Chapter 1

/

Long ago, in the faraway land of Ancient Greece, there was a golden age of powerful gods and extraordinary heroes. Heroes like Hercules, Achilles, Perseus, Theseus, Oddyseus.

There were a lot of 'eus's

Point is, those heroes may have died long ago or have been elevated to godhood, but the age of heroes hasn't stopped. It is still going, with heroes rising every day to slay the monsters that threaten to plunge the world into darkness.

'How do I know?' You may ask.

Simple. I'm a son of Hephaestus.

That being said, I was no hero. I'm just a tinkerer, an Engineer. That means I solve problems, not problems like 'What is beauty?' because that would fall within the purview of the likes of the children of Aphrodite.

Don't ask them that question though. While it may fall under their purview, you will never get a straight answer, nor will you ever escape them.

No, I solve practical problems.

For instance, how am I gonna stop some big, mean monster from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind? The Answer? Not a sword, where one small misstep could mean having the monster eating your innards, or a bow and arrow, that may take a few shots before the monster actually dies, giving it enough time to run you through and use your intestines as a necklace. No, the answer is a gun.

And if that don't work? Use more gun.

Most of the other kids here at Camp Half-Blood don't quite get it. They think that swords and shields can save them. Bow and arrows, spears, even magically enhanced ones can only do so much. These monsters have been fighting heroes for millenia, dying and being reformed in Tartarus, just to come back and fight us again. Some of them, the smart ones at least, learn from their mistakes. They learn how to fight, how to beat the heroes, one by one, until every last demigod is dead.

The definition of Insanity is to do the same thing, over and over, while expecting different results. I'd like to amend that statement to add that Insanity is also doing the same thing over and over, expecting it to always work.

Me? I'm not crazy. I'm not insane. My name is Benjamin Conagher, and like I said, I'm an Engineer, and I solve problems.

Like how best to blow a monster to shreds.

/

My adventure started like any other…

Okay, that's a lie. Most start with an epic teacher being like, "Pathetic Child. You require assistance. Let me teach you Karate so that way you can kick your bullies ass in a national karate championship!" or maybe "Hello there. You're dad was a Jedi Knight who was secretly an evil child killer, but I won't tell you, no. I'll let you figure that out on your own. Oh yeah, by the way. That girl you kissed was your sister! Now go blow up a space station because your entire family (Barring your sister, whom you kissed) is dead."

Yeah, no. Mine started one day on our eighth grade field trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival. Something I seriously enjoyed in my past life, and something I still enjoy now.

It had started like any other Field Trip too. We were ushered onto the bus. My friend Henry and I found our way to our seats in the back of the bus, and we were off. No strange occurrences, no angry math teachers who doubled as a Fury of Hades, no crazy Gym teacher who doubled as an angry satyr, nothing.

Well, I take that back. Henry was a satyr, but he doesn't know I know, so I'm not counting that as a weird occurrence.

Henry could actually pass for human, albeit to keep his cover, he pretended to need crutches to walk. He had really curly chesnut colored hair that he wore under a dark green beanie, though some always stuck out at random spots, one strand almost always sticking out the front and in front of his face. He had dark green eyes and a thin face with a wispy goatee on his chin, making it look like he had been held back a few years, though he often shaves it to blend in better. He was wearing his usual beanie today, a pair of jeans, and a grey hoodie over a Johnny Cash T-shirt.

"Alright everyone! We'll be arriving in a few minutes. Once we get there, I want everyone to be on their best behavior. No running around, no hitting each other with swords, and no using the trebuchets to launch rocks at other students, teachers, or staff." One of the teachers sighs.

He knew me too well.

That was Mr. Lopez. He was our History teacher and the guy who helped organize this whole event. He was fairly average, with slicked back brown hair, kind brown eyes, and had a chest like a barrel. He also had a Tony Stark styled moustache and goatee, not that he knew that.

If I'm right, Iron Man won't come out for another seven years at this point. Gotta love dimensional travel with a splash of time travel.

