The night was dark and the air frigid. Magda could see the tendrils of warm air curling out of her mouth as they sailed silently under the docks of Notre Dame. The bundle of warmth in her arms squirmed and mewled with discomfort as the bitter air brushed his delicate face. The mutants shot worried glances at their surroundings as the little boy cried, his voice loud in the silent night.

"Shut it up, will you? We'll be spotted!" One of the men hissed, his teeth bared and his eyes darting.

The human mother stroked her son's tiny head and murmured soothing words into his ear. "Hush, little one." She cooed, holding his warm weight closer to her chest.

A different man – a young, but experienced mutant with an extraordinary ability to slow time around himself and whomever he was touching – grunted a small approval when the child quietened and steered the boat to a narrow, partially hidden dock under a bridge where a man awaited them.

The three mutants and the woman climbed out of the boat, wincing slightly at the crunching the ice made under their feet.

"Four gold pieces for safe passage into Paris." He whispered, holding a small, leather pouch of coins out for the man. The young man had barely dropped the coins into the other man's hand when an arrow whizzed out of the darkness and buried itself into his arm.

The resulting cry pierced the night like a knife through silk, and it was chaos from there on in. Guards swarmed out of the shadows, taking a stand in a semi-circle around the group, spears pointed at the intruder's faces.

'A trap!' Magda exclaimed, clutching her son closer to her chest. A swell of protectiveness grew in her chest as panic and adrenaline coursed through her veins, boiling in her blood. She felt a strong arm wrap around her, shielding her and her child away from the cruel points of the spears aimed at them. She could think nothing of this though, terror for her baby coursing through her.

Magda's eyes widened with horror as a shadow fell over them, blocking the moonlight and drowning their figures in darkness. She felt the mutants all turn towards the source of the shadow and gasp collectively at who was stood there.

Her heart pounding in her chest, holding her baby as close to her as she could – as if that would ever protect his helpless form from being harmed – she too turned towards the shadow.

The sight that beheld her, made her heart skip with horror. They all gazed up in fear and alarm at the figure of a man with a cold stare and a wicked, wicked heart. They all knew of this man; he was the reason they had to flee Düsseldorf to Paris for their safety. He was known by many names – a different one for every country. In Germany, he was known as Klaus Schmidt, In the Netherlands he was called Claude Frolo. It was only his prey – mutants – that knew him by his true name.

"Sebastian Shaw." The man beside her breathed. Sebastian Shaw longed to purge the world of mutants, fearing their power as superior beings. So he had inflamed the minds of his fellow humans, causing panic and doubt to rise in the masses. Shaw had now made sure that mutants were hated and feared wherever they went, and soon the swarm of panic-stricken humans had created 'The Witch Hunts'.

The idea had spread like wildfire.

Fearing for their lives, the mutants fled or simply disappeared during the night. Some with less obvious mutations – that could hide easily among the crowds – did exactly that, and hid their mutation from the world and prayed that no one would discover their secret.

Magda hadn't had to worry about any of this when she was a girl; she was human, she was safe. That was, however, until she bore a son.

She and the other three young mutants had banded together, looking out for one another and protecting each other as they lived in Düsseldorf. Until one night, they were exposed.

They had fled in order to escape Sebastian Shaw and his Witch Hunts, only to run straight into his iron clutches on the edges of Paris. The thought sent Magda's thoughts roiling in dread tinged anger.

Her son whimpered and squirmed in her arms as he sensed rusted, iron cuffs being snapped shut over her friend's wrists. Surreptitiously, she dug her fingers into a pocket in her skirts and brought out a small gold ingot, which she placed gently into the hand of her son.

He stopped struggling immediately and begun playing with the precious metal, bending and re-shaping the solid block in his tiny fingers. She had to find a way out of here, she thought as one of the guards approached her with the iron cuffs.

He spotted the bundle wrapped tightly against her chest.

"You there! What are you hiding?" He shouted at her, trying to take the child from her grasp. She growled and twisted her body around her son, attempting to keep him from the man's clutches.

"Stolen goods, no doubt." Shaw drawled from atop his horse. "Take them from her."

She ran.

Throwing herself at an infinitesimal crack in her captor's formation, she barrelled through the startled men and dashed up the steps into Paris.

Snow capped shops and houses flew past her as she careened through the streets, clutching her boy in the safe net of her arms. She heard shouts and galloping hooves behind her as she tore through increasingly smaller back alleys to try and loose her pursuers.

The sound of steel shoed hooves echoed like gunfire through the quiet night, and the sound was quickly gaining on her. Not daring to throw a glance over her shoulder to check, she spotted a small iron gate blocking the path into the main square.

She leapt over it without thinking twice.

Her heart thundering behind her ribs, hope filled her chest as she took in the sight of the intimidating mass of Notre Dame towering over her. She had never run faster in her life than when she dashed up those cathedral steps.

Pounding her fist on the gigantic wooden doors, she screamed into the darkness. "Sanctuary! Please! Give us Sanctuary!" but the doors remained resolutely locked. Panic rising in her chest, she heard Shaw approaching fast on his horse and turned on her heel, leaping down the icy steps with little thought other than escape!

Magda felt a strong hand reach and grab at the boy in her arms, pulling him roughly from her grasp. Heartbreak and terror running at equal wavelengths throughout her entire being, she turned and hung on to him as much as she could, leaning backwards in the effort.

