Dozens of bodies found at Olympia Primary.

Prostitution activities suspected to be taking place. Evidence point to a vigilante like person breaking into the hall and taking out the gang. Police warn that whoever was reponsible is extremely dangerous and that the public should remain vigilant until the culprit is found.

"Names...Soultaker? What kind of name is that?" Maxus read.

The teenager noticed one of the nearby newspaper outlets, their headline giving him all the information he needed for now. For many months now he has expected himself to be noticed, leaving a trail of dead bodies everywhere he went, it was only a matter of time before the police figured out that some vigilante like him was doing this.

How many people have I killed...? 

"Maxus...right?"

A gentle, flowery voice broke his chain of thought. Maxus turned around to see a familiar looking girl waving at him from a small distance away, a girl around his age with a slim build, shorter than him by half a head about 163cm tall? 

She was dressed fairly casually, a white camp tee shirt with light blue short pants, accompanied by a light blue school bag. Maxus scrolled through his memories to recall, quickly figuring something out:" You...you're from my class right? Sorry I couldn't remember everybody's names."

"Oh? That's alright I didn't either. I'm Leah." The girl introduced herself.

She remembered my name though...oh god it's probably that stupid thing I said back then.

"Hi...Hi Leah. I'm assuming you live nearby?"Maxus asks her as Leah nods:" Yeah just down the left walkway here, above the coffee shop. Block 219. My parents run the fish ball noodle store there."Leah points to the direction before excitedly turning back to him:" Do you live nearby too?"

"Yeah just three blocks down from here. Block 233." Maxus had never met such an outgoing person.

Maxus looked into Leah's eyes and quickly spotted her eyes wide opened staring back. In fact she was frozen stiff, awkwardly trying to find something to do in order to break the ice but failing at every possible thought. " You know...it's okay if you don't wanna keep talking. It's okay to be awkward, you don't really have to continue a conversation with me...not in the bad sense but...I hope you see where I'm coming from."

Leah was surprised that he understood her.

"Yeah...sorry I'm just...really trying to make new friends since we are going to a new school but...I'm just a little tired you know, I haven't woke up this early since secondary school which is like...only months ago but still. I promise I'm actually more outgoing than this. Thanks for understanding." Leah seemed slightly more comfortable with talking to him now as Maxus smiled :" Yeah...yeah no worries. Take your time."

Leah took in a deep breath, pouting to herself before looking at the bus stop ahead of them where a bus had just arrived. Today was the day... the first day of lessons in their Polytechnic." I'm taking that you gonna take the same bus as me?"

"Yeah...yeah of course."

Leah looked at him and quickly noticed the scars across his body. Bandages that were slightly visible through his sleeves, cuts and bruises across his arms, faint but still noticeable and his face, a scratch down his lip and a cut near his eye. His hair was uncombed yet...not overly messsy. Maxus had some serious eye bags and despite it being the first day of school, his eyes were already slightly red, the look of his face...one of a drained and exhausted man.

"Are you okay?" Leah asks him, concerned.

Maxus looked down to the direction of her eyes were looking at, realizing that she was talking about his scars...the ones he had gotten from the fight at Olympia Primary. A swarm of butterflies formed in his stomach as Maxus made up a lie:" Oh I... got this at my martial arts training."

"You take martial arts?"

"Oh yeah..." Maxus thought about it...his lie might not be a real lie after all. He did went through a tremendously tough training regimen a few years back and even now...after taking up the role of a vigilante, Maxus still trains regularly, lifting weights, developing new techniques and attacks to use on his endeavors.

The duo headed towards their bus, ready to board when they found themselves being swarmed by the morning crowd. 

Both teenagers sighed as Leah turned to Maxus:" Do you wanna wait for the next bus?"

"We might be late though.It's already 8:25 unless you don't mind of course...I don't." Maxus shrugs as Leah pursed her lips, thinking about it:" You know what, let's just wait. It's the first day only they won't expect everyone to get there on time."

Leah and Maxus took a seat at the bus stop, allowing the first wave of people in front of them to board the bus while awaiting the next bus. Leah took in a deep breath, looking at Maxus again nervously and this time, observing that he only had a sling bag." Erm...what are you bringing to school? That bag looks like there's nothing much in it."

"I have a water bottle."Maxus answered her.

"That's it?"

"And a portable charger."

"No stationery?"

