First: "Disclaimer: I own nothing in this, all intellectual materials are the property of their respective owners."

Okay, so here I am writing another crossover. I sort of got stuck in the middle of my other story's next chapter-in-writing, so now I'm letting out my writing steam through another fan-fiction work.

Worth noting (in case you didn't read the summary) is that this is AU in not only the fact that I'm blending the portal and TF2 canons, but also in one other way: MvM never happened, Gray Mann hasn't appeared, meaning that Blutarch and Redmond are still alive.

Chapter 1: Occurrence

It was a sunny, hot, afternoon in Tuefort. Being a rare day of ceasefire, there was no sound of gunfire, explosions or screams of death. Instead, the mercenaries of Tuefort had spread out and relaxed, doing whatever they felt like doing.

The RED Demo, Soldier, Heavy and Scout had gone down to the local town for a drink. Unbeknownst to them, their BLU counterparts, minus the Heavy, were coincidentally on their way to the same bar; so subsequently a bar fight was not far off.

The RED's Medic was in the infirmary, doing some 'interesting' experiments which are best left untold, whilst his BLU counterpart was simply finishing some of his leftover paperwork. Unsurprisingly, both the teams' Spies were nowhere to be found.

The BLU Engineer could be found, however, tinkering with a new invention of his. The team's Heavy was helping him out, carrying the pieces which were too heavy for the Texan to carry by himself. The RED's Engineer had gone down to town for the purchase of a new hat, although he hadn't decided on which one he would actually buy.

The RED Sniper was in his van, having decided that the best way to use the ceasefire was to catch up to the sleep which he hadn't quite been getting enough of lately. His BLU counterpart hadn't come to the same decision. Instead, he had gone up to the building's roof where he sat; using his sniper rifle's scope to look at whatever stars could be seen during the day.

Watching stars… He couldn't quite remember when he'd first started doing that, yet it was something which he'd grown accustomed to doing every now and then. Usually he'd be doing it at night, when the stars could be seen much more clearly, but he hadn't had anything else to do; so here he was.

The sky looked mostly like what one would expect at this time and location. The sun was making it hard to really see much of the stars; to avoid getting blinded by the intense light he had no choice but to look at the half of the sky, towards the RED base, where it didn't shine in his face. Yet, there was something… off about the sky this day. He couldn't quite place it, but he had this feeling that something was not quite right.

A minute later, after looking over a fairly large part of the sky in front of him, he managed to spot something which he was rather certain was not there the last time he looked. Briefly fearing that the unknown object was a fight-hungry Saxton Hale, he quickly zoomed in a bit more in detail at the unknown entity in the sky.

At first glance, it looked like a small, weak, star which he perhaps had just missed before; thus quickly disproving his Saxton Hale theory. However, as he took a closer look, it almost seemed like it was… growing?

He studied the object for about two minutes, after which he could determine that yes; it was definitively looking like it was getting bigger. It was also starting to look different; despite its brightness there seemed to be a solid object in the center. The Sniper's earlier theory on it being a star didn't seem viable anymore; it no longer fit the description of a star. Perhaps it simply was an asteroid falling down, burning in the atmosphere. Deciding that the chance of that whatever-it-was actually landing on him was near-nonexistent, he promptly decided to ignore it for the time being.

Meanwhile, the BLU Heavy was passing through the battlements, fetching another piece which the Engineer needed for whatever he was building. Things seemed normal, right up until he heard a loud

BANG!

He rapidly turned his head towards the source of the noise, just in time to see something come crashing through the top of the tower in RED's battlements, turning it to splinters with a 'CRASH!'. A split-second later, this something had continued its path, making a big hole in the central bridge and then continuing down into the sewers; upon which a large cloud of steam came rushing up out of said sewers, accompanied by the -rather loud- sound of water vaporization.

The Sniper, whom Heavy hadn't known was sitting on the roof behind him, jumped down with a quick "crikey!" The Heavy probably would have been surprised, if it hadn't been for him already being in a state of surprise after the crash he'd just witnessed.

They just stood there for a few minutes, watching the steam float up from the sewers, neither of them sure on what to do next. Whatever had been coming down, it sure was hot, if the large amounts of steam and the sound of water vaporizing was any indication. When, after several minutes, the steam amounts seemed to finally lessen, Heavy said

"Let us go see cause for explosion."

"What?" the Sniper said, the sound of Heavy's voice being hard to hear amongst the loud sound of the steaming and, by the looks, boiling water down there.

"I say" the Heavy repeated, slightly louder, "we go see thing that caused this."

"Yea, th't seems loike a good idea" was Sniper's response.

They could quickly determine that simply jumping down from where they currently stood was out of the question; that water looking 'bloody hot', as Sniper put it. Instead, they went back into their base; thinking that maybe the heat would be manageable in the base's internal sewer path.

They never got down to the water, though. The steam wasn't only coming out from below the bridge; some of it had resorted to going through the sewer system, thus blocking any attempts to get down there unless you were wearing the pyro's suit or something equally heat-resistant.

"So, what now?" Heavy said

"Well, looks loike the steam's in our way, mate. We'll have to wait for the steam t' clear b'fore we can get down there."

