moves so far, but Bolt knew she had to be the one behind this mess, which meant she was definitely a threat.

  Bolt didn’t want to fight her if he didn’t have to, but deep in the pit of his stomach, he suspected that he might have to and wanted to be ready regardless. His father, the late superhero Genius, had taught him the importance of prep work when dealing with supervillains, criminals, or general threats.

  Though right now, Bolt was trying to figure out which category the mystery woman fit in.

  The mysterious woman gazed down at George. “In this universe, George is a humble bank teller; in another, he’s a famous actor beloved by millions; in yet another, a humble pie baker who is brutally murdered in the alleyway behind his struggling bakery by a sadistic serial killer; and in one more, an upstart politician seeking to bring true reformation and justice to our broken government. And each and every one of version of George Oliver is utterly, objectively meaningless, of course.”

  Bolt narrowed his eyes. It was never a good sign when a super started ranting in a vague and ominous way. That usually meant they were either crazy or dangerous.

  Or, quite often, both.

  Bolt took a deep breath. “Are you the young woman who lost control of her powers and went on a rampage? And are you responsible for hurting George and the other woman?”

  The young woman’s eyes darted to George and the woman on the ground between them. There was no compassion in them. “Hurting? How can I hurt what isn’t real?”

  Bolt blinked. “Pardon?”

  The young woman spread her arms. “This bank, these people, this city, even this very universe … none of it is real. It is an abomination, a diseased limb on the dying tree known as the multiverse.”

  Bolt balled his hands into fists. He knew what the multiverse was, of course, having gone on quite a few adventures beyond his universe in the past. He was surprised that this young woman seemed to know about it, though, as most people in his universe did not. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  The young woman glared at Bolt. “Yes, you do, Kevin Jason, also known as the superhero Bolt. You defeated the Dread God, won the Tournament of Heroes, and even helped stop the dimension-hopping criminal known as Graalix from using the Trinity Blade to take over the multiverse. You have seen countless realities where even the smallest of decisions led to drastically different outcomes. You know about that which I speak.”

  Bolt licked his lips. “So you know who I am already. Guess that means we can skip the introductions, then.”

  “I know about everything, Bolt,” said the young woman. Her eyes twitched again and she clutched her head as if she had a pounding headache. “And I must destroy it all. I must prune the branches of the multiverse. I must prune the multiverse itself. There are too many meaningless, pointless, extraneous universes. And. More. Keep. Coming. Into. Existence. All. The. Time.”

  The anger and despair in the young woman’s words unnerved Bolt. With her wide, twitchy eyes, she didn’t even seem to be looking at him, but at something only she could see. It was as though she were staring directly into the multiverse itself—and it was driving her insane.

  Bolt shook his head. “Yes, the multiverse is a huge and sprawling place, but that’s not a bad thing. Even if it were, how could you do anything about it? You’re just a normal human being like me. Personally, I think you’re just another supervillain driven mad with power—the type of person I’ve defeated more than once over my superhero career.”

  The young woman’s eyes snapped back into focus, fixing on Bolt. A truly deranged grin spread across her pale face, an expression so unsettling that Bolt felt genuine fear for the first time since stepping into the bank.

  “Who gave me the right, Bolt? Why, the Merge did, of course.”

  Bolt narrowed his eyes. “The Merge? What is that?”

  The woman tilted her head to the side, still grinning like a madwoman. “It’s the beginning of the end, naturally. The very end of everything anyone has ever known. The multiversal apocalypse. And I am its chosen Handmaiden, destined to bring it about and conclude the chaos of the multiverse itself.”