Maxus paused, completely forgetting about them." Urm...okay I admit, it's been awhile since I attended school." Before he could say anything else, Leah pulled out two pens from her own pencil case, handing them over to Maxus:" Just make sure you return them to me after school alright? We'll probably be coming back the same route anyway."

Maxus held on to the pens giving her a warm smile:" Thank you."

Leah leaned back as she rests her eyes, waiting for the next bus. She's right...making friends. It'll help me have alibis in case they ever find me. Maxus decided to strike another conversation: " Your parents are fish ball noodles hawkers right?. I think I've eaten there once or twice. Never seen you around though."

"I help out during the holidays only, maybe that's why. I'm surprised that I've never met you as well since we live so close by, or maybe we did but I just couldn't recognize you. What about you? Parents or anyone living with you?" Leah's extroverted side was showing.

"My parents passed on. I'm living by myself"

Leah paused, taking in the information as she softly answered him:" Sorry..."

"It's fine. You didn't know." Maxus slowly regretted starting another conversation as his mind momentarily went blank before shooting him back into his memories. That one day. The day that because the cause of the root of everything he is today.

2 Years Ago.

Maxus recalled writing an essay in secondary school about the person he looked up to the most. All his life he had lived in a fairly simple and ordinary environment.

His mother was an immigrant from Shanghai and had passed away 2 years after giving birth to him from lung cancer, a tumor that developed from her time working within a low end car factory that paid minimum wage. His father was once a loan shark runner that decided to leave the triad when he met his mother, settling down to become a hawker and raise his family free from guilt.

Maxus remembered the exact words he had written:

My father is not a perfect man. But despite that, he is the man I look up to. My father was once young, immature and foolish like most people that age are. Once upon a time he was a loan shark, his life was messy but yet in that chaos, he managed to meet my mother whom he fell in love with. That love made him quit his old ways and to become a hawker, allowing him to make his money without a guilty conscious.

Despite his past, my father had worked hard since before I was born, determined to give both me and my mother a good life. He didn't make a lot of money, but it was geinuine and hard earned cash. That was enough to give us a comfortable life. After all, every dollar he had was earned was legitimate, made from a profession that he could live with.

He remembered being praised by the teacher, going to his father's hawker store that day to show him the A that he gotten for the essay.

"Your first A this year? Good job! Keep this out and you'll ace your O levels."His father proudly looked at the grade on his essay.

Maxus was always an average student. But that was fine with his parents. If he could just get any qualifications he needed to get a secure and job that Maxus was happy with. That was all his father wanted of him. To be good and happy.

Maxus set his school bag down at the front table in front of his dad's chicken curry noodle store, grabbing an apron ready to help out when his Dad stopped him, passing him a $50 dollar note:" Maxus...you don't need to help me with the store today. Can you help me go down the street, find Uncle Lim and help me buy 200grams of garlic and half a kg of onions. "

"What happened to the supplier?"

"Something about stock disruption. He can't make it for tomorrow's order so yeah. You can keep the remaining change for your extra allowance this week. Take it as a gift from Dad. Buy something nice for yourself."

"I'll get you some bubble tea from down the street?"Maxus offered.

"Hm...sure, Oolong tea with pearl. No sugar."

Maxus returned half an hour later with all the things he had bought only to face a fiery mess. Flames raging madly from the hawker center, engulfing the sky in dark smoke. Maxus spotted several figures around the fiery blaze armed with machetes, sprinting away from the scene. The worried teenager dropped everything he had, sprinting towards the scene as fast as he could.

"BOY! What are you doing! STOP!"

Maxus ignored the cries of the on lookers around him, dashing into the scene with no hint of hesitation, discarding his own safety. The ravaging flames could be felt scorching his skin even from a good distance away, even with every step Maxus took, the sensation of his skin literally being cooked was getting heavier. Despite this the teenager still ran in, trying to avoid as many flames as he could. 

Everything in front of him was a blur of orange, the smoke was choking every last ounce of oxygen out of him. Every breath he took hurt, his throat was coarse and itchy, his eyes irritated constantly by the overwhelming smoke. The teenager pressed on, ignoring all of the suffering his body was going through as finally, he made it to his father's store.

His dad, on the floor motionless.

The hawker store was on fire, chunks of debris were collapsing all around them.

One of his hand, missing and in it's place, blood flowing out uncontrollably and his legs, being caught on fire from the nearest flames. Maxus rushed to his father's aid, quickly grabbing a piece of cloth to put out the fire, trying his absolute best to stop the flames from burning his father alive.

"DAD! DAD WAKE UP!" Maxus' tears poured uncontrollably.

