Just wanted to make a quick note here; this is a fanfiction I wrote alongside Author's Games: Fandoms. If you want to read the other writer's entries, go check that out. It's still in its original form on my profile. 

This was also back when I was just putting The Valiant Series on Wattpad, so it does include a few Valiant Characters in these as well since this was a huge fanfiction. 

All characters and fandoms belong to their rightful owners. I wrote this just for fun and hope you enjoy it. 

It had been a long time since Isaac had felt fear. He'd been in the face of death many times and each time a small part of him had been afraid. He'd lived through gunfire, seeing his buddies die, killing men, the things he had to do overseas... Everything he'd seen since—all the killers he and the BAU had caught. He'd felt fear. Each and every time.

But this...

He couldn't quite remember how he'd gotten caught up in all this. One day he'd been assigned a case, a particularly troubling one, and the next thing he knew he's staring at people from magical worlds he'd only ever dreamed of. The last thing Isaac had expected was for his mother and sister to be kidnapped and used as leverage against him.

The Fire Lord and his other "soldiers"—as Isaac liked to call them—forced him and fifteen others to do their bidding. His first mission? Travel to another realm and rescue someone that he was going to have to teach to survive in this sadistic psychopath's Games. If he didn't, his mother and sister would be killed, followed by himself and the tributes he was supposed to teach. Innocent lives were in his hands. It was a familiar situation, something he'd dealt with in Iraq and Afghanistan many times, something he dealt with on almost a daily basis in the FBI's special BAU profiling unit.

But other realms? Magic? Teleporting? This was well beyond what he knew and understood. Way out of his comfort zone.

Your tribute will be found near an Island to the east within the Disney Realm. Isaac stared at the words in his file over and over again but all he could do was open his mouth without saying a word. He looked at the Fire Lord and Unseelie King first, then traced his eyes around the table at all the other "mentors" staring at a similar file.

"Each of your individual tributes are in different places. This way," the Unseelie King said.

He led them through the ornate oak double doors decorated with elaborate, twisted carvings of leaves and leaf-shaped ovals, and down a long narrow hallway. It was the same way they'd come in, but instead of turning right—back toward their rooms—they turned left. That hallway was even longer, the walls made from dark oak and just as intricately carved as the doors. At the end, reinforced steel doors —plain and smooth compared to the decorative carvings—opened wide.

Inside was the largest warehouse he'd ever seen, and he had seen a lot. A warehouse with hidden weapons, littered with bodies—He shook the thought off before it would lead to an attack, or worse: a flashback.

Isaac intensely focused on the warehouse and what was inside it. On the far right was a black, four-door, 1967 Chevy Impala. Isaac whistled. "Hello there, sweet thing," he whispered. He and his father used to collect old cars and this one was a beauty.

"Each of these vehicles will transport you to the Disney Realm and other assigned Realms throughout these Games. You will use them to transport you, along with all of your tributes from now on," the Unseelie King said. He stood with his back facing the "vehicles," looking at each of the mentors.

Isaac stared at his face, half normal and half grotesque, and cringed.

"Um, Unseelie King, sir," one of the other Mentors started shakily, "This isn't a vehicle..." The young girl pointed to a red wardrobe.

"Neither is this." One of the other mentors, an older woman, gestured to a cape hung on a rack in mid-air. "But I'm not sure that's the point..."

The Unseelie King shifted his odd and harsh gaze to the mentors, standing in a line across from him. "No, it isn't. Much like the many portals in the Unseelie Lands that drift from Realm to Realm, these vehicles can cross into other dimensions. We have enchanted them with our magic."

The Fire Lord stepped forward. "Choose your vehicle. It will be yours through the entire games. You have your location and a tribute to rescue there. Now go."

Before anyone else moved, Isaac darted to the Impala, opened the door, and slid in. His knee throbbed as it usually did from his old injury, but he ignored it and traced his hands over the steering wheel. Much to his surprise, the keys were already in the ignition. "Here goes," he muttered, turning it over.

When she started up, she basically purred, which was music to his ears. Smiling from ear to ear, he shifted her out of neutral. Where am I supposed to drive her? he wondered, glancing out the windshield.

He'd been expecting the warehouse. Instead, colors from all hues of the spectrum exploded. The Impala jolted a bit, but by the time he blinked, the car was still.

Slowly, the colors outside began to recede, leaving a bright blue sky with the sun beating down overhead in their place. All around him was nothing but the blue-green of the ocean. Waves lapped at a shoreline a few feet from him on every side. When the file said island, I didn't think it meant this small... Isaac thought as he slowly opened the door and stepped out.

The "island" was really just a tiny reef that was large enough to keep the Impala's tires out of the water and long enough for the car, leaving Isaac hardly any room to stand.

