Hey guys, back again with a new story. I've had this one floating around in my brain for a while now and I'm happy to say that I've finally got the time to put it to paper...metaphorically speaking. I'm taking quite a few liberties here, so don't expect a play by play of the movie because you will be disappointed. Sorry if the characters are a wee bit OOC, I'm having a little trouble reconciling character to story. Don't worry, I'm working it out, but let me know if anything can be improved.

I own nothing but Riley, James and the story and any grammar/spelling mistakes as this is unbeta'd. And now without further ado, the story!

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Unexpected Results

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James was toiling in his lab, as per usual. His assistant Riley was waiting patiently at her usual post by the fire extinguisher and first aid kit, making bets in her mind about exactly how long it would be before either, or both, were needed. She laughed quietly to herself as various incidents over the past seven years flashed through her mind, starting with the first day she'd ever met the man who had since become her friend.

She had been running late, on her way to interview for the assistant position she now held. She hadn't had much hope for actually getting it, seeing as she was just a Statistics major in the masters program, but it had seemed easy enough and she'd really needed the money. It had been raining hard that day, not unusual weather for late April, especially in southern Louisiana, but Riley had forgotten her umbrella that day. As a consequence, when she finally arrived at the small warehouse like lab where her interview was taking place, she looked more like a sodden sheep dog than the confident young professional she had been when she'd left her apartment. James had run the interview himself, offering her a towel and some tea to calm her nerves. She'd refused, she'd never liked tea much, and they'd shared a laugh over coffee, turned out James didn't care much for tea either. It had been the first of many similarities they'd discovered over the course of the interview. The interview itself lasted almost three hours, though it could hardly be called that after the first half hour. They'd discussed everything from comics to the sci-fi shows they both enjoyed. By the end of it, he'd offered her the job and asked her out to coffee the next day. He'd given her his umbrella on the way out, joking that he wouldn't want to lose the best candidate he'd met to a cold.

From the next day on, they had become fast friends. It had been a little hard for her at first, getting used to his moods and strange bouts of what she liked to call "engineer rage", but eventually they developed a nice rhythm. She would bring him a caramel mocha and two glazed donuts every morning and sit at the small table in the corner of the large room and eat her chocolate lucky charms while watching him set up his equipment. She had started out trying to get her food and coffee out of the way before heading into the lab, but that had proved far more problematic than she'd expected so she'd taken to keeping some of her dishes and food in the small kitchenette that James had at the lab. Since then it had been the same routine every day. She'd always had plans of bringing in appliances, a waffle maker, a grittle, maybe some cooking utensils and a hot plate, but she'd never gotten around to it. Besides, James used so much of the lab's power that any appliances she used would probably have tripped a breaker somewhere and wrecked one of his experiments, which would have sent him into a tail spin that would probably have gotten her fired.

It was about a year in when the first of many accidents occurred. James had been working on some kind of anti gravity theory, building a rig of concentric rings that a person could, theoretically, strap themselves into and have a kind of anti gravity field put around them. It hadn't come to anything, due in large part to the fact that the rig exploded during the first test run, but also, James had said, to a miscalculation in his equation. The explosion wasn't anything too damaging, mostly just a lot of smoke and a few flying screws, but the blast wave was enough to knock James back into his desk. He'd received three broken ribs and a few cuts and bruises from the blow, most of which Riley had treated herself while the ambulance was on route, but that was when James had decided to make her his official first aid assistant. It was added to her list of duties that she would treat all minor cuts, sprains, abrasions and burns that he acquired during all of his experiments. She'd refused at first, saying, truthfully, that she had no experience what-so-ever with first aid, but he'd insisted, saying he trusted her to know when professional medical attention was needed and when he was, to use his words, just being a baby about it.

And that was how things had been for the past seven years. She'd slowly become inured to all of his many moods, learned to ignore when he would shout at thin air like there was someone else to blame for the mistakes he made, laughed at all the small swears he'd invented for every knocked knee and stubbed toe. She'd learned how to treat everything from paper cuts to minor burns, how to wrap sprained joints and how to soothe the sometimes infantile whining that James would go through whenever he got injured.