A chunk of flaming debris collapsed beside them,an ignited shard flying into Maxus' back, causing the teenager to collapse in pain. "Dad...please, DAD!" Maxus crawled towards his father, summoning every last bit of strength in him to carry his father up, wrapping his father's arms around his shoulders before looking around, trying to find a safe route out of the flaming complex.

"Leave..." Maxus heard his Dad mutter.

"Not without you." Maxus quickly ducked out of the way as another pile of flaming debris crashed right beside them, narrowly missing the duo. In front of him, a fiery blaze that Maxus recognized as the usual route out of the hawker center. At this point the only thing he could do was to hope that nothing was blocking him after the wall of fire he was facing.

Holding his breath, Maxus dashed with all the strength he had, charging through the flaming wall in front of him before tripping onto a chunk of rogue debris, dropping both him and his father down onto the ground.

"Dad..." Maxus struggled as the smoke got into his lungs, causing him to cough in pain.

Maxus looked at his Dad, the paleness in his face was showing even through the immense orange lighting around them. Maxus couldn't remember what really happened next. At that point he had already inhaled a significantly unhealthy amount of smoke, barely keeping him conscious but he was told later on that fire fighters found him.

Maxus woke up in the hospital the next day with his Aunt and her family by his side.

Aunt Tan became his legal guardian overnight. The last he heard from the police who interviewed him, his father was completely burned alive and in a last ditch effort to save his son, Maxus' dad used his own body to shield the flames from Maxus.

"Did you see anything?" Maxus remember being asked.

"A group of guys...had weapons. Running away from the scene."

Maxus knew from his Dad's stories that those men definitely had something to do with the fire. Authorities ruled the entire burning down of the hawker center as nothing more than an unnatural accident. Nobody took the claims of a 14 year old seriously. His Aunt had tried to make a case for him but... they weren't very financially well to do either. He cannot put the burden on her.

That was the day he decided to create the Soultaker.

-

"Maxus? Sorry did... did I say something wrong?" Leah asks him.

"Oh no...no no, I'm just daydreaming. I'm not much...sorry."

"What are you apologizing for? It's okay to not talk. I'm just happy that I'm not walking alone to school." Leah smiles, instantly lifting Maxus' mood up. "I'm glad I'm not alone either. Good to know that a new classmate lives near you. At least it makes trips to school significantly less lonely."

"That is...if you don't mind traveling with me." Leah corrects.

"Why would I?" Maxus answers her as the both of them entered their classroom.

6 Hours of Lessons passed when the class got up, all of them excited for the event that most of them had been waiting for the entire day. The co-curricular activity tryouts. Leah was surprisingly following him and Reynesh around and she seemed genuinely excited compared to the nervous self he met this morning.

Reynesh wrapped his arm around Maxus' shoulder:" So, what are you gonna tryout for?"

"The go home club." Maxus answered quickly.

"Are you serious? Come on man." Reynesh groaned as Maxus rolled his eyes in response:" I'm not interesting in CCAs man I mean, I don't see it being useful in the long run. In addition to that I am busy at home so, you guys can have fun."

"At least accompany us to the tryouts? Take a look at least." Leah adds in.

"Exactly, don't you have some martial arts background?" Reynesh continued. "Oh shit that's cool, I took some Aikido courses as a kid. Maybe you wanna come take a look together?" Luke, another one of their classmates asks.

"Dude  I heard you can get in easily if you already have a background." Amy, yet another classmate adds in.

Maxus sighed, knowing that more suspicion would be caused if he continued being anti social. I wonder who's the vigilante among all these teenagers, definitely not the edgy and always brooding loner right? Maxus finally agreed to follow his classmates who all walked towards the gym hall where multiple martial arts CCA tryouts were being held.

The event was crowded. Dozens of Year 1 Students crowded around the perimeter of the gym hall and in the center, the hall was split into multiple sections, the martial arts on the left side while the badminton and volleyball tryouts on the right.

"Leah, you sure you wanna look at these with us? "Reynesh asks her.

"Hey, I can be pretty sporty too you know. Let's go to the martial arts one."Leah happily suggested.

Maxus found himself being dragged along by his new classmates, going towards the martial arts tryout. The area was split into four areas, each covered by a safety mat for the instructors and seniors to show off their moves to the newbies of the school. There was everything there, one senior was showing off his move set with the Chinese Jian, another was flipping a volunteer with his judo moves.

Judo...Chinese Kung Fu, Taekwando and Kickboxing.

