Chapter one

Bearings

Now, pay attention, it’s important. The Earth, or a version of it, was in great danger. A race of hostile aliens spent a very long time hatching a plot to enslave it. Luckily, that plan was transformed to shit by a single mum on a council estate who fought off the invasion with a kebab. There was quite a lot more to it than that, but that's the short version.

During these events that I’ve not really elaborated on at all, our hero was entangled in an entanglement ray, creating a perfect copy of her on one of the alien home world's moons.

This copy of our hero, Karen, went on to lead the rebellion uprising against the evil dictator ruling the Hobean people, setting them free. Karen saved the Earth and at the same time she set free the Hobean people, becoming their queen. So, technically they all serve her now and are not free at all, but she is far nicer to them than that last asshole was.

Karen rules the Hobean empire from the Karen Cruiser, a very big pink spaceship that says, ‘powered by fairy dust’, painted the back.

Karen shuffles her head up her super queen-sized bed, knocking the colossal number of pillows and small cushions out of the way with repetitive head-butts. There is a good ten feet of orthopaedic memory foam mattress between Karen and either side of the huge bed. Karen stands up on the mattress and wobbles over to her bedside cabinet where a big brass bell lives. Karen picks up the little bell, ringing it to summon her personal assistant, Ratdar, into her quarters. Ratdar is a Hobean, a green skinned humanoid shaped being with tentacles dangling down from the chin, jaw and back of the neck, making his head look like an octopus.

Ratdar scrambles through the electronic sliding steel doors clutching a cardboard box. Karen barks at him, “ Ratdar!?”

“I am right here, my Queen.”

“It’s too fucking far from the middle of the bed to the end, have someone build a winch, or put the bed sheets on like a conveyor system. I’ve only just woke up and I’m fucked! Have engineering made my battle knickers?”

“They made something my Queen. They pointed out to me that they only construct mechanical devices for repairing the ship. 

 They have absolutely no idea as to what bubble leggings are and they can find no technical application for them.”

“But they made my

 silver chainmail battle knickers, right? And my solid gold Ugg boots?”

“In this box, my Queen.”

Ratdar opens the box he is carrying to reveal a pair of silver metal, well, they look like a chastity belt really, quite barbaric and medieval looking. Attached to the silver metal pants dangles a long silver chainmail . Next to the battle knickers there is a pair of solid gold Ugg boots.

Karen shimmies the metal undergarments up her legs and inspects the back of her legs to see how the chainmail is hanging. Karen slides one foot that’s wearing a pink sock into one of the solid gold Ugg boots and a foot adored in a blue sock into the other .

Stood legs akimbo, Karen smiles while knocking on the front of the metal battle knickers, “Go on Ratdar, give it your best shot!”

“Sorry, my Queen?”

“You have my permission and my blessing to attack my battle knickers.”

“I am not sure that I want to, my Queen.”

“Oh, don’t be so soft! You can’t hurt me, come on! Give it your best shot, right in the erotic oyster. That’s an order!”

Ratdar reluctantly kicks Karen in the battle knickers. Karen just smiles at Ratdar. Karen’s smile deteriorates into a slight wince, then a look of utter horror engulfs her face as she screams, “FUCK ME IT'S NIPPING!”

“What’s nipping my Queen?”

“The chainmail! It’s got me!”

Karen starts to tentatively pick at the chainmail that has bitten down on the inside of her thighs. Ratdar kneels down and grabs the bottom of the chainmail, “Shall I yank you free, my Queen?”

“Shall you fuck! Go get some tweezers! Open the links!”

Ratdar retrieves some tweezers from the bed side table, but as he's tackling the first link trying to free the reddened swelling of  

flesh in its grasp, the metal flap at the front of the battle knickers (whose purpose is well, I think we all know what the purpose of the flap is) violently springs open smashing Ratdar in the face, knocking him out cold. The blow from Ratdar's kick must have weakened the latch.

Karen stands legs apart buckling at the knees, she raises her hands to the ceiling and screams. “No! Help! Someone help me! I can’t get to the tweezers, these fucking boots are too heavy!”