He turned and looked out at the ocean-filled horizon, but there was no other land as far as he could see. Alright, so how am I supposed to rescue someone when the island isn't even big enough to hold them? As he shifted, he noticed movement behind him. On a piece of the reef that jutted out of the water perched a seagull.

"There you are!" the seagull shouted enthusiastically.

Isaac blinked and almost stumbled backward. "Wh—what? D—Did you just..."

"You're going to need the dinglehopper if you're going to get down there! I've been waiting up here all day." The seagull slowly enunciated everything it said.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Isaac wiped his eyes and looked back at the bird in shock. A talking seagull? Sure he had just taken a beautiful Impala across dimensions or whatever, but... a talking bird? Like straight out of a Disney movie?

That's when he suddenly realized: Disney. The file said the island was located in the Disney Realm. He knew that before, but he didn't think it literally meant Disney. "Skuttle?" Isaac felt stupid for even asking, but he figured he would take his chances. It was just a seagull after all. Was it possible to be embarrassed in front of a bird?

Suddenly, a yellow and blue fish emerged out of the water, screaming. "You gotta come, you gotta help her! They have her! Come on, hurry!" With that, the fish disappeared below the waves.

"You're gonna need this!" Skuttle used his wing to grab a fork out of a pack at his feet and shoved it in Isaac's hand. He opened his beak and screeched right in Isaac's face.

The surprise of it threw him backward, making him lose his balance on the narrow reef. He tumbled, falling into the water faster than he thought possible. Instead of water choking him, he could easily breathe even though he was underwater. What? How is this possible? Isaac floated there, beneath the waves, in total shock. Why isn't the water drowning me?

The fork slid out of his fingers, slowly drifting down to the blackness below. The instant it left his hand, the water choked him. You're gonna need this, Skuttle had said.

Isaac swam downward, holding his breath until he grasped the fork tightly in his left hand. Air whooshed into his lungs harder than he expected. Now what? Almost before he finished the thought, in the distance and far below him, sparks and light danced wildly, revealing glimpses of an underground cave. My tribute has to be there, he concluded.

Without letting the fork go, Isaac swam leisurely, conserving his energy, toward the cave in the distance. It was so dark it was impossible to see what, if anything, might be out there. Initially, he had been expecting schools of fish or the beauty of a coral reef, but he couldn't see anything... Nothing except the dancing lights.

As he neared the edge of the cave, he stayed hidden and peeked around the corner. Fortunately, it wasn't really a cave with multiple rooms, just a large, single cavern. The lights allowed him to clearly see inside.

Two... half-women half octopuses were swimming around the center of the cave. The fatter one wielded what looked to be a trident and was using it to throw energy around the room. In the center, tied to a stalactite in the ground, were two mermaids and a girl. I'm guessing this is Ursula with the trident... Isaac struggled to remember more of the movies, but it had been too long since he'd seen it.

Water movement to his left shifted his attention. Two long shapes with electricity buzzing across them charged toward him, much faster than he expected. Ursula's two pet eels. He had no weapons and going up against two eels was incredibly stupid, especially since they had the most advantage here in the water.

He had no time to figure out which of the captured people was his tribute, so he made an instantaneous decision to rescue them all. The only way he knew to do that would be with the trident. His only advantage was surprise, so he charged in, using all the energy he'd conserved earlier. While the skinnier one had her back turned, he swam up behind the fatter one. Knowing the water would slow down his momentum, he grasped her right wrist—the one holding the trident—not bothering to try to attack her. Underwater, it would be no use. He twisted it backward, using a controlling hold. She cried out in surprise and pain, dropping the trident. The water slowed it, so he was easily able to catch it in his right hand.

He aimed it at both of the octo-women, wondering how to use it.

"Think of a creature!" one of the captured mermaids shouted.

A Kraken...? It was the first creature that came to mind. Energy zipped across the trident, exploding out of the pronged tips. The light appeared just in front of the octo-women. Emerging out of it was a massive creature with dozens of long tentacles. It stretched and made a loud bellowing sound and suddenly the cave shattered all around him.

Swimming over to the captives, he used the prongs of the trident to slice their binds free and then grabbed the girl. Both of the mermaids grabbed his arms and the girl's and swam them through the water toward the surface. The mermaids were much faster than he had been, fortunately, and they were able to reach the Impala within a minute or less.

When they breached the surface, the redheaded mermaid held onto the girl's arm. "Use the trident," she said, gesturing to herself and the other mermaid.

Isaac furrowed his brows, but wasted no time, pointing the trident at both of the mermaids. The energy swirled around them and by the time he blinked, they were both human.

Ignoring the fact that they were naked, he swam a few feet over to the reef where the Impala was still waiting. The sounds and crackling below him made shivers run across his spine, especially as a massive tentacle burst out of the water ten yards to his left. "Get in!" he shouted.