In the center of the four mats however, a makeshift stage resembling that of a boxing stage. Maxus watched as one of the taller seniors, dressed in full black sparring gear dodging several punches from a member of the Taekwando club before easily sweeping his opponent off his feet, grabbing him by the arm and hurling the Taekwando member out of the stage and painfully onto the mat below.

"COME ON! DO BETTER!" The kick boxer yelled, his ego clearly getting the better of him.

Reynesh nudged Maxus who was clearly disinterested in the whole event, seeing through the kick boxer's moves from his own combat experience. "Yo you think you can drop that loudmouth down. I saw from a poster that he's the captain of the kickboxing CCA."

"Nah fuck him." Maxus remarked.

"Come! Anybody who think they can beat me, step right up! I'll pay you a hundred dollars if you can even last one minute with me in here!" The kickboxing captain yelled out to the crowd. Several on lookers nervously backed off, not wanting to share the same fate as the Taekwando member. Even several other kickboxing members were trying to calm their captain down for his ego was on full display for everyone in the hall to see.

"Yo Maxus, take that guy down. $100 you know.I heard from Reynesh that you had a martial arts background?" Luke suggests. Maxus turned to Reynesh who nods, admitting his story spreading ability as Maxus tried to reject, only to be quickly interrupted.

"Dude he's offering a cash reward, don't you want it?" Amy adds.

"Maxus even if you lose it's still worth a shot isn't it?" Reynesh continued.

Maxus sighs as the people around them started to notice the conversation between his classmates and him. "Maxus, your scars if you don't feel comfortable doing it, you don't have to. It's just cool if you do."Leah tells him.

$100... Fine.

Maxus nods, heading towards the sparring stage at the center of the gym hall.

It didn't take long for the kickboxing captain to spot Maxus walking towards him without hesitation. Maxus looked up at his opponent who had a stupid grin across his face, looking down on him like a hawk glaring down on his next prey. Maxus climbed onto the sparring stage as the kickboxing captain approached him:" You a Year 1 newbie? Pretty ballsy for you to come up here, I'll give you that."

The kickboxing captain was tall, standing way above 6ft, maybe around 185cm with huge muscular arms, a clean fade cut and a cocky smirk streaking across his face. He was easily towering above the 174cm Maxus who was not the least fazed by his bigger sized opponent.

"Hundred dollars right? You better not lie." Maxus kept things short.

"Harold, hand me my wallet." The kickboxing captain called out to one of his juniors who tossed him his wallet. The egotistical captain took out a hundred dollar bill, waving it in front of Maxus' face:" Now you know I have the cash. Are you ready? Don't worry, at least you'll still make me look good. Just try not to die alright?" The kickboxing captain took a few steps back, readying his combat stance.

Maxus clenched his fists, smiling.

"You can do this!"Reynesh cheered. 

The entire school gym seemed to have their eyes on the two fighters, their curiosities peaking after the kickboxing captain had flung challenger after challenger out of the sparring stage only for a newbie Year 1 student to be his next opponent. Everybody did not have high hopes for Maxus, but everyone was excited to see what was going to happen.

The underdog always gets the most attention.

"You talk a lot of shit. Want to prove those words or are you just gonna be an empty shell of noise and nothing else?" Maxus hissed.

"Hehe..." The kickboxing captain smiled, hopping a few times to build momentum before charging at Maxus. Maxus studied the captain's moves, easily reading through it as a simple sidestep allowed him to dodge the first kick before another back step to duck a punch. "You're pretty slow for someone who talks so much."Maxus remarked.

The agitated captain noticed the easiness of Maxus' dodges and quickly realized that he was fighting an opponent whom he had superbly underestimated. The kickboxing captain slowed down his pace, putting up a more defensive posture as Maxus smiled:" You can fight, the fact that you changed your posture almost immediately shows you do have potential. But like I said, you talk too much. Someone needs to shut you the fuck up."

"I don't think you know who the fuck you're talking to."

The kickboxing captain threw a quick jab, expecting his speed to completely catch Maxus off guard only for the newbie student to duck under his arm, landing two speedy strikes to his ribs and followed by one thundering kick across his jaw, sending the kickboxing captain collapsing out of the sparring arena.

The gym hall went silent.

The kickboxing captain slammed down onto the hall's ground, landing hard on his back as he cried out in pain. Maxus, standing in the middle of the sparring stage looking down at his opponent, victorious and completely unfazed.

Next Chapter- Rampage