Anubis, Apocalypse, and A Prophecy

It's been a long, awesome road, but at some point all endings gotta begin, and ours started here.

We didn't waste any time after blowin' up that skull, and within a couple days we were back at Anubis' front door. Me and Ed debated kicking some ass right away, but those dudes we captured a while back did give us some passcodes and keycards and shit, and we wanted to try those out. Thus, we sent the Mecha-Tanka-Bot to fly into the hangar, while me and Ed slipped in through a side passage. We knew enough lingo to get in unscathed, or so we thought.

The moment me and Ed stepped inside, some officer babe stopped us and ordered that we follow her. We were led into an interrogation room, and some robot tried to grill us. We totally made it flinch, and instead of spilling the beans, the thing opened up its chest, and of all things a TV came out. Sick. Anyway, appearing on the TV was the leader of Anubis himself, Dr. Balthas Lafleur.

I wanna be as accurate as possible with this next part, otherwise it might seem like I'm totally bogus. This dude was a black, French Canadian jew, wearing clown makeup, who claimed he used to work for Cirque du Soleil.

Moving on: Dr. LaFrench told us that if we dropped our weapons, he'd tell us everything we want to know. We don't, so he does it anyway. Anubis opened the interrogation room, and we're lead to the office of some other doctor, Dr. Thaddeus Bertram. THIS dude was almost as weird as the first, he was inside some big metal (rad) machine thing (he said at some point it's called an Iron Lung, new song name!). Before we had time to make fun of this robo-cripple, he says some words, and then memories flood in.

So get this, apparently we used to work FOR Anubis, and when Stone killed us, it was on purpose. We let that douche shoot us.

Turns out Anubis has been trying to save humanity by fulfilling some prophecy, and it's a long one. For starters, the legend says the Reckoners used to be angels, until the rad lad Satan himself corrupted them for some evil shit. Must have made them too powerful though, 'cause the Reckoners turned on Satan, locking his ass up somewhere in Hell. Supposedly the reason the Reckoners came to our world was because someone or something broke the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse, or at least most of them. See, Anubis believes that the Seventh Seal is still un-fucked, and it's here on Earth in the form of some big-ass Ghost Rock (guess now we know why Stone was after that thing). Anubis thinks that boulder is the key to fixing all this gnarly chaos, according to the prophecy, if this seal is broken next to where the Devil's kept prisoner, then he'll be freed. Once the Lord of Metal is freed, he'll take his power back from the Reckoners, or so Anubis believes. Anubis spent a lot of time trying to find this Seventh Seal, they had some program where they would send awesome people with awesome powers or abilities into Hell to go look for the seal. This was back when Stone was working with Anubis, and we were one of the groups that went looking in Hell. Well, there's only one solid way to go to Hell, so the Gray Asshole shot each of us, and while we were in Hell we found out the seal was back on Earth. Anubis didn't wanna tell us too much about how they grabbed us out of Hell, but they mentioned something about the Hunting Grounds.

Lot to take in, right? I came up with a solo for Iron Lüng while I wrote all that. Anyway, once we stopped getting flashbacked, Dr. Chaddeus tells us some bad news and some good news. Bad news, the Reckoners are on their way back from overseas to come wreck shit in the states again. Apparently Junktown, the Templars, and some other big players are tired of the Combine bots wrecking everything, so they're gathering for a big fight somewhere near Denver, and the Reckoners are gonna be there for the show. Good news is, Anubis thinks this is a chance to lay a trap for the Reckoners. Turns out one of the servitors, Hellstrom, got betrayed by the Reckoners and went to Anubis looking to get some payback. Hellstrom's got some sort of tech that can create a portal between worlds, and he says he knows of some planet called Banshee, supposedly the planet is alive, and can drain the power of the Reckoners. This portal of Hellstrom's cuts through the Hunting Grounds, and Anubis thinks it's possible to go halfway through the portal, divert into Hell, with the Seventh Seal, and free the Devil.

And guess who they want to send.

Also, I know it's coincidence, yet I can't help but respect that Anubis just literally told us to go to Hell.