Anyway, next to Mr. Lopez was our other Chauffeur, Ms. Nelson, our English teacher. Unlike Mr. Lopez, she was only a few inches taller than most of the students in the room, whereas Mr. Lopez had a foot on most of them. Ms. Nelson had bright blue eyes and light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had a heart shaped face and a button nose.

She was also a prankster and a cosplayer.

So she was obviously my favorite teacher.

She had actually dressed up in a knight's chest piece and wore some arm guards. She even wore a dulled sword at her waist.

Like I said, she was a cool teacher.

Mr. Lopez on the other hand was dressed as a monk.

Not as awesome.

"Dude. I wonder if they have any pizza here?" Henry asked as the driver pulls up to the front gates of the fair. Because we were a school event, we were able to get the entire festival to ourselves. Nobody but us students and the workers.

"I mean… probably. What self respecting business doesn't have pizza?" I shrug. "Would be better if they served tacos though."

"You and your tacos." He chuckles.

"You and your pizza." I shoot back with a grin as I pull out my swiss army knife and start fiddling with it as we start getting shuffled off the bus.

The day was pretty fun overall. We were able to run around like the hoodlums we were, we built trebuchets and had a contest to see who's would launch their rocks the farthest.

I won that.

And we were even able to watch a jousting tournament held between two knights!

Not Ms. Nelson. Two separate, unrelated knights.

Still cool though.

The only bad part of today was Henry. Throughout the day he had been sniffing at the air as if there was something off about it.

Which meant that something was wrong.

"Dude… That's like the twelfth time you've just randomly stopped and sniffed the air. Is everything okay?" I ask him, half jokingly as we watch the jousting. I knew what it meant, but would he tell me is the real question.

"Huh?" He distractedly glances towards me for a moment before he returns to gazing at the treeline. The clanging of lances on metal doing nothing to distract him from whatever he was currently doing. "Oh. Um, Yeah. Everything's fine. Just allergies."

"Any particular reason you're staring off into the woods? Thinking of ditching the class and meeting up with someone in there? I knew you had your eyes on Janet, but I didn't think you'd be this forward!"

"Wait, what? No. I just… Something's not right."

"What do you mean? Do you have a bug or something? Whatever it is, you know you can tell me, right? I'll understand."

It was at that moment that the trees started shaking, birds flew out of the treeline with a unified cry of alarm and the flapping of wings.

After a few moments, a boar the size of a pickup truck with red eyes, a foaming mouth that reminded me of rabies, and tusks the size of canoes burst through the treeline and stopped. Eying the students and the Jousters with rage in its eyes.

"Aah. That." I mutter with wide eyes.

"Yeah… That." Henry replies as the other students start noticing it and start pointing and gesturing towards it.

The Boar didn't take long before the sounds of clashing metal distracted it however, because it soon started charging straight at the jousters with murder in its eyes.

"That's not good…" I mutter simply as I watch the boar smash through a Concession stand and a wooden sign on the way over.

My classmates and my teachers, bless them, were smarter than they originally appeared. Realizing that there was something big, angry, and lethal charging them, they decided to move. The Jousters also started taking off with their horses. I'm not sure what the hell they saw, but it got them to move.

"We need to stop it." I nudge Henry as I glance behind us at the road sign pointing at different parts of the festival. "And I have an idea that might work."

"Wait, what?" Henry asks as he glances at me in confusion.

Pushing him away from me, I point at the boar and start talking.

"Quick confession, I know that's a monster, I know you're a satyr, and I think I have a plan." I say as I take off my backpack and search through it for a moment before finding what I was looking for, a pack of matches, and slide it into my pocket for later.

"Wait, what?" He repeats with wide eyes.

"I'll distract the boar and lead it towards you. I need you to run as fast as you can to the shish kabob stand and start undoing all of the propane connections and open all the propane tanks up. I'll lead it that direction, and when we're near, I'll light a match and throw it into the propane once I'm clear. Can you do that?"

"I- What?" He asks again in shock as he glances between me and the boar. "No. That's the Erymanthian Boar! One of Hercules's tasks was to capture it and it destroyed a town in the process. We should be running away!"