They clambered into the backseat just as he turned the ignition and shifted it into drive.

Lights and colors danced around them as the Impala teleported them out of the Disney Realm. 

***

Breathing heavily, Isaac grimaced and clenched his aching knee. Outside the Impala, the walls of the warehouse rose on either side. Glaring at him through the front of the windshield were the Unseelie King, the Fire Lord, and Count Dooku. To his surprise, it was Count Dooku who stepped forward.

"Anyone who is not your tribute must be sent back, now!" he yelled.

Isaac frowned, glancing at the two mermaids, who were both in human form, covered up with blankets. The one with red hair he presumed was Ariel, the other he suspected was her daughter, Melody. His eyes glanced at the girl beside them, his tribute.

"Thank you for saving us," Ariel said with a smile.

"We're in your debt!" Melody grinned.

Shifting his eyes from the girl, he noticed she appeared Asian. He nodded and turned over the keys. Within a minute, the Impala teleported them back to the reef, giving Ariel and Melody enough time to jump out while Isaac transformed them back with the Trident. They swam off quickly in the opposite direction from where Ursula had them, and then the Impala teleported Isaac and his tribute back to the warehouse.

When they returned, Dooku, the Unseelie King, and the Fire Lord were all gone. Instead, an ugly-looking monster stood there with his arms crossed. "You two, this way!" The words sounded more like grumbling grunts, but Isaac managed to understand him. That guy looks like some sort of ogre...

The girl gasped when she saw the deformed man and stared at him, with her right hand at her left hip. Eyebrows knitted, she glanced at her hip only to see it empty.

"Reaching for a sword?" Isaac took a wild guess; most swordsmen kept their weapon at the opposite hip from which hand they used the most. If she lost her weapon, it would explain why she would have been reaching for it.

The girl nodded as they followed the ogre out of the warehouse and into another building. She glanced around, eyes calculating.

Isaac suspected she was thinking about running. "I wouldn't if I were you," he said.

She turned to meet his gaze.

"They have too many guards; you'd be killed before you even reached the outer walls." He had studied the facility when he'd first arrived. The only way out were the vehicles in that warehouse, but it was too heavily guarded. And if she ran, his family would be killed. He couldn't let that happen.

The Ogre led them into the Unseelie King's Palace and through the winding, dark and ominous corridors. Even Isaac tried to keep track of where they were and couldn't. Finally, when they turned another hallway, he realized he was being led to the barracks. That section of the palace was cut off; guards stood at two heavy steel doors that led them to a long hallway full of doors. It stretched to his left and right as far as he could see, and there was another hallway directly in front of him.

The Ogre gestured to the first hallway. "Get to your room!"

Isaac gestured to the girl and led her to where his room was. The room was really a fairly sized suite with a large queen bed, a television, a refrigerator with nothing in it, and a small desk with pen and paper. The only lighting was white light from circular rocks that he couldn't even fathom, but he had long ago given up trying to figure it out. There were no other doors or windows and the room had a large bathroom and shower with running water, much to Isaac's surprise when he'd first seen it.

Isaac had been told that this room, along with all the rooms on the end, belonged to him and his tributes. He gestured to the room across the hall. "That one is yours. Before you ask, no, there's no way to escape from here. I've already tried."

The girl nodded once, solemnly. Her eyes narrowed on him and she stared at him as if there was a glass wall in between them.

"Well, my name is Isaac. We've both been kidnapped by this man called the Unseelie King and his goons. There's no way of escape and my family is in danger. They're going to threaten you to participate in their games; it's a life or death show they're putting on and... my job is to mentor you. To guide you and get you through this alive." When he finished speaking, the girl's expression hadn't changed.

"I understand. I am not afraid of death," she said.

Isaac clenched his jaw. "Neither am I." Those eyes of hers... He could tell they were a warrior's eyes, eyes that mirrored his own. The woman could have been a soldier, wherever she was from. China or Korea maybe? "What's your name? Where you from?"

"My name is Kondou Akari. I am from Edo, Japan."

Ah. She's Japanese. Don't they introduce their name backward or something? "So your first name is actually Akari right?"

Her frown deepened and she shifted her weight from her right to left foot, as if she was uncomfortable.

"Uh... Never mind."

Her narrow eyes and her body language - standing as far from me in the hall as possible, shifted away, crossed arms - indicates that she doesn't trust me. Her expression seems... distant. Her mistrust showed him that she'd been through something in the past that had caused her to be closed off. He didn't want to pry, so instead, Isaac tried something different. I need to show her that she can trust me.

