Saxton Hale was an unsatisfied man. By all accounts, that shouldn't be possible. His main enemies were all dead. Gray, Redmond and Blutarch Mann. Helen the Administrator (that Australium injection wiped out that woman fast). Team Fortress Classic team. Charles Darling (well, that bastard wasn't dead, but Hale dealt with him to make sure he's not a problem). He had a developing relationship with his partner Margaret. Miss Pauling and the Teufort Nine started working for him after the deaths of their former employers. His company, Mann Co, was extremely successful and became ever more profitable, in large part due to the untimely demises of some of the aforementioned competitors, but also due to gaining access to the late Gray Mann's massive robot army, boosting the company's mercenary army and industrial output. Hale was unstoppable, with all the power in his fingertips, economically, socially, and certainly physically. So why wasn't he happy? Well, dear readers, it is true that Saxton Hale likes power. He LOVES power! But, power for the sake of power eventually gets boring. Hale didn't want to be one of those boring billionaires who work from the shadows and build their companies while lying in jacuzzies. He worships the challenge in getting more powerful. Whether it is tearing down pesky Anti-Trust Laws or beating up wild animals, Hale always wanted to fight something. And for the better part of his life, that's exactly what he was doing, and he loved it, even in moments of downfall such as when his company was taken from him by a little girl. But now Hale had no challenge. He was overcoming more and more regulations every day as his company and his net worth moved to become the richest in the world, and as for the animals... well, the problem with killing endangered species is that they tend to quickly run out, and all the other ones become too weak to fight. Hale reached a point where he was not even having fun running around in nature and finding something to beat up, it was too damn easy, and he hated it. He leaned back in his chair, sighing. Perhaps it is only natural that it turned out this way. When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer. Maybe it's-

*BZZZT* "Mr. Hale? The Engineer is here to see you." Miss Pauling's voice distracted him from his musings. "Let him in." He clicked the buzzer, adjusting himself in his chair. There'll be time to think about that philosophical nonsense later. For now, he needs to see his head scientist, Dell Conagher. Hale correctly assumed that a person with 11 PhDs in hard science with several impressive inventions under his and his family's belt is much better suited inside a laboratory than a battlefield. Left to his own devices, with a generous budget and a team of fellow scientists to assist him, Conagher significantly improved Mann Co's technological sector. Along with the Medic, he proved himself one of the most valuable assets of Team Fortress. And that man just stepped forward through Hale's hall, a confident smile on his face. Dressed with the Pencil Pusher under his hardhat, Idea Tube behind his back and the Builder's Blueprints in his pouch, he certainly looked like someone with a plan. Hale smiled back and reached over his hand. "Pleasure to see you as always, Engineer." The Texan politely refused the handshake, preferring to keep his wrist unbroken for the remainder of the meeting.

"Sir, I have an incredibly ambitious plan you'd probably never support. It's expensive, it's insane, it might just not work, but its concept is so amazing, I knew I had to at least try to make ya consider it." Engineer blubbered, clearly excited as he spread his blueprints on Hale's desk.

"Excellent, I already want to refuse it and tell you to get back to work!" Hale chuckled, inspecting the intricate schematics and detailed calculations. "What am I seeing here? Some sort of strange machine?"

Engineer rubbed his hands. "It's teleporter to another dimension."

Hale raised his eyebrow. "You think you have invented interdimensional travel?"

"Yes sir, I did. Or at the very least, I'm pretty sure I did. I spent a lot of time thinking and writing this in the past few years, and I think this idea is ready to be finalized. All it takes…" Engineer gave him a paper with the details of operation and costs. "…Is your authorization for funding and building this."

"Hmph." Hale scoffed, staring at the paper with an unkind eye. "This is extremely expensive. I mean, I was willing to allocate a lot of money for grandiose projects in the past, yours were no exception, but this…" he tapped the paper. "This is far too ambitious. I am able to fund this, but it will set Mann Co's fortune back severely. I don't know if I would be able to recoup my losses if this works."

Engineer sighed, taking off his hardhat. "If this works…"

"And that's a big 'If'."