All of this flashed through her mind as she watched him prance around his most recent creation. She'd never quite understood the concept behind it, something about the "multi-universe theory" and breaking through walls, but she'd tuned him out when he'd started into the details of the science behind how it was supposed to work. She'd tried multiple times to explain to him that she understood numbers and numbers only, but he seemed to think that since she understood the statistics of the situation, she would also understand the quantum theory that sparked it. All she knew for sure was that he was about to flip the switch that would turn it on and she should probably be ready to put out any fires that cropped up after the inevitable explosion.

"This is it Rye, I can feel it! This one is gonna work!" He shouted from the other side of the room, rubbing his hands together as he eyed the giant lever he'd attached to the machine. He'd always had a fondness for the kind of machines you'd see in old monster movies, lots of Tesla coils and enormous switches that sparked as they were activated. Riley had always had a pet theory that they were part of the reason his experiments always failed.

"Oh most definitely, I can feel it in my bones." She gave him a thumbs up, keeping her hand on the extinguisher. He seemed to miss the sarcasm that laced her words as he returned the thumbs up and heaved on the lever, setting off a shower of sparks and the hum of machinery coming to life. She braced herself, waiting for the boom and the shock wave, but she was met with nothing but the quiet whir of computers and the whine of metal on metal as the rings on the machine began to spin. It was set up like something out of a sci-fi novel, three sets of concentric rings, rotating so fast that the indentations in the metal seemed to blur out of existence. The first and third ring were spinning clockwise but the middle ring was spinning counter-clockwise, creating a kind of optical illusion of the diameter of the whole thing shrinking and growing as it spun. After a minute she began to relax, taking her hand off the fire extinguisher and edging slowly toward her chair, watching as James ran to the rings, shouting in victory as a small blue orb began to form in the middle, slowly growing until an image became visible.

"It's working! Riley, it's working! Aha!" He threw a fist in the air, doing a strange little dance that he'd coined his "victory dance". He'd been saving it for the day one of his theories paid off.

"James, focus! What happens next?" She shouted over the growing roar of the machines. It didn't sound like something a working piece of machinery should make, but the scientist in the room didn't seem worried so she tried to put it out of her mind, focusing instead on the image that was slowly growing inside the ring. It seemed like empty sky to her, something that you could walk outside and see, but James was acting like it was some kind of ground breaking sky line that no one had ever seen before.

"Right, of course, thank you. Now we see where we came out at." He started slowly toward the image, still growing, opening to reveal a strange sky line of beautiful buildings. They were of a construction she'd never seen before, all gilt golden spires and high arches. But the thing that really caught her attention was the flat, bridge like crystal that stretched through the arches toward the skyline. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, shining in all the colors of the rainbow under a sun so big and bright that it didn't seem real. There appeared to be things flying in the air. They looked like old style ships, wings on the edges, curved hulls and no sails. But they weren't in the water, they were flying just under the bridge, the figures inside barely large enough to register as lines against the back drop of the sky.

James started shouting again, whooping and jumping around, calling out a name, though Riley couldn't hear it over the near deafening roar coming from the portal. He was recounting all the details he could see, telling her to write them down, though it was useless as he was doing that himself. He was talking about how clear it all was, like he could just step through, though he'd said that was impossible. That had been the one part of the explanation she had understood, mostly because it was the one part she'd been worried about. He'd assured her more than once that this portal was nothing but a window, a way to see into the other dimensions that existed along side their own while remaining safe from any environmental differences or threats that may be in them.

She kept this in mind as she took a few tentative steps forward, her eyes glued to the small ship in the portal, mesmerized by the way it seemed to sail through the air, avoiding shots fired from another ship that was coming up behind it.

"What is it? Where is this at?" She came even with James, her head moving over the scene as more questions began to form.