So, that’s Karen, but there’s another two compadres to these proceedings on another version of Earth, in a separate reality. The human race were abducted by alien blobs who intended on eating them all, along with everything else on what they claimed was their farm planet. A man called Bob Dent and an alien blob that Bob named Fred secured advanced life status for mankind, saving them all from becoming half time burgers at an interstellar something or other; who can remember? Anyway! This means Karen, Bob and Fred all have something in common. They all saved the Earth, or their version of the Earth, from certain destruction. This is important because the two attacks were not unrelated, although they happened in two separate realities. Bob, Fred and Karen are part of a small group of people who stopped an apocalypse on Earth.

You see, all versions of Earth, in every possible reality, in all of existence came under attack at the same time. The driving force behind all of these attacks is a creature called Khaos. Khaos used to be human but he transcended his reality with experiments that went wrong ultimately making him into a 'thing' a thing that could exist in all realities and all possibilities all at once.

Although he possesses this omnipotent ability, what he really craves 

 is the power to destroy something in every reality, a power he will obtain if he succeeds in destroying every version of Earth, in every reality.

Khaos almost did this but just a handful of Earths slipped his grasp, saved by this small band of Apocalypse Blockers. Now he is coming for them all and if he destroys them as well as the few versions of Earth that they saved, then nothing can stop him from destroying everything and everyone in every universe, in every reality, in all of time.

As all of the Apocalypse Blockers must be together to stand any chance of stopping Khaos, the leader of this merry band of heroes, Rick Toenail, sent Bob and Fred into another reality, through space and time. Their mission, which they have no choice but to accept, is to find the other 

Blocker before Khaos finds them.

Flying through space in their ship, The Olive Rudge, Bob sits holding the pilot stick while Fred is looking at a screen. Bob asks Fred, “What does that thing say?”

“I don’t know what it is Bob, I am just looking at it for something to do. Is the ship not on autopilot?”

“It is Fred, yeah. I am just holding the stick to look professional; you wouldn’t actually fly a spaceship through deep space like this though, would you?”

“No, you would not Bob, not unless you were a fucking idiot. Shall we go and sit in the 'wait in here until we get there' room?”

Bob lets go of the stick and stands up, “Yeah come on, Botty downloaded every Marvel film right up to 2145 onto the ship entertainment hard drive. Iron man turns into genders I've still

 never encountered.”

Fred follows Bob, “You not fancy some old school horror films Bob? You know The Blob is based on a true story, my uncle knew him!”

“Your uncle knew who?”

“He did not have a name, everyone just called him 'that weird fucker who keeps growing'. My uncle worked with him on the bins but he got sacked for absorbing lawn mowers. Do you think this Blocker will be another human, or maybe something a bit more interesting?”

“I would imagine it's another human if they saved the Earth Bob. I suppose it could be a dog, or a monkey. Both have been known to travel in space.”

“I'm not

 sure I like being the only non-humanoid Blocker Bob. I am becoming self-conscious of my cultural differences.”

“What cultural differences?.”

“Being a transparent gelatinous blob is the main one, but I noticed I'm the

 only one who likes fried chicken.”

“I like fried chicken.”

“No, you don’t, you said it gives you the shits!”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

“You like having the shits Bob?”

“Well, no. Having the shits is an unpleasant consequence of eating fried chicken, but it's not the fried chicken’s fault.”

“I am pretty sure that it is Bob.”

“Well, yeah, but my point is, I don’t have bigotry opinions of fried chicken and hold no prejudice against it for giving me the shits. These things happen Fred. I probably have a fried chicken intolerance, but I am in no way intolerant. You see?”

“I am not sure that I do. Fried chicken aside, I still feel a bit different to everyone else and it has made me a bit uncomfortable Bob.”

“Well, you are a very sensitive blob Fred. You should try caring less, I don’t care about many things and it's only ever enhanced my life experiences. There’s very little in life that is as satisfying as telling people that you really don’t give a shit about their problems.”

“I see. Are you saying that you don’t give a shit about my problem Bob?”

“In a way... yes.”