"…We would have an entirely different planet on the other side of the portal. Think about all the resources we could extract from there! Civilizations we could negotiate with! Trade deals we could form!" he made motions with his hands to symbolize the greatness being discussed. "Not to mention, the fame and glory you will receive when humanity hears what you have created." He put the hardhat back on. "With credit to my work as well, of course."

Hale bit his lip. That bastard knew how to press his buttons. "You sure know how to make a man dream, Conagher. What you're saying certainly sounds lucrative, but…" he put his hands on the table. "Can you really follow through with building this? And do you really believe this can work?"

Engineer nodded. "I ran the calculations a hundred times. I believe I found a way to harness space and time, and I can do it within a rather short time frame of a few years, provided you give me the necessary materials, funding, robots, scientists, and so on to create this." Engineer pushed the paper towards Hale again. "So, sir, do you want to become a legend?"

Hale stayed silent for a minute, thinking. "I see you already had your theories peer-reviewed." He pointed at a list of signatures.

Engineer smiled. "Damn right, I did! Astrophysics, Quantum Mechanics, I consulted with all kinds of experts in the field before bringing this idea to you. As you can see in the breakdown of their opinions, the vast majority agree that what I propose has at least some basis in reality, and their support increases dramatically once you add in the help you can grant me for this operation. If you turn to page twenty in the paper, you can also see I've asked a number of economists on the profitable opportunity that is within this-"

"Enough!" Hale raised his hand. "Fine. You got me. You sly bastard knows how to touch a capitalist's heart." He took out a golden pen and signed the paper. "Here, do as you please. These documents look legitimate enough, you have a basic deadline and budget request and all those other red tape nonsenses, and I know you are an honest man, so I won't read all of it right now. Send me it later so I can read it fully." He gave Engineer the paper back.

"Thank ya very much, sir!"

Engineer took it and Hale looked directly into his eyes. "I am being highly generous with this ambition of yours. Do not fail me."

"As god is my witness, sir, I won't. Just do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Be patient."

Hale sighed as he watched Engineer walk away. He looked him through the security camera as the Texan mumbled to himself that he can't believe it actually worked. Hale didn't believe either, but that genius caught him in a hard time when he is thirsty for an adventure. Hale leaned back again, looking at the ceiling. "'Be patient'... I'll be patient, alright."

And Hale stayed patient. After a few years of investors, shareholders, trading partners abandoning him and global media ridiculing him for wasting money on an impossible object, Dell Conagher fulfilled his end of the bargain. As Hale stepped through the doors of the massive facility and admired the machine that was built, he pat Engineer on the back. "Well, you crazy bastard, you did it!" Hale said satisfactorily. Engineer chuckled.

"Ah, it was nothing. Building this was the easy part. Now we have to make sure this darn thing works." They entered the control room together, where other scientists and the rest of Engineer's team waited.

"How are we feeling today, my dear expeditionaries?" Hale greeted his chosen explorers to the new world. Scout shrugged. "Can't we, like, send robots to do this first?" The rest of the team muttered in agreement. Engineer shook his head. "Because until we manage to stabilize our connection to the new world, robots will short circuit and die the second they pass through the gate. In general, we can't transport anything electrical through this for the time being." He sat down, starting to pull levers and click buttons. "You can thank Hale's deadline for that. At least I managed to make it so you can pass non-organic matter through with Medic's help, otherwise we would only be sent inside naked." The other scientists joined him in starting the machine, as everyone looked out of the reinforced window at the large device starting up inside the test chamber, whirling and making loud noises. After a few minutes, the air started to transform and change shape inside the machine's perimeter, swirling and constantly changing colors as it turned into a floating, magnificent blob, bending reality around it. Hale whistled, impressed, while the rest of the mercs sticked their face to the mirror and stared at the sight in awe. The scientists and Engineer however, were whispering to each other in concern and watching it worriedly. "This was supposed to take a few hours, not minutes, something ain't right."

The machine was kind enough to answer why Engineer felt like that when it started shaking and making spasming noises. Electricity jolted throughout the whole device as the blob changed shapes repeatedly in an unstable manner. "Gosh darn it!" Engineer cursed as he and the scientists fought to stop the device. Parts and bits started falling off as the machine slowly broke, and reality seemed to start sucking the room around it, the colors turning intense and flashing.