He slid down along the floor of the wall, massaging his knee. "Sorry, I gotta sit down. My knee's still in bad condition sometimes. I... I was a soldier in the United States Army. I've fought a lot of men. Seen a lot of things." Isaac paused to let that sink in.

Akari's eyes widened. "You were a warrior as well?"

Isaac nodded as her eyes shifted to his knee. "When I was medically discharged, they brought me to the FBI and I became a profiler."

"I do not understand." Carefully and gracefully, Akari knelt down onto her knees and kept her legs beneath her. She placed her smooth hands on her lap and didn't look away from his eyes.

Hmm. She's warming up to me a little... Connecting with her as a soldier helped her relax a bit. She's also not afraid of me, Isaac thought. "When I was injured, I wasn't allowed to fight anymore. I became a... guard, to help protect innocent people from killers and thieves." Isaac hoped he explained it in a way she could understand. Thus far, he'd seen the other mentors, each one from a different Realm. He was still trying to understand the concept, but even though she said she was from Japan, it had to be different than Earth. Or, at the very least, different from modern times.

***

Akari desperately wanted to trust the man that called himself her mentor, but something deep inside her had broke. Perhaps her heart had shattered when she had lost her husband, Kijiro. Then again, her soul might have closed itself off when the Shogun had abandoned the samurai loyal to him. Hijikata and her father had been loyal to the Shogun their entire lives. They and the Shinsengumi had fought and bled for the Shogun. Yet... the coward had no honor. He had fled, and the war truly had ended that day.

Looking back on it now, if she knew that her actions to stay and fight with the Shinsengumi even after the Shogun had fled would have led to Kondou's death, Saitou's, Souji's, Hijikata, and Kijiro's... Would she have still chosen to fight?

No. That much was clear. Something had snapped inside her, but she could not quite figure out what that something was. When Isaac had told her that there was no escape, that it would be useless to fight, she believed him.

She had given up.

A few days passed, often drowning her with extreme amounts of boredom. She missed all the ruckus from the Shinsengumi headquarters - the samurai training or cooking food, tea time, writing poems. There had always been noise and now... Now it was much too quiet.

In her boredom, she began speaking with Isaac more and when he was in his room or with the other mentors, she sat in her room, staring at the wall. She caught herself imagining Kijiro or Nagakura and Harada there, speaking to her.

What are you doing? Kijiro would have asked her.

Akari pressed her lips together, determined not to answer him, even if he was not really here.

Ever since I met you, there hasn't been anything you've given up on. Not ever. When Kondou-san was imprisoned, you and Hijikata worked tirelessly to free him... Even when Saitou and I warned you it was too late. Kijiro's words may have sounded harsh, but his tone was thoughtful and considerate... Speaking truth, as he always had.

Akari shook her head, closing her eyes tightly to conceal tears that wanted to come. "I should have given up sooner. He died either way. Saitou-san died. You died!"

She peered at the room, imagining Kijiro there, nodding his head. "Hai. But you simply giving up, losing that fire that I loved about you, is dishonoring my memory. You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Akari-chan?"

With a light smile on her face, as gentle as a breeze, Akari shook her head. "Ie. I would never dishonor your memory, Kijiro-san."

Kijiro's image disappeared because Akari knew at that moment what she had to do. Standing up, she explored every corner of her room. When there was nothing, she opened the door and peeked around the corner. Issac's door was opened, so quietly, Akari tiptoed out of the doorway and into the hallway.

There were no visible windows, so she continued down the hallway. It was not until she heard Isaac's voice, that Akari stopped mid-step. "You're trying to escape?"

Akari whirled around. "Hai. I will not simply roll over for them like a complacent dog." Akari narrowed her eyes at him, wishing desperately for her katana.

Isaac shook his head. "I don't want to either. You forget I was a soldier too, remember? The last thing I wanna do is submit to these psychopaths. I've spent the past several years putting guys like these away in prison!"

Akari sighed, brushing hair out of her face. "Then why do you not try to escape? Even if you think there is no other way. There is always a way." The latter part was something Souji-sensei had told her time and time again. "There is always a way, Akari-kun."

Isaac ran his hands across his short-cropped hair. "I know! The Fire Lord and Unseelie King have my family! It's my mother and sister and... if I don't stay and participate in their games, then they'll kill them. I can't - I can't let them die, Akari."

Akari frowned at the lack of honorific and using her first name already when they barely knew each other, but the seriousness of his words allowed her to forget the informality. "Your mother and sister will be killed if I run?"

Isaac nodded. For the first time, the calm demeanor broke, and she could see true sadness and brokenness in his gaze. "Yes. Please. I will guide you through this as much as I can. You and the others."

"Others?"

"You won't be the only one. Together, we will work together and I promise. I will get you all out alive."

Akari bowed. "Then you have my word, Isaac-sensei. I will stay."