A Shadow of the Colossus fanfic, depicting what if Wanderer and the colossi weren't really gone...and the giant creatures had a certain problem to resolve, concerning the very human who took out their lives in order to revive the lost soul he loved...

Warning: May contain spoilers to the game.

Enjoy!

Chapter One

The Great Chase

A calm gust of wind blew ever so gently within the hidden garden of the great tower, the Shrine of Worship. Mono, with the very young, bare child in her cradling arms, walked over to the ledge of the garden that over looked the forbidden land that she was so unfamilar with. Her eyes gazed upon the vast landscape, the sky shrouded with a blanket of clouds...and sixteen, narrow rays of light beaming down from the heaves above. After one sight, the young maiden went on a small quest around each open balcony to count them all, and scattered across the land, they were. She remained in the garden with her lost lover's ebony stallion, Agro. Wherever did Wanderer go? She thought and questioned countless times, but they were never answered...

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Foggy did his vision appeared to be as Wanderer slowly opened his tired eyes, groaning as if all the strength from his body had just recently been sucked out by an overbearing force. It was wet all around him; he had been sleeping in the pool of water of which he last remembered to be the powerful light that effortlessly pulled him within it. He struggled to balance himself onto his legs. The pain from his left leg was gone and so was the arrow that shot him. His spine felt rigid and as if it was pulled in two different directions. He arched back, hearing and feeling his back bones cracking multiple times and shooked his numb shoulders. Wanderer then realized it was very quiet...not like before how he remembered it. The absence of sounds of Agro's running hoofbeats frightened him in an unusual way. He turned his head around to look at his surroundings. The spiraling staircase remained, but no Agro.

He walked out of the pool, making his way into the spacious hallway of where the colossus statues had once crumbled to pieces one by one as he took down each corresponding beast. But now, every idol, all sixteen of them had returned to their original state, intact and with stone eyes glaring onwards upon him without a blink. "I thought I destroyed all of the colossi...and their statues should be eliminated as well..." Wanderer said to himself as he walked down toward the end of the hallway where the intricate altar stood, blinding light shining from between each column from the balcony that overlooked the mountains that contained the memories of his first battle with a colossus. But what caught Wanderer by surprise was that Mono no longer rested on the platform where he last laid her. He ran up to the altar, tripping as he hurried up the stairs. He haulted to a rough stop, his hands on the cold platform. Half-clenched fist, Wanderer stood there in silence for a moment. Mono was gone and he had no idea where she was, same with Agro.

The cold silence was starting to get to him. Never had he felt this isolated. Fighting the colossi, even though he had journeyed across the forbidden land after each one as an enemy, always provided some sort of unusual company in hidden ways...just a little. He yelled out, "Agro!" His voice echoed throughout the building.

No reply. No poundings of hooves against the stone floors or friendly whinnies to give out the message that his faithful steed was around.

"Agro!" he yelled louder this time, but still no reply. He brought his fingers to his mouth, each digit arranged blowed on them to allow a loud whistle to echo within the vast shrine. Agro always answered this call, but that changed when the ebony stallion never showed up.

But instead of hoofbeats, a thunderous footstep answered, shaking the stone floor. A deep, lion-like growl proceeded afterwards and Wanderer stood still, cold sweat running down his neck. He spuned around at the risk to see what it was that responded, facing the entrance of the hallway and where he awakened from the pool. It was deathly dark over there and the growls continued to ascend from the shadows. Slowly, a face emerged from the darkness and into the light, bearing two blue, reflective orbs of eyes and a stone-carved mane.

Wanderer took good look at it and it suddenly strucked him in the head; it was fourteenth colossus he thought he destroyed within the ruines it resided for many years...until now. The lion colossus, step by step, marched towards him. His intricate, stone armor, now revived to its original condition, shook with his massive weight. Another colossus appeared, taking great similarity to the lion-like beast in both size and shape, save for the two pointed, horns protuding from its cheeks. It, too, growled at Wanderer and marched towards him, shaking the floor with each heavy step. The young warrior then recognized it to be the eleventh tiger colossus that roamed within the valley underneath the great bridge he walked upon to get to the enterance of the Shrine of Worship.

The warrior reached his right hand to retrieve the Ancient Sword from its sheath...but was shocked to find it nowhere among his person. He then reached his hand over to his backside to pull out his bow and arrows...but they too were missing. His eyes went wide at that fact that he was now weaponless in facing, not one, but two colossi at once and they were able to keep their stony, clawed paws! With no other option he headed straight to the open balcony for a quick escape and jumped off the ledge, landing on his feet but then falling on his bottom when he lost balance he thought he once had. But waiting for him outside was a towering minotaur colossus, the first creature he fought in his quest to revive Mono. The great beast with glowing, fiery eyes that stood out from his dark expression looked down upon the tiny human at his feet. He lifted his giant, right hoofed foot well above Wanderer, preparing to crush him under his ponderous weight. But the human rolled himself out of the way, the hoof crashing down into the ground next to his body and sending him flying several feet away.

Scurrying to his feet, Wanderer made haste towards the earthly bridge that overlooked the second colossus's domain. Where are they coming from?! How are they still alive? he thought to himself. He looked back as he ran along the left side of the shrine, catching sight of the rumbling minotaur and the two charging, big cat colossi. They were gaining up on him with exceptional acceleration, especially the lion creature. And when he thought he had encountered enough of them already at once, two more appeared from around the corner; the fourth horse colossus and the sixth long-bearded colossus. Wanderer haulted to a swift stop when the horse colossus raised its elongated, pointed left leg, ready to bring it down to crush him deep into the earth. But he then dashed into a run again, causing the mammoth statue to miss him. He continued to make his way toward the bridge, running underneath the equine creature as it tried to lift its leg from the ground while the two smaller colossi were still pursuing him.