Shaw was too strong, and she toppled backwards, smashing her skull on the Cathedral steps as her son was irrevocably taken away from her forever.

It was mere milliseconds before the darkness enveloped her.

oOo

Shaw watched with a deep sense of satisfaction as the blood pooled on the steps around the girl's head, contrasting sharply with the white snow around it.

It was regrettable that a human should be harmed in processes such as these, but – he thought with great venom – if they should throw their lot in with them, then they deserve not to live.

With no more thought on the dead girl, he turned his attention to the bundle in his arms, with was now moving; wriggling and crying pitifully, struggling against the blankets that protected it from the cold.

His curiosity was mild, but enough to be paid attention to, and he shifted a piece of cloth that covered the struggling mass.

He blinked as a large pair of large green-grey eyes gazed dolefully at him, tears welling up and spilling down the face they were set in.

"A baby?" He exclaimed quietly to himself, wondering. So this is what she was protecting. A small glinting object was wrapped in the child's tiny fist, and with a small sense of triumph, he plucked it out of its hands. Like stealing sweets from a baby. He smirked.

When the gold left the child's hands, it developed a comically outraged look, and Shaw watched with wide-eyed horror as the baby forcibly removed the precious metal from his fingers to bring it back into its own possession. Without even touching it.

Gasping with shock and revulsion, he breathed. "A mutant."

It couldn't be allowed to exist, Shaw decided. From what he had learned of the monsters, it was incredibly rare that an infant manifested its mutant powers before the age of around eleven to thirteen, when puberty began to be a whisper in the body of the child. So the fact that this baby, so very, very young – barely six months from it's mother's womb – had already developed its abilities with so much control, so much raw power was an alarming thought to Shaw.

Casting his eye around for a place to dispose the child, he spotted a well situated on the far side of the square. Holding the beast at arms length, he directed his horse towards the chasm in the ground.

Without remorse for what he was about to do, he held the child – which by now, was sobbing almost uncontrollably – over the pit. He only needed to steel himself a fraction before he was able to loosen his fingers-

"STOP!" Came a cry behind him. He turned to find the archdeacon, one arm raised and a furious red tinge to his face. For some unfathomable reason, Shaw felt the need to explain himself.

"This is an unholy demon. I'm sending it back to hell, where it belongs." The archdeacon ignored him in favour of crouching beside the dead girl, cradling her damaged head in his arms.

"Look at the innocent blood you have spilt on the steps of Notre Dame." The man said the last words with incredulous fury, as if he was some vagabond who defaced one of his precious statues.

"I am guiltless; she ran, and I pursued." He countered, with lofty arrogance.

The man ignored him again. "Now you must add this child's blood to your guilt?" He clearly didn't mean it as a question, but Shaw retorted anyway.

"My conscience is clear!" He argued defensively.

He was not prepared for the scoff that came from the holy man. "You can lie to yourself, and your minions. You can claim that you haven't a qualm; but you never can run from, nor hide what you've done from The Eyes." He gestured angrily at the many hundreds of statues of saints, angels and disciples that all gazed disapprovingly down on them. He said the next words with quiet menace. "The Eyes of Notre Dame." The man said this as if this explained it all, as if it was the consequence of his actions itself.

Perhaps it was.

And for one time in his life of power and control, Shaw felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul. Perhaps by doing this here in front of the holy steps of Notre Dame, and under the eyes of God, he had sentenced himself for eternal damnation.

But no, he hadn't actually caused her death. The stupid girl fell when he took the child from her; surely that counted for pardon.

But what if it didn't?

He turned back to the archdeacon, holding the small child to his chest with wide eyes and breathed. "What must I do?" The other man surveyed him calmly.

"Care for the child, and raise it as your own." Shaw gasped at the brazen answer. He surely could not be serious?

"What?" He growled, "I am to be saddled with this mutant scu-" He halted in his tirade and glanced calculatingly at the statues watching them. "Very well," He conceded with a growl, "But let him live with you, in your church."

The archdeacon looked taken aback. "Live here? Where?" He asked, watching with quizzical eyes. Shaw's brow pulled low over his eyes, as he looked down into the child's face shrewdly.

"Anywhere." He answered, but then, that was not enough. This child could not be known about; at least not know about his abilities. Knowing of his existence is acceptable, he admitted. But then, to do that, he would need to keep him away from the peasants, away from people…

But How?

"Just so He's kept locked away, where no one else can see." He continued. "The Bell Tower perhaps? And who knows? Our lord works in mysterious ways; even this foul creature may yet prove one day to be of use to me."

A slow, maniacal grin spread across his face as the boy hiccupped and whimpered in his cocoon of blankets. This boy could be useful in bringing down the other mutants, he thought, and then, when I am done with him…

I will kill him.

oOo

The little mutant boy will never remember this scene, and will never realise just how close he became to having the same fate as his mother that day. But it was just as well, as the boy – who was named 'boy' until his fourth birthday when he had chosen a new name, Erik, after his favourite villain in a storybook – had much growing up to do, and as he developed, his powers grew way beyond what could be previously imagined of mutants (much to Shaw's frustration).

But meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a young woman lay grunting through the strains of labour and cried one final time before pushing a small, underweight newborn boy into the world. She took one look at his bloody mop of brown hair, and his startling blue eyes, before closing her eyes with a sigh, and fading into oblivion.