"I have no idea. It's some kind of Earth like environment from what I can tell. Blue sky, blue water, green leaves, all indicative of an oxygen rich atmosphere. Other than that, I got nothing. This is the fun part, just sit back, watch and investigate." He pulled up a chair, sitting down with his notebook on his knees, jotting down notes almost constantly.

"Are they supposed to be getting bigger? I mean, they aren't gonna hit the portal thing are they?" She watched as the ship grew bigger, seemingly headed straight for them.

"No, they'll just pass right through it, they can't even see it, it's just an invisible little window, like a pocket dimension that only goes one way." He gestured as he spoke, talking more with his hands than he was with his lips. But none of it seemed to put Riley at ease. She had a feeling, something she'd learned to trust a long time ago, that something was about to happen. It was this feeling that propelled her back to the fire extinguisher and first aid kit, still set out on the table.

As she opened her mouth to voice her concern to her friend, a kind of ringing began, just on the edge of her hearing, growing slowly until both James and Riley were doubled over, backing away from the portal, hands over their ears as if that could stop the pain. It was enough to have tears streaming from her eyes, her own cries added to the din. It rose to a fever pitch as the vessel in the portal drew even with the portal and then the world exploded around her. It was like a million windows shattered all around her at the same time, showering her with the fragile, high pitched sound of shards exploding outward as the ship flew straight through the set of rings. The rings themselves, true to form, followed suit and promptly flew apart, scattering metal and plastic all over the room. The last thing Riley knew, before darkness took her, was the sound of metal grinding against concrete and the sound of four other bodies dropping to the floor.

"Answer me mortal. Where are we?" The shouting was what drew her out of her unconscious, where she'd been happily working her way through a mountain of nice boring paper work. She was greeted with much more light than she was used to in the lab and the sound of booted feet coming close to her.

"Brother, calm yourself, there is another over here." This voice was different than the one who had been shouting. It sounded kinder, though no less foreign. She felt arms wrap around her knees and shoulders, lifting her from the floor and onto the table. A face swam into her vision, blurry at first. She saw a tousle of blonde hair and, as her vision began to sharpen, very handsome features. "Ah, you are awake, good." He stepped away, letting her sit up on her own.

"What happened?" She shook her head, trying to clear it of the fog that remained.

"Riley, are you ok?" James appeared at her side, followed closely by another stranger, this one almost the exact opposite of the blonde who'd put her on the table. He was still handsome, more so than the blonde, but he seemed harder, colder, his eyes didn't have the same kindness in them that the blonde one had and his hair was much darker, a shade of black she'd only ever seen on the goth kids she used to see around campus.

"Yeah, I think so, just kinda fuzzy. What happened? Who are these guys? Why are you bleeding?" She reached out to his face, wiping blood from the sides of his face.

"Enough! Explain, now." The black haired one pulled James around to face him.

"I...I don't know. None of this makes sense. This shouldn't have happened. We had a window into your world, but it was just a window. Nothing should've been able to come through." He babbled out all the relevant facts he could, holding his hands up in the air like that would defuse the whole situation.

"Window, what do you mean?" A woman's voice piped up from just out of Riley's field of vision, drawing her gaze to a slim young woman standing in the wreckage of the ship she'd been admiring in the portal. She seemed like she'd been recently ill, or still was. She was pale and her eyes were shining feverishly.

"Well, it's a theory I've been working on. It's based on the Multi-verse theory. I built a machine that could create kind of a pocket dimension, a one way window into other universes. It was supposed to be completely nonexistent on your end. Something happened that made it a door, but the portal wasn't meant to act that way." He took the explanation as an excuse to move away from the still glowering brunette that was looking ever more murderous.

