User:Crate53/Crate 53 History

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                                             Backpack Mann Co. Supply Crate.png
                                                                                                       

Crate 53

Crate 53 is the most famous of all crates, and is thought by some to be the original crate to come into existence Its creators and whereabouts are currently unknown.

History of Crate 54

On August 21st 1855, members of Mann & Sons Munitions Concern suddenly halted a normal day of hunting for gravel when they had made an interesting discovery. Deep beneath the gravel pits in the American frontier they located what appeared to be an Aztec ruin. Workers informed Barnabas Hale, current CEO of Mann & Sons, who immediately went to investigate as there quote “could be a chance to go fisticuffs with mummies”. Hale threw the stone doors of the grand ruin open, and what he found that fateful day has been a dark part of history ever since. The ruin was a tomb, but unfortunately no mummies nor giant scorpions lay within…to Hale’s surprise, the only thing in the tomb was a old dusty wooden box.

Adorned with skulls and dried blood, it was clear that several decades of sacrifices had been made over the wooden box (or “alter” as workers on site referred to it as). After clearing the cob webs off of the box and searching for a lid, Hale found that the box, a crate of some sort, was sealed tight with an impenetrable lock. Despite Hale’s attempts to open the box through sheer strength, verbal intimidation, and drunken weeping, the box and it’s mysteries lay sealed for several decades and found new use as a beer’n steak table (a Australian coffee table) in Hale’s home.

It was not until Hale’s Son, Saxton Hale, threw what he thought was a beer’n steak table at a crowd of protesters outside of his Mann CO. Headquarters did the mystery of the crate return once again. Hale used every conceivable technology at his disposal to open the crate, but his top scientists concluded that the chain which held the crate together was forged from none other than Americaneium Steel, one of the thickest and heaviest metals in the world. The crate, which was sealed air tight, became a maddening obsession for Saxton Hale, as it was for as his grandfather before him. He had never met a foe which he could not rip open and bathe in the glorious innards of, and he vowed to find the key to open this locked crate be it with his fists or the bones of several endangered species being forced into the lock.

It was not until a visit by one Silas Mann months later for an annual inventory check did Hale uncover the literal key to his puzzle that had for so long eluded him. Mann had been pushing his new line of naming tags and keys on the market as of late, but little did he know the gold he had been smelting for his key line was made from the remnants of the Mann families’ Australium caches. After slamming the key into the lock, a chemical reaction occurred as the Australum and Americaneium came in contact and proceeded to try to destroy one another (as the nations have done in the past, in secret, for decades) leaving the metals evaporated and the crate finally unlocked.

Hale gathered his employees during their lunch break and the entirety of Mann Co. hovered around the now unlocked ancient crate. Silas by his side Hale ripped open the top of the crate, and unleashed upon this world the most terrible and horrid curse ever known to mann kind. Thunder erupted form the heavens as the wooden top creaked open, and out rushed a cloud of mysterious and ancient evil crate dust. Silias’s head was enveloped first by the black seemingly sentient fibers, and when the cloud descended back into the box it took his head with it, leaving only the Mann’s flailing body behind. As employees rushed to escape the Mann Co. Auditorium, Saxton leaped out of a window to safety hundreds of feet below, hearing only gagging and screaming behind him.

When Saxton returned to the room, what he witnessed would be locked away in top secret Mann co. file record briefcases for all eternity. The once large and empty Mann Co. Auditorium, home of coliseum like animal fighting and Australian dueling, now appeared to be an eerie forest. Trees in the shape of men with their braches reaching for windows and doors grew what appeared to be tiny crates on their branches, growing in size and eventually dropping to the floor. The floor was covered in metal chains which surrounded the crates like vines, all leading back to the original dark crate in the center of the room.

For years Hale kept what he saw a secret, closing down the wing of Mann Co. headquarters and re-staffing his empire with captured hippies and weapon enthusiasts from around the world. When he sent one of his servants to go fetch him a container for his morning steak, he was surprised when they returned with a crate. Hale threw the man out of a window and returned to the closed sector of the building to find that the coliseum was filled to the brim with now mature crates from the demonic crate trees; their chains awaiting to be locked and the former employee trees withered and dead. The original crate still loomed in the center of the room, now mysteriously re-locked.

Fortunately for Hale, the situation turned out to be surprisingly convenient. He had been looking for a safe and secure way to transport his goods for years, as running across the lands with weapons in his arms had grown quite tiresome (mentally, not physically of course). The crates were the perfect transport, with their impenetrable Americaneium locks and solid air tight wooden exteriors. Hale called his associates in TF industries and it was agreed that for every crate of Mann Co. Supplies transported one Australium key would be made to open it, leaving no crate or key left behind as evidence due to the chemical combustion of the metals in contact. Hale planned on solving his shipping and demon contagious crate problem, with TF industries gaining free arms deals for their end of the bargain.

Once in a while, it has been said that mercenaries get their hands on a crate shipment that has fallen from one of Hale’s cargo planes. Some have speculated that mercenaries will even purchase Australium from black market dealers in TF industries so they may open the crate, but reports of this remain unconfirmed.

The question remains however as to what happened to the original Aztec alter which housed the terrible curse. As the crate was opened at approximately 2:53 pm on that fateful day, and historians claim to find records of such a box dating back 5,300 years ago, Mann Co. has dubbed the original crate “Crate 53”. Some believe that the crate still sits in Mann Co. HQ, awaiting to be opened and spread its evil garden once again, periodically being opened to supply Hale with more containers. Others believe that the crate may have accidentally have been shipped and is awaiting to be opened by a poor unsuspecting fool once again. While the fate of crate 53 remains a terrifying mystery, and its entire existence questioned, the fact that the crates continue to come leads many to believe that the object exists to this very day.


see also

Mann Co Crates [1]