"Da, is good plan. We tell Engineer? Maybe has machine to remove steam."

"Yea, why not? It's worth a shot"

And so they went, going towards the Engineer's current workplace. As they went, Heavy could have sworn he'd heard a somewhat pained groan from the sewers; but he ignored it for the time being. Getting there was quite easy, merely three minutes later they'd gotten to the door; barging in whilst discussing exactly what they'd find once the steam cleared.

The Engineer, as expected, was in the middle of constructing something. Hearing the door creak open, he turned around, expecting the Heavy with another vital part. However, he was a bit surprised to find the Sniper there too, the pair seeming to be discussing or arguing about something. He shrugged it off, eyeing the pair; at the same time opening his mouth to speak.

"Heya'll-" it was now that he noticed that the Heavy's hands were empty, interrupting himself mid-speech and changing his sentence to "Heavy, weren't you supposed to be gettin' the hydraulic compressor for meh?"

The Heavy, having completely forgotten about that part he was supposed to be bringing to the Engineer, was taken aback, and quickly blurted out "Sorry; Heavy forgot, was interrupted"

"By Sniper, I assume?" was Engineer's immediate response, in turn triggering one from the Australian.

"Oi, this was not my fault! I didn't know that meteor-thing was heading right fer the base."

"Wait, meteor? Would someone mind tellin' me what's goin' on?"

"Engineer did not hear crash?" was Heavy's surprised response to the Engineer's own surprised question.

"Nope, didn't hear it. Might've been 'cause I was doin' some wielding"

"Well, what happened" Sniper cut in "was that some sort of meteor or whatever came down and made a bunch'a holes in the place, finally landing in, an' steaming up, the sewers."

Engineer was curious now; most things would've burned up in the atmosphere and if they didn't, they'd often be big enough to cause large craters where they landed. Since neither had happened, this didn't seem like any average meteor. "Well, you taken a look at it yet?" he asked.

"Nyet, we have not, is too hot there."

"Oh" the Engineer said, somewhat disappointed that he couldn't see this object right now. Undeterred, he continued speaking; saying "Well, you asked the Pyro to give it a try? I reckon the Pyro's suit might allow for explorin' in the heat."

"Sounds loike a good idea, mate, but we don't know where the Pyro is roight now. We were thinking, maybe you'd have a device to cool the place down with?" Sniper said, expectantly.

"Nope, and I reckon building one from scratch would take more time than just waiting for the sewers to cool by themselves." Engineer responded

Now Heavy came to the conclusion "We wait then."

When you're excited about something, but forced to wait for it, time has this habit of going extremely slowly. This, the three mercenaries now experienced first-hand. The Engineer had rigged up a thermometer next to the sewers, and the mercenaries now sat a short distance off; watching the temperature measuring slowly crawl its way downwards, towards not-as-hot levels. It felt like it had been at least five hours before the sewer seemed to have cooled enough to go into, whilst in reality it had only been one hour since they'd sat down and started watching.

Getting to their feet, the three mercenaries slowly made their way into the tunnel that was the BLU sewer. Their feet stepped upon the now-dry sewer floor, the water normally found there having been previously vaporized by the excessive heat. A smell of burnt material was in the air; apparently a bit of algae had managed to grow in the commonly water-covered parts of the sewers; algae which had been fried by the temperatures that were present not long before, the charred remains now letting out a rather uninviting odor.

The sewer-room wasn't exactly in pristine condition, either. One of the BLU posters, the left one as seen when entering the small room, had caught fire despite being resistant to even the Pyro's flamethrower. All that remained of it now was a black spot on the wall, giving show that there had been something there once. All but one of the lights had gone out; the remaining one barely giving enough light to allow the mercenaries to see the room's interior. The paint on the walls had also fallen off on some spots, and the place was generally a mess. Still, it wasn't anything they could fix right now, so instead they continued down the pipes.

They went into the pipes, turning once, and still only seeing burnt algae and not-wet floor. However, as they turned another corner, they were surprised at what they found. They had spotted the pond below the bridge, which was almost empty now; most of the water having met the fate of vaporization. It was not that, however, that surprised them. The cause of their surprise was the meter-wide hole in the middle of the pipe's floor, about two meters from the end of said pipe. The hole still let out a bit of smoke, and if you looked closely you'd notice that the metal was on the verge of melting.

They approached, Engineer in front. They got a bit closer, and it was then that a noise akin to a groan came out of the hole. Now creeping closer, the Engineer peaked into the hole, seeing something strange in there.

"What in tarnation…" he mumbled.

Looking more closely, he saw that the object was round, white, a bit smaller than a meter in diameter, and also outfitted with both a hatch and two handles. It looked artificial, mechanical.

"You got any idea what that is, mate?" the Sniper asked; peaking over the Engineer's shoulder to get a look at the object in the hole.

"Hard to tell…-"and so a discussion about the object had begun.

Suddenly, in the middle of one of Heavy's theories, the hatch on the object's front flew open, and a blue light with a crack in the middle was revealed.

And that's it, end of the first chapter. Okay, so I might have made a bit of a cliffhanger, but don't worry. Sooner or later it'll resolve.

Comments and reviews are appreciated