"Hercules was trying to capture it. I'm trying to kill it. Besides that, if we let it keep going, it'll kill everyone here!"

"Even if we were doing this, You should be the one setting all that up, and I'll distract it!"

"You're half fucking goat, I hate running and we're running out of time! You'll get there before I even make it half way and you should have everything set up by the time I get there. Now get! I'll be fine, just don't forget to open all the propane. If we're gonna kill this thing, we're gonna need an explosion that'll go down in the history books." I say before jumping over the rope barrier between us and the jousting ring and start running in front of the Boar.

"Hey ugly!" I get its attention, grabbing the rope barrier used to keep the two jousters in their own lanes.

Squealing in rage, it slightly adjusted its course to the thing making noise.

In this case, me.

"COME ON THEN!" I yell as I hold my ground, the wooden post holding the end of the rope in my arms as I wait.

At the last moment, I dive to the side, letting the boar charge right through the rope barrier and in the process getting it tangled up in its tusks.

Not that it slowed it down,

Slowly climbing the rope, one wooden post at a time, I quietly thank the gods that I actually tried staying in decent shape this time around.

What can I say? I never was one to exercise in my past life.

Finally reaching the Boars back, I grab the rope barrier from each side of the boars tusks and try my damndest to pull it to a stop.

Needless to say, the Boar threw me off with a quick jerk of its head.

Alright… Plan B.

I didn't have a Plan B.

Shit.

The Boar was less than pleased at my attempt to ride it, and apparently it thought I would make a good snack, because it just started charging me again.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." I gasp as I crawl to my feet and start running.

"Henry! A little help!" I yell as I run for all of my worth. The Boar quickly and easily starts catching up to me as I try anything I could to stay ahead.

Ducking into and through shops didn't work, taking sharp turns and backtracking didn't work, even trying to trip the stupid pig up didn't stop it.

On the bright side, I wasn't dead yet and the kabob stand was right in front of me. The Boar breaking through a stall behind me and tearing through a tree that happened to be in its way.

I could feel the breath of the hog on my back as I see Henry in front of me, pan flute in his mouth, playing a tune that sounded suspiciously like the Beatles on it.

Oh yeah, and he was also missing his pants. Thank god his fur covered the important bits.

"HENRY!" I yell in warning as the Boar starts biting at me. It's teeth grabbing my backpack and ripping it off of me in one smooth motion and throwing it aside. I could feel the adrenalin pumping. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears.

I'm going to die here.

Suddenly, the grass beneath me seemed to erupt into motion, wrapping around the Hog as I leap over the shish kebob stands counter and through the back of the booth. The owners are long since gone. The plywood boards acting as the walls of the stand explode outwards in vines and branches, grabbing ahold of the Boar and slowing it to a halt in the middle of the stand, even lifting it off the ground a bit.

"Dude… That is awesome." I pant, Henry doing the same after he stopped playing.

"Yeah… You should probably light the gas soon, otherwise it'll be useless."

"Oh yeah…" I say as I grab the match box from my pocket.

Lighting one of the matches, Henry and I step back a few feet before I toss it into the now destroyed kebob stand.

The explosion was deafening, leaving spots in my eyes that I blink away.

"So… We should probably be going." Henry says simply before turning away and grabbing me by my shirt, dragging me behind him.

Glancing behind us at where he was looking, I see a swarm of people heading our way, of them I could recognize some of our classmates and our two escorts, Ms. Nelson and Mr. Lopez.

"Yeah… that's probably a good idea." I nod quickly as he drags me into the forest surrounding the festival.

After a few moments of running through the forest til the sounds of the festival were left behind us, Henry makes an abrupt stop and turns to me, gesturing for me to stop.

"Two things…" He starts as he watches me carefully. "Firstly, what the fuck, dude? And Secondly, how did you know I was a satyr?"

I was kind of hoping he'd forget about that.

"Well… to answer the second question, you tend to run faster than some of the track and field kids when it's pizza day, and I once caught a glimpse of your leg and frankly, it was too hairy to be human. After that I just guessed."

