Matt quickly shut his apartment door but was careful not to slam it. He then locked it and the several additional locks he put on over the last two years. After that, he stood unmoving with both hands on the door and taking slow, deep breaths.
Glancing at his transformed hand, Matt's breathing quickened. His voice then hitched as he remembered Xavier's body lying on the ground. He turned around and pressed his boy against the door as he slid down it - hands covering his face as he slid down and sat against it. His breaking voice sounded as though he were about to cry.
After his ability awakened and his hand changed, Matt panicked severely. He initially tried to pry the spikes off his knuckles. He even contemplated smashing his hand with a big rock - stopped more by lack of any blunt interment and refocusing on the dead body than any unwillingness.
The gravity of his situation began to set it for Matt. However, his overwhelming terror, guilt, panic, and rejection pushed him into a state of hyper-fixation rather than paralysis. He then stripped off Xavier's jacket, tore off the bloodstained collar, turned it inside out to hide as much of the blood as he could, and then speed-walked away from the scene with his transformed hand jammed into his pocket the whole way home.
Now back in his apartment, Matt was able to breakdown. Once the tears stopped, Matt was feeling hollow. He stripped off the jacket and went to the shower to wash off the blood on his body and try to feel clean.
Taking off the rest of his clothes and turning the hot water on to a temperature he did not enjoy, Matt began cleaning himself. As he did this, he eventually looked to his transformed hand and gave a broken laugh as he considered his life to be over.
"There's no way I'll be able to hide this. The skin I could manage with some long gloves or armbands, but the fingertips and the spikes are too sharp not to cut through anything I wear…I'll be found out. Everyone will turn on me. What am I going to do…"
Once again, Matt began to weep as he sat down under the stream of hot water.
"C-Could I try Haven. I-…It's supposed to be a place where EX-humans are accepted…"
Haven is a paramilitary, law-enforcement organization created to gather Ability Holders together. It was established by the U.N. about four years ago. Originally, Ability Holders were handled by their countries' government. However, their powers led to them being viewed as a military asset. This caused concern among the distrusting nations and worries about human rights. Thus, to limit this kind of thinking, achieve fairness between nations, and utilize the EX-humans as a means of combating EX-beasts and lawbreaking Ability Holders, Haven was established around the world.
In this way, Ability Holders would be shared among the various nations with no one having greater influence over them than any other. It was not perfect as not all Ability Holders sought to join Haven. It also isolated and segregated them. Under the name of support and relief, Haven has a number of facilities with a range of purposes including agriculture, education, goods production, etc. EX-humans of all ages wind up virtually cut off from the rest of the population.
This has mixed results. For some people, 'out of sight, out of mind'. For others, it makes Haven a target for discrimination and slander. There are also individuals who view Haven as giving Ability Holders too much autonomy - claiming they could lead an uprising. More positive opinions and views are few and far between.
For 'free-rein' Ability Holders, Haven is viewed as a corral or gilded cage. That it is just a glorified means of controlling them and those in it are viewed as dogs, sheep, or cattle. This view is not wrong. Public opinion toward Ability Holders in general is lukewarm at best. Counterarguments typically involve 'the public's peace of mind', 'temporary', 'they're free to leave whenever they want', 'it's for the best', etc.
The prevailing view in favor of Haven among Ability Holders has more to do with the benefits that come with it. While it is agreed that allying with Haven is tantamount to giving up their autonomy, the organization is viewed more or less positively by the general public. Those in it are seen in uniform and considered 'safe' by people - or 'leashed' by the more discriminatory. This helps protect them from discrimination as even Anti-EX don't openly antagonize members due to being an official government organization. It also provides a place to belong, work, training to control their powers to avoid harming themselves or others, etc. Overall, it seems they gain more than they're losing.
Matt calmed down and just sat despondently under the rain provided by his shower. "It will never work. I don't know if I could survive in a stiff place like that. Even if I could, they'd never take me in. Now that I've killed someone, they'll lock me up for sure…or worse."
Matt's concerns are not unwarranted. Haven follows strict guidelines and as he has no backing or anyone to vouch for or defend him, his circumstances will not matter. Furthermore, the legal punishment to Ability Holders is typically proportional to their crime. While he may be incarcerated for life for his crime, it is just as likely he will be labeled a 'dangerous EX-human' and be treated no better than an EX-beast - being killed on sight.
Additionally, there are the typical paranoid rumors of what condition Ability Holders are kept under. Due to the supposed danger they pose, inmates are not allowed visitation which fuels rumors of inhuman conditions or experimentation. A general lack of care or a 'let the people in charge handle it' mentality leads most to not question the governments' assurance of that not being the case. Although, those assuracnces are supported by some Ability Holders fulfilling the terms of their incarceration, being released, and claiming that - while likely worse than ordinary prison - no such things took place.
"Especially with this," Matt thought bitterly as he looked at his hand. After it's transformation, a string of information flowed into his head - granting him a rudimentary understanding of its powers and function. "I mean, seriously. 'Murder Hand'? That's asking to get shot."
