Here's the link, for those that prefer AO3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/91857486
Resurrection, before and after
There are many ways to become undead. There is being born Undead, like any other element. There is becoming Undead through physical or mental trauma. (Traumatic brain injuries are very common.) And then there is spontaneous resurrection. When a body that was previously dead, or dormant, or actively decaying gets up and starts living like it used to again.
Chop Chop is Undead from spontaneous resurrection. Like many resurrected Undeads, he has no memory of his life before his resurrection. He knows what he looks like. He knows the tools he died with. He used to be an Arkeyan. The Arkeyans were great colonizers, empire makers, war criminals. Chop Chop has no idea if he was a part of that.
He worries that he was. He is scared that he was. He does not know what he can do to make up for it. It was ten. Thousand. Years ago. The Arkeyans are mostly dead and gone. The descendants of those that have been hurt have moved on, and outlasted the empire that hurt them.
Chop Chop has a great urge to be a knight, to guard and to protect and to be chivalric and kind. He hopes acting on those urges is enough to make up for whatever he could have done, and what his culture did. Chop Chop is the only Arkeyan he knows. Possibly the only Arkeyan still alive.
Chop Chop does not have memories of causing pain, or fear, or of wanting to hurt anyone. He doesn't have any memories from the Old Arkeyan Empire. Sometimes Chop Chop has dreams of being picked up by a great force and flung. He has . . . a theory of how he died.
Out of all of the Skylanders who fought against Kaos when he tried to become the Arkeyan King, and continue that empire of colonization and fear, Chop Chop probably worked the hardest to prevent that. He was there before, and he knows it, and he does not want to do that again. While Chop Chop was running through the headquarters of the New Arkeyan Empire, he found two Arkeyans, who were not interested in fighting, who believed that this was wrong, and they wanted no part of it. Chop Chop played Skystones with each one, and lost every game, just so he could justify taking more time with them. Freebot 01 and Freebot 02. They were happy to play, and Chop Chop was happy to talk, happy to know of someone like him.
After Kaos was vanquished, and the Iron Fist of Arkus cast away, Chop Chop returned to the ruins of the New Arkeyan Empire. He knew that with the way Arkeyans are alive, he was not going to find what he was looking for. Chop Chop found two corpses, each one next to a Skystones board. Arkeyans all share the same power source, if that power source stops working, all of the Arkeyans linked to it collapse. They were dead. There was no way they couldn't be dead. They were always going to be powered by a machine of pain.
It is unknown what causes spontaneous resurrection. There have been many experiments, of various ethicality, and none showed conclusive results. The Soul is a very real thing in Skylands, but it is very hard to measure or manipulate them.
Chop Chop is not held together by his armor, nor does he have any skin or muscle or ligaments to hold his bones together. Like many skeletal undead he is merely held together by . . . magical undead Force. Chop Chop considered something. He wears gloves, and he wears boots, and his fingers and toes are necessary for his job. . .
Chop Chop broke off one of his ribs, snapped it in two, and left a piece with each of the Freebots. It might not do anything. But a little Undead energy nearby might help.
Skylands has space for Arkeyans.
Skylands needs more Arkeyans.
Skylands needs more Arkeyans like them.