"Wait. So you actually built an inter-dimensional portal? How?" The woman seemed to perk up at his explanation, stepping out of the ship and walking toward him. As they neared each other, the ringing resumed, skipping over the build up, exploding in Riley's mind as the portal appeared in the remains of the rings, showing another area, desolate and barren of any sign of life, save for two figures. One was pale, skin white as a sheet of paper, wearing black armor. The other was monstrous, taller than any human she'd ever seen and black as volcanic rock. His skin seemed to have almost the same texture as well, seeming more like stone than flesh. They were looking at the portal, walking toward it as though they meant to pass straight through. The pale one got close enough that Riley could see his eyes, staring into her soul with a kind of hatred that made her blood run cold. He reached out, inches from her world as the portal snapped shut again, taking the ringing with it.

"James, what the hell was that? I thought the damn thing was broken." She tried to keep the anger out of her voice, knowing that he would be shaken already, but this had never been in her job description, and friend or not, she was not prepared to handle this kind of thing.

"I have no idea. The portal shouldn't be able to open without the apparatus to power it." He turned to her, his whole body shaking, his eyes already swimming with unshed tears.

"Unless the tear you made is unstable." The woman was at his side in an instant. He turned to her, his eyes taking on the brightness she'd seen whenever he was around another scientist and the conversation dissolved into something she couldn't hope to follow.

"Oh great." Riley slid forward, stepping down onto the floor and checking her balance before moving to the small fridge. She pulled out a bottle of Dr. Pepper, leaning against the counter with a sigh. "So, while they work themselves up, how about some details? What happened on your end?" She directed her questions to the blonde one, not wanting to provoke the brunette any further.

"Nothing more than what I assume you saw. We were flying our ship away from our home and then we went through some sort of tunnel. It was very loud, like a ringing in my ears, and then we were here. If my brother had not stopped the ship when he did, we would have been injured." He seemed genuinely confused, not surprising considering what he'd just gone through, but her instincts told her there was more to this than what they'd seen.

"What is your name, Mortal." The brunette fixed her with a withering stare.

"It's Riley, Riley Mitchell. What about you?" She crossed her arms over her chest, cocking a hip out as she felt her inner bitch rising to the surface.

"I am Loki." He drew himself up to his full height, taking on a kind of regal air, though it seemed a little tarnished.

"Right, okay." She turned, setting her soda on the counter and sighing.

"You do not believe us." The blonde laughed as he walked closer.

"Yeah, no kidding." She turned back, trying to force a smile as she walked past him to where her coat was hanging, digging a pack of cigarettes and her Zippo lighter out of the inside pocket. She had it in her mouth and lit before either of the men could blink.

"Riley! You know it hate it when you smoke in here." James shouted from across the room, not even turning.

"And I hate it when apparently fictional characters pop into your lab space but it didn't stop you!" She shouted back.

"Fictional? What do you mean by this?" Loki walked toward her, his threatening air backing down in the face of a mystery.

"You guys, Loki and I'm assuming Thor, you guys aren't real, at least, not here. I mean you exist in the old Norse religion as well as in a really long running comic book series, but there are no real people called Loki and Thor. Actually, come to think of it, you guys look a lot like the movie versions of your characters." She tapped the ash off her cigarette, taking in the details of Loki's face.

"Movie? What is a movie?" Loki asked, narrowing his eyes slightly at her questions his existence.

"It's a form of media, a series of rapidly moving pictures paired with a sound track, all captured by cameras and put together in a studio, and none of this is making sense to you is it?" She took a long drag from her cigarette, laughing softly as the strangeness of the situation set in on her. "Okay guys, I know you probably have a lot of questions, but I cannot do this right now. I'm gonna leave you with the scientist, he's got more knowledge about this stuff." She dropped her cigarette, crushing it under the heel of her boot and grabbed her coat and keys, shouting a farewell to James before all but running out of the lab.

Well, there's the first chapter. I tried to just jump straight into the action instead of giving a full chapter of back story, a little something new for me, but I think it fit. Let me know what you think and fear now, I've got all the way through chapter 3 done, currently working on Chapter 4 but I figured I'd see how this was received before planning any more. SO REVIEW! LET ME KNOW HOW I DID! Thanks!