Story
Maxx is a young kid whose life was upturned by an evil “Entity” that has corrupted the lives of everything and everyone around him. Despite his own pair of shoes having been corrupted, he wrested control of them through sheer willpower, nicknames them “Treads,” and is now working with them to start freeing the neighbourhood from the “Entity’s” Corruption through the Fireplaces.
Who?
Maxx goes to Northwestern Academy, located at the south-eastern side of Cardinal City, a prestigious academy where only the best and brightest go. His parents send him there because they know he is the best and brightest, with the highest expectations of him. But Maxx doesn’t care about any of that. He’s always late to classes, or even completely absent from them. He runs around the city, exploring different places and meeting different people there. They all just know him as the kid from the academy, who should probably not be there right now, but they still humor him anyways. He’s not great at socializing with the other students, and they don’t like that he’s still somehow getting top scores in classes, despite having the record for absences (riding that line of expulsion).
The day the Entity came to town and started corrupting everything, one of the first things it corrupted was a gift from his parents that was a surprise for him that morning. The gift was for him getting to the top of the class for the first time. His parents always had to leave for work early in the morning, so all Maxx saw was the gift box and the note next to it from them. The box was covered in corruption, and as he approaches it, the heelys pop out and jump onto his feet. Maxx struggles with them and literally stamps them out with his willpower and stubbornness. He knows these shoes were supposed to be a gift from his parents, and not whatever these things were. So he questions them and gets the low down on what’s going on as he sees the corruption taking over the city outside.