Just a cool idea for an AU about Sora dying from the thousands of flying heartless near the end of KH3 and reincarnates into Ekko if he was in the R&C (with a dash of Arcane) universe.

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Background:

He has no memory of his past life and was born in the lower parts of Nefarious City along with Vi, Powder and other kids of the undercity. He also has a huge crush on Powder if you wanna know.

The events of Arcane play as usual, however, here's the twist.

Due to being kind and loyal in his past life, Ekko decides to accompany Powder in "helping" Vi and her siblings by blowing up the building they were in. After that, he searched for Powder, only to see her getting hit and "attacked" by an angry Vi.

Angered himself by the scene, and not understanding why Vi was lashing out this badly, Ekko runs to Powder's aid and jumps on Vi, to the older girl's shock and surprise.

After a scuffle between the two, and Vi giving Ekko the scar over his right eye, Nefarious Troops appeared on the scene, causing the three lombaxes to run. Vi was quickly caught by the troops and Powder was far ahead. Ekko stopped and was contemplating on if he should ether trying to save Vi, but probably get caught himself, leaving Powder alone, or keep running and catch up to P, leaving Vi to the troops. Out of fear for his life and anger at his role model, he makes his decision and runs off, leaving Vi to the hands of the troopers.

After they escaped, Powder wonders where Vi is to and Ekko, not wanting Powder to possibly hate him for this but knows that even if he lies, she'll find out one way or another, he tells her what happened. Powder was obviously mortified by this, but she doesn't hold it against Ekko or let her current state of shock get the best of her. She understands his decision. It was a life or death and an ethical decision to make.

After escaping the troopers, Ekko and Powder were on the streets for a little bit until they found a cave or abandoned mind shaft only to find themselves in a big room with a big dead tree in the middle. They both were curious and want to explore the area and see if there's anything useful here. This is when Ekko finds a weird shape with three circles, one large and the other two smaller and placed on the top left and right corners of the big circle (which is a "Lucky Emblem" from KH3). Out of curiosity, he touches it, making his paw pads glow with greenish magic, since he still has some of his magic from his past life and he heals the tree, making it full of life again.

At this moment, after finding a new feeling of hope, Ekko and Powder decides to gather other lost and orphaned children and people to the hiding place, creating the Firelights.

Like The Resistance in canon R&C, The Firelights fight against The Nefarious Empire, as well as gather resources for survival. However, they work on their own and had never allied with The Resistance, despite their similar goals. The Resistance thinks The Firelights are just a bunch of reckless daredevil kids playing hero (which is not true, there are some adults and they plan deeply on how to do it as safely as possible, so they are far from reckless daredevils), and The Firelights think The Resistance are just a bunch of military hypocrites who are just doing it for the money, (which is also not true! Again they have the same goals.). Therefore a rivalry and feud between the two rebel groups began.

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Personality:

He is more similar to Ekko (mainly the Arcane version) in personality; he's cold, bitter and rather focus on the present then the past, however like in his past life, he is a kind and caring leader to his group, the firelights, and is very loving, understanding and open with Powder, who is his co-leader and fiancée, shown by key necklaces instead of rings (because of the dangers of them).

Dispute having a cold hatred for The Resistance, deep down in his heart Ekko wants to stop it and make peace with the opposing party, especially with Powder openly expressing how much she wants this "pointless feud" to stop. However, the damage has already been done. But even if he can't stop feud, he can prevent from becoming a war. So he made a rule that if they go into combat with The Resistance, by ANY means, Do Not Kill Anyone.

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Abilities:

Due to his past life as Sora, Ekko still wields some light/magic in his heart that comes off in the form of abilities releasing from his hands.

Time-Rewind: This works similarly to his LoL game move, but with a dash of Thanos snapping, a smidge of Rage Form (Headcanons) and a hint of Great Clock from A Crack in Time. He can a Time-Rewind in seconds with the snap of his fingers/claws. However, he can only do a rewind back a maximum of 10 seconds, more than that can render him weak and physically drained.

Healing: This is a rare skill that Ekko has low control over. It just happens randomly when he isn't even thinking, like when he healed the tree for example. This is mostly due to the lack of memory of his past life and not remembering how to use it. However, with time, he'll get better with this ability and many others.

Other KH abilities: Same thing with Healing. That's all I can say.

Voice Claim:

Haley Joel Osment, same voice as Sora. His voice would still be higher and more "emotional" however it will have Ekko's overall serious mood and tone to make it less obvious that he is a Sora reincarnation.

Edit: I just found out that Haley Joel Osment also voiced Casey Jones from the Rise of the TMNT movie and I barely recognized Sora in his voice. So yeah, he's perfect.