The bearded colossus attempted to stop Wanderer by slamming down his right fist in his way. The human bumped into the giant hand and fell backwards. He looked up at the beast, whom glared back at him with burning, deep-set eyes. Pounding footsteps got louder by the second as Wanderer turned his head around to find the lion colossus just mere seconds away from charging right into him! He jumped onto the bearded colossus's wrist in time to dodge the smaller, rampaging creature, whom butted itself into the massive hand. The bipedal creature yelped with pain, withdrawing his hand from the ground and shook it with Wander grasping the fur on it to keep from falling off. The bearded behemoth brought his hand up to his face, peering at the tiny specimen that had latched himself onto his hand. The great beast tried to shake him off while the lion beast leaped about with deep growls, seeming to want a turn at attacking their little target.

Watching the lion colossus walk in an endless circle on the ground, Wander waited patiently for the right time when the agressive beast would be underneath him. When the colossus had its back to him, he jumped off the other creature's hand and landed onto the rough, stone surface of the lion beast and took a good grip onto its stiff mane. The stone lion roared with fustration, shaking its body before it dashed into a run towards Wanderer's desired destinaton, the bridge, while trying to buck him off its backside. This should be easy...thought the young warrior as lion kept on sprinting towards the earth-made crossing, along with the four other colossi following the two afterward. He was now forty feet away from the bridge and the lion was still determined on trying to shake him off, but no avail at the moment. Wanderer was riding him like a mere bull.

Wander was now trying to steer the wild beast across the terrain, turning its head left to right so make it run in the corresponding direction. The tiger colossus sprinted close behind the two, soon running side by side with its comrade. It growled at Wander, trying to swipe him with one of its powerful paws numerous times, but kept on missing him. The lion colossus growled fiercely at its unwanted rider and bucked uncontrollably, unware that it was heading straight into one of the large, tilting staues that stood at the enterance of the earthly bridge. Just before it collided into the fictiled structure, Wander jumped off into the air and finally landed on the narrow, earthen landform and made a run for it.

The lion colossus, heavily dazed and exhausted, fell to the ground with a mild tremor while the tiger colossus kept on pursuing the fleeing human, along with the three taller behemoths following behind. But the those three colossi could no longer continue to chase Wander. The slim bridge was far too small for them to cross it, let alone support each of them at a time. However, it did not deter the tiger colossus from catching their target, despite the difficulties of crossing the elevated structure without falling off into the deep lake below it.

The young warrior felt he now had an advantage over the colossi while on the bridge. He now had to think of a scheme to get rid of the tiger beast, but that idea faded away when Wander saw, yet, four more colossi waiting for him at the other end of the bridge, all with glowing blue eyes. The first was a tall, lanky fellow with a hourglass-shaped waist; the third colossus. The second was an earthy, turtle-like beast with long legs that supported its massive weight. The third colossus was a large salamander beast with fire glowing from underneath its large backside scales, and the fourth one was a bulky, bipedal brute, taking similarity to the minotaur and the bearded statues. Wanderer paused in his tracks, realizing that he was now trapped on a bridge by a group of mountainous creatures he thought he vanquished not too long ago. He spun around to see the tiger colossus approaching him with a slow, steady pace with the lion beast close behind. Wanderer took steps back as the two living, big cat gargoyles growled at him with heated anger, but he then took a step too far...and slipped off the ledge of the bridge, plunging into the frigid lake below.The lion and the tiger colossi looked down from the strip of earth to see a small splash at the bottom and dashed away to another path to reach the bottom shore.

For a moment, Wanderer had forgotten how to swim and began frantically rotating his arms in the water, making noisy sounds to summon an unwanted basilisk. From underneath him, he felt a patch of soft, wavy grass on his legs and grabbed onto them with his tired hands when they began to brutally surface the water. A great splash arose and revealed a far greater specimen with horns glowing a faint blue at its tips. Wanderer recalled it to be the twelth colossus that submerged its underwater and remained hidden above the waterfall until he arrived to destroy it. The immense brute tossed his head around, enough to send the tiny human flying twenty feet to the right and splashing back into the lake. The creature turned about slowly and began to approach him. Fatigued, Wander struggled to escape the creature, but another surfaced the water with the young warrior lying down exhausted on its dragonish snout. The serpent colossus glared at him with unforgiving eyes and tossed him ashore with a grinding landing.

Wander strived to get back on his feet, but no use. He felt his worn-out muscles tearing apart underneath his dirty, pale skin and every inch of his bones begining to crack. The earth below his body shook violently as a giant, bull behemoth approach him with unwieldly density. It stopped in its tracks once it was close enough, peering down the tiny body on the sand while another creature, a serpentine beast, arose from the ground with two wide, ancient and ignited eyes that too scowled at Wanderer.

"It's just a dream..." Wanderer murmured to himself as he, drenched in water, laid on the soft sand, "It's just a bad dream. They're are not real..."

From out of the sky, two tremendous colossi soared overhead, kicking up a windstorm around the area. One was an avian creature with a long tail that trailed behind. It screech as it spotted the human and dived down to the ground, making an elegant landing next to the bull and the sand serpent beasts. The other flying monster had an extremely lengthy body that snaked in a great circle above all the other creatures. Wander's vision got foggy again as he beheld the majestic colossi that surrounded him and blocked all exits of escape. Another hit from them and it could all over for him. It just seems to him that these creations of earth were merely going to make a toy out of him...each obtaining their satisfaction of revenge of taking his life that they may prove unworthy to live...