Murder Hand was a fairly straight forward ability classified as an 'internal', 'parasite', 'predator' type - shortened to 'internal possession'-type. This is a common type of ability with roughly twenty-five-percent of Ability Holders having the same type of power. This type of ability utilizes the holder's internal EX particles to augment and transform a part of themselves with a strong inclination toward combat and combatting other Ability Holders.
In its current state, Murder Hand only demonstrates a limited resistance to the Abilities of others in the afflicted area - Matt's hand -, pronounced and razor sharp claws, and spiked knuckles with no other feature. Considered 'Level 1', it needs to grow and evolve in order to develop more abilities. To do that, as the name suggests, it needs murder, or more specifically, it needs to absorb and consume the EX particles of other organisms such as EX-beasts, EX-humans, or even those lying dormant in ordinary humans.
This furthers Matt's melancholy. Abilities - especially once awoken - are known to influence EX-humans' behavior. They seem to want to grow and evolve and push their users to do what is needed for that. Parasite-type abilities are the most notorious for this due to being a part of the user's body. Predator-types are also known for this due to their higher level of aggression. So a possession-type that combines those two is notoriously difficult to control.
An ability craving conflict and murder is not going to be viewed favorably - especially since it awakening would require Matt to have killed already. While he could claim it was an EX-beast, he is not optimistic in his chances of escaping being found out.
"Even if everyone in the world really is that gullible, there will always be the doubt of when I'll go psycho and attack someone to grow stronger. Or, I'll constantly be sent out to fight to sate it or die trying…"
Thoughts like these swirling in his mind, Matt's mental state continued to deteriorate. No matter how he looked at it, there was no good ending for him.
Matt suddenly looked up with hollow eyes, turned off the shower, and stormed out of the bathroom. In his bedroom-slash-living room-slash-dinning room, he quickly threw some clothes onto his still dripping wet body. Unsure of what to do, he decided to do what he does best: run away.
Matt grabbed the bug-out bag he kept prepared in case he ever needed to leave quickly, checked its contents, grabbed whatever else he thought he would need, and left.
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Haven's Main Headquarters is located in New York City of the United States of America. However, there are also Branch Headquarters located in Europe, Russia, and China. Larger countries or more populous countries are divided into areas with Haven Bases built to oversee these areas.
One such base is built in the city Matt is currently in. Located near the center of the city is a large facility made up of three conjoined buildings. There is the 'main office' at the front that functions similarly to an office building or a police precinct where official Haven business is conducted. To the side is a Haven research facility where scientists are able to study Ability Users - the facility also functioning as a sort of gym for testing and training their powers. Lastly, behind the main office was a large tower that served many functions ranging from room and board to its members to more official matters such as press conferences or hosting important figures.
Inside one of the tower's hallways, a young man named Mark Kolton came to a stop and turned to his colleague. "What was that? There's been a detection of a new Ability Holder?"
Mark was a nineteen-year-old orphan EX-human taken in and practically raised by the state after he began demonstrating his powers fourteen-years-ago. Although he only officially joined Haven and was stationed at the base one year ago, he has been part of and cared for by the organization since its founding. It is fair to say, his whole life has been dedicated to the organization.
Tall and handsome with short brown hair and sharp brown eyes, Mark's intelligence and high degree of natural talent makes him highly popular, and he is already considered one of this base's top agents. His ability is one of the very common external, subordinate, predator type abilities - otherwise known as an 'external hunter' type. It is called Hunting Dog.
Mark's colleague was a young woman named Ciera June. Originally from the European Branch Headquarters, she was transferred to this base two years ago to stay near her father after he remarried. She was a top beauty with chin-length, curling blonde hair; vibrant sky-blue eyes; and slightly short but curvaceous figure. She too was an Ability Holder - possessing the internal-hunter-type ability called Guardian Revenant.
"That's right," Ciera confirmed. "We just got a call from Headquarters. According to Della, someone activated their Ability near a parking garage about an hour ago. The chief says he wants us to check it out."
Della - Della Darts - was a key member of Haven. Although her ability was not particularly powerful, it was immeasurably useful and near irreplaceable. Her ability fell within the classification of an external, infection, stalker type - otherwise called an 'external invader'-type. Of documented Ability Holders, only ten-percent have this particular classification of ability and are deemed quite rare.
The name of Della's ability is Detection Sonar. On paper, it allows her to utilize the surrounding EX particles to analyze things around her. However, this ability essentially grants her a comprehensive knowledge of everything around her and is often used in investigations to reconstruct crime scenes with a high degree of accuracy. Additionally, while providing no offensive capability, due to how it interacts with EX particles, she can read how other abilities interact with EX particles to gain a basic understanding of their workings. She thus always knows what her opponents are capable of to a limited degree.
Like many infection-types, her ability is always active and it is only a matter of whether she is consciously using it or not. When she is not using it, her awareness effectively spreads throughout her surroundings with an unparalleled range far surpassing anyone like her. This feature of her ability renders her a walking radar for unusual EX particle activity such as the use of an ability or the activation of one - which gives off a particularly strong reading. Despite being at the Main Headquarters, she still detected activity over half-way across the country.
Mark stood at attention upon hearing this. "Give me a moment to change into uniform and I will meet you to depart." He then turned to rush to the changing room where his uniform was kept.