"There's no use! We have to evacuate the facility immediately before we all get spaghettified!" He yelled as alarms started sounding and everyone ran out of the room.

"NO!" Hale stopped Engineer before could leave, grabbing him by the collar and raising him to his face. "There must be a way to stop this! I haven't wasted all this time and money for nothing!"

Engineer stared at him, terrified, red lights blaring across his goggles. "T-there's an emergency lever inside the room, but you'd be insane to even try-" Hale tossed him aside as he charged through the wall to the room, breaking through it and making Engineer hang on for dear life to the room's door as the blob tried sucking everything inside it. Hale stood strong, taking slow and heavy steps towards the lever, trying to stick his feet in the ground without flying inside the black hole getting formed ahead of him. He saw the lever, it was right in front of him, but he could feel his atoms slowly breaking apart, his molecules tearing away to the blob's magnifying effect. He finally reached the lever and pulled it with great force.

"DON'T! RUIN! MY! PROPERTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

That was the last voice Engineer heard as a loud popping sound was suddenly heard, and with a flash of light the blob shrunk into thin air within a second, making the building stop trembling instantly. Apart for a few collapsed pieces, the facility was mostly intact. Engineer slowly entered the testing room, looking around. The device luckily wasn't destroyed, but it took a lot of damage. "Eh… Mister Hale?" he asked, but he was smart enough to already know what happened. His boss was off to another universe, and it's going to be his responsibility to bring him back. Engineer sighed as the rest of his team came back inside the control room, confused. "What the bloody hell just happened?!" Sniper said, scratching his head. Engineer turned around, a defeated look on his face. "Saxton Hale is gone. And it's up to us to return him."

They all moaned in frustration. Spy approached, taking a whiff off his cigarette. "Where is he now?"

Engie looked behind him. "Well, that will take an unknown amount of time to find out, until we fix this damn thing. Until then…" he spread his arms in hopelessness. "Only he knows."

Author's Note: I have a few words to say.

Some of you may know me from my previous, unfinished and abandoned PJ and TF2 crossover, "Percy Jackson And The Mercenaries: Capture The Bolt". While I still love the premise, it's so badly written and cringy that I have a hard time continuing to write it. Maybe I'll try doing another chapter when I get to the part in The Lightning Thief I left off in my story (I'm doing a side-by-side rereading for this fanfiction).

Anyway, in my last update on that story, I said I'll consider several choices on how to rewrite it. I thought about only writing with a few select mercenaries, or with only them using melee weapons, or with Saxton Hale as the sole character. It was very hard to choose, but eventually I set my heart on our favorite Australian. I have decided to try this, and with a lot of excitement, already wrote 8000 words that will make up the next chapter (Unfortunately though, my creativity hasn't improved in the last 5-6 years, so this story still follows the original storyline, again in an unrealistic hope I'll write through the entire Camp Half-Blood Chronicles). Maybe I'll wait for someone to react to this pilot first before committing, maybe I'll publish it soon regardless to let curious readers really get a taste of what's it's going to be like. Maybe I should update my other story to let any readers know I'm working on a new one, maybe I won't ruin their hope thinking there's another chapter in that one. So many choices, so little answers.

Also, our titular character. Saxton Hale has an explosive personality to say the least, and people (including me) love it, but I don't want him to be one-dimensional in the story. He will not be an automatic Deus Ex Machina, nor will have a cardboard personality (which I think is fair, as the comics are already alluding to him having more personality than we think). I will attempt to develop his character beyond just the straightforward badass we all know and love. Also, and this might be even harder, I will try to emphasize his stereotypical Australian spirit as best as non-native me can (honestly it's a wonder my computer didn't crash from all the tabs I have open on Australian slang and whatnot).

What else? Title, description and picture may be subject to change I guess. I may also edit a chapter that I already published if something there really dissatisfies me. I do not own TF2 or PJ. You guys really sure if it's a legal requirement to state this or just a tradition?