"Cool… Cool… Now, Back to the first question. What in Hades was that?"

"You're gonna have to be more specifi-"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" He yells, ripping off his beanie and throwing it at the nearest tree. "You could have been killed! You almost were killed!"

"But I didn't die, and everyone else lived. Yeah there was some property damage, but overall, everyone lived! Should I have tried something a little less dangerous? Probably! Did I? No, because I didn't have the time!"

Sighing, Henry walks over to where he threw his beanie and roughly grabs it from where it landed.

"Fine. I get it. Just… I need to get you to Camp. Just try not to do something like this again? I may be your protector, but you're also my friend."

"I can't promise anything." I reply with a shrug. "But I will try."

"Thank you." He sighs before gesturing for me to follow. "Now come on. Camp is on Long Island, New York. Sooner we get going, sooner we can get there. I'll explain more on the way."

"New York? That'll be one helluva walk… Think we can stop back at my mom's place? She lets me work on some of the cars that get sent to the salvage yard and I've got one of them running pretty smoothly." I say as I follow him. We seem to be following the Renaissance Festivals border, aiming towards the parking lot.

"How well do you think your mom will react to the fact that you were just attacked by the Erymanthian Boar and that you're actually a demigod?" Henry asks with a raised eyebrow.

"I think she already knows that second part. Or at the very least, she knows there was something really weird about my dad. As for the Boar… Well… Let's not share that part."

Watching at me for a moment, he finally shrugs and nods.

"A ride couldn't hurt, It would definitely make things easier. We'll need to steal a ride to get there… We could loop around to the parking lot and steal one of the workers' cars… Yeah. I think this could work."

"Awesome. Oh yeah, by the way. My mom's scrap yard is in Magnolia, just down 1488 and just past the old Bar-B-Que Hut. It's called Conagher's Scrap and Auto."

"Got it." He says as we break through the treeline, revealing the parking lot. In the distance the sounds of sirens. "But first… A car."

Finding the closest one, just an old 85 Honda Civic, I pull out my pocket knife and pick the lock, something I had to learn when I was younger.

Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many cars get dumped in the scrap yard with locked doors and no keys in sight.

A quick hotwire later, and we were gone.

Now for the fun part…

Explaining this mess to my mom.

/

Yes, This is a Percy Jackson/Team Fortress 2 Crossover with a Self Insert Protagonist.

Yes, this is a weird and possibly insane combination.

No, I was not high or drunk when I came up with this idea.

But in all seriousness, I do hope you enjoy this idea of mine. I'd like to thank Stupid the Ork for the idea as their fic, "I (really) Am The Eggman." sort of inspired me to make this monstrosity. Their fic is on Spacebattles for sure, not sure if it's been posted elsewhere.

For those of you lost or confused. The first chapter is set about four to five years before Percy gets to Camp Half-Blood and therefore will be arriving about a year after Annabeth, Thalia, and Lukem but the brunt of this story will occur during Percy's time at camp and there will be a timeskip between his arrival at camp and Percy's. That being said the MC will have his own quests and adventures outside of Percy's and won't actually be interfering too much with the main plot of PJO, merely doing his own thing.

The main character is an SI son of Hephaestus whom I have based on the Engineer from TF2. Even going so far as to have them share a last name. The MC, Benjamin Conagher, will end up making most of the Engineer's gadgets and gizmo's in this fic, but also make some stuff of his own. He'll also find his own team of sorts through the duration of this series (Yes, I plan on making this a series of fics that span at least the Percy Jackson Books and possibly further. Haven't yet decided.)

No I have not dropped "This Power? Not Completely Awful." I've merely taken a short step back from it to let myself sort of recharge my batteries. In doing so, I came up with and wrote this. I do plan on returning to Spite and the world of Young Justice, I just want to get a few chapters of this fic done before I do so.

Anyway, for those who read all that, Kudos! For those of you who didn't. How dare you.

Hope you enjoyed and I hope you all have a great week ahead of you!

The Nameless Scribe.