Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

Prologue

Puente Antiguo, New Mexico

Date: 1 May 2011

Local Time: 00:24AM

It was a pleasant and quiet night in the desert of New Mexico. The air was clear and a slight, cool breeze blew about the area. The sun had set many hours ago on the distant horizon, leaving the full moon to slowly crawl into the cloudless night sky, basking the void plains in a bright, pale light. Though it was not an eerie light, more calming and soft as it touched the small buildings of a nearby town, leaving dark shadows in its wake. A town which had long since been dead to all sound as its occupants went to retire for the night.

Yet even though the town was silent and peaceful and the sky cloudless and the moon bright, this state of peaceful equilibrium would not last until the dawning of the sun. Not on this night.

For approximately fifty miles north of Puente Antiguo, a copious amount of black clouds began to form in just one small patch of the night sky. Swirling around, gaining more speed like a twister. Colours started to flash in the clouds; the colours of the rainbow. The clouds appeared to begin to form what looked like a column, not unlike a tornado, which began to stretch its way downwards, slowly.

Suddenly, the column shot downwards with incredible speed, spinning furiously and coloured with bright rainbow flashes. It hit the ground, causing a giant dust cloud to be dispersed in a small amount of the incredibly wide desert plains. However, as quickly as this strange anomaly had appeared it suddenly vanished, leaving almost no trace that it had been there. Except for what it had left on the ground that is.

Lying in the center of where this short amount of chaos had erupted, were two unconscious men. They rested atop strange, unreadable markings, clearly not of Earth nor any world known to the planet's inhabitants. Well, at least not the ones of this time.

The pair seemed to be oddly at peace as they lay unconscious upon their backs, side by side. The one on the left had golden blond hair, or at least that's how it appeared in the moonlight. A short and well groomed beard graced his fair skinned features. This man was quite muscular and tall. It was clear that he took part in physical activities that required him to make use of all his muscle. In fact, he was so well toned that there looked to be no fat on him at all, just pure muscle. He was dressed in a long-sleeved blue shirt, loose fitting navy trousers and a pair of brown ankle boots. But these clothes looked odd on him, almost unfitting. It was as if he should be wearing something thicker, almost armoured. It would certainly suit his hair better, which was long enough to just touch his shoulders. He looked like a prince wearing a commoner's clothing.

Beside him of course, lay the other man. This one's hair was as black as the void with a slight blue sheen. It was long enough to just touch the bottom of his neck and had appeared to of at one point to have been neatly oiled back, but right now it was splayed around his head. His face, unlike the blond man's. was clean shaven and quite pale, almost ghost like. He too was very tall, appearing to only be about an inch or two shorter than the other man. And while he was no where near as bulky or muscular, he did have the appearance of an athlete. Finely toned muscles highlighted his body and he appeared strong, even if he was physically smaller than his blond counterpart. Dressed in a lose, long sleeved green shirt with a black jacket over the top of it, slightly tight fitting black trousers and knee high black boots, he appeared a little more suited to his clothes. Yet like the other, looked like he should be wearing thicker layers.

Though the pair of them could not have looked more different, they appeared to know each other. And even while unconscious, both of them held an almost regal air... as if they were both princes.

The blond man began to stir and sit up, bright blue eyes of a piercing sapphire scanning the area. He took notice of the man lying next to him. His face putting on a confused expression, he shifted so he stood on one knee and lightly shook the black haired man's shoulder, not recognising him for the moment. Receiving no response, he sighed and stood up, looking upon his surroundings with a questioning look. He took a few staggered steps forward, trying to figure out where he was, but not straying far away from the black haired man, before he was promptly knocked to the ground again by a large, metal object which he had definitely not seen coming. Lying spread eagle on the ground, he groaned in exhaustion, but not so much pain. In fact, he felt little more than a moderate throb after being hit by a huge chunk of metal.

The large slab of metal, now confirmed to be a van but not by the blond man, currently contained three people. After a couple of short screams had erupted from inside after they had hit the man and received a broken window and dented frame, abruptly stopped. Out of it came two young women and one clearly older man. They, having been the only ones from the town to see the strange phenomenon, had rushed to the scene as fast as possible, though obviously did not expect to encounter anyone else out this far at this time in the early hours.

The two of the three went to the blond man, pointing torches at him. Squinting a little from the brightness of the light, the man noticed the brown haired woman speak to one of the others, "Get the first aid, kit!" She came up beside him, brown eyes filled with concern, "Do me a favour and don't be dead." He turned his head to look straight at her, making his whole face visible.

"Whoa. Does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR!" The darker haired woman remarked with a wry smile, standing a few paces away.

The woman next to him appeared to be relieved when he sat up with ease, having no apparent injury. He stood up, refusing the offer of help from the man, before looking about his surroundings with a confused expression once more. Just where was he?

"Hey, Jane!" The other woman called out, "There's another one over here!" She said, nudging the unconscious man's shoulder with her foot.

"Where did they come from?" She questioned, looking around for anything which may indicate how these two men made it fifty miles out to the desert, and appeared at the exact time that the anomaly did. That thought was soon emptied from her mind when she noticed what lay at her feet, "Oh my god, Erik, look at this!" The woman exclaimed, shining her torch over the markings on the ground.

The man, Erik, gave the markings a quick glance before he called out to the other woman, "Darcy, is he awake?"

"Nope," she replied, "dead as a Dodo." She looked over at the blond, who was stalking over to her, seemingly to check on the black haired man. "Hey big guy, what's your name?"

The blond haired man appeared to think about this for a moment, before answering, "I am Thor."

Darcy appeared to hold in a bout of laughter at the name. She smiled when she replied, "right, I'm Darcy."

Erik snapped his head to look at him at this, walking up to him and Darcy, a shocked look about his features. "Thor? Honestly?" He questioned, but not in a patronising way.

"I believe so, yes," The blond man replied.

"Do you know him?" The older looking man asked, pointing at prone form on the ground. Jane stood up at this, hearing the stunned tone in Erik's voice. She came to join him and Darcy as they looked upon the two men who had appeared out of nowhere.

Thor crouched down next to the man, pondering for a few seconds, before a name popped into his head, and he recalled the relation he had to the man, "Yes, he is my brother... Loki."

"How did you two get out here?" Jane questioned, shaking her head, confused about what had happened. There was no other vehicle around and these two didn't look like they had walked... then again if they were drunk then anything could have happened. "Why are you out here?"

"I..." Thor paused, thinking hard, but coming to no answer, "I do not remember..." he replied.