Jacques saw it in his flashbacks—the guards were ready behind the closed door. Last time, he hadn't been prepared. They had captured him and put him in a vegetative state, forcing him to wait decades until he died. But the scientists had kept him on life support, trapping him in a lifeless body for years, unable to move yet unable to die.
It was a long, hopeless imprisonment, confined in his own body. Of course, he would remember it.
This time, he doesn't hesitate. He leaps onto the doctor's desk, grabbing Dr. Zhicotte from behind. The doctor struggles, of course, but Jacques is a strong 19-year-old boy, and he refuses to be imprisoned again. He tightens his grip—Zhicotte is his hostage now.
The doctor tries to shove him against the wall, but Jacques doesn't give him a chance to gain the upper hand. He punches the doctor hard in the nose, shattering it like a crushed egg.
Jacques doesn't waver when the doctor moans in pain, begging for mercy. Zhicotte doesn't care when Jacques requesting even a plate of beef steak—after years of feeding him nothing but a bowl of carrot soup with an egg. Why should he show mercy now?
Without a second thought, Jacques slams his head against the wall. Blood splatters across the surface. The doctor collapses, fainting from the pain. But Jacques isn't done. He grabs the doctor's wrist and snaps it. A sharp scream of agony fills the room.
"Resist me, and I'll break another bone," Jacques warns coldly. "I swear, Zhicotte, I've rewound time countless times. Every time I showed you mercy, it led to my own lifetime imprisonment. You're a heartless man with no moral compass—yet you love talking about heroism. I have no mercy for a psychopath like you."
Jacques grabs a pen and presses it against the doctor's neck, tightening his grip.
"Now, open the door."
The terrified doctor raises his trembling hand to the handle, but Jacques yanks him back.
"Remember…" he hisses, a warning laced in his voice. "Do something funny, and you're dead. Trust me—I won't hesitate."
Zhicotte nods weakly, and at last, Jacques lets him unlock the door. His memories were right—five guards stand outside, guns aimed at the room. They glance at each other, uncertain now that the doctor is a hostage.
"Tell them to lower their weapons," Jacques whispers.
"P-put down your guns! Do it!" Zhicotte stammers, his broken wrist throbbing in pain. He knows this boy isn't bluffing.
"Now, tell them to kick their guns toward me."
The doctor relays the order, and the guards obey.
Jacques swiftly picks up the weapons from the floor—and fires.
Two of the guards collapse, lifeless before they can react. The others scramble to escape, but he doesn't let them. He takes aim, killing another as the last two flee to call for reinforcements.
Jacques then shoves Zhicotte to the floor, pressing the barrel against his forehead. The doctor trembles, pleading for his life. "Please, don't do this... I have family waiting for me at home...."
"Tell that to my mother," Jacques says before pulling the trigger.
Blood pools around Zhicotte's lifeless body. Jacques hears movement outside the corridor. He doesn't hesitate. He turns and fires, taking down another approaching guard while the last two disappear down the hall.
He quickly removes the bullets from the guns he won't use, pocketing them for later. Then, searching the fallen guards, he finds a machete.
With a swift motion, he severs Dr. Zhicotte's palm and takes his ID card.
In a previous timeline, he hadn't done this. That mistake had forced him to return to this room just to retrieve it, giving reinforcements enough time to overwhelm him at the lab's entrance. It had led to him killing even more people—something he doesn't enjoy, even if it's necessary.
This time, he won't make the same mistake.
Zhicotte's severed palm surely give away his position with the trail of blood, so Jacques running around the corridor, to give false trail, making his pursuer unable to tell which direction he took. When they figure it out, Jacques already making his way to the entrance.
In the previous timeline, the first time he escaped the door ambush, he didn't know where to go. Unfamiliar with the hospital's layout, he made the mistake of taking the emergency stairs downward, assuming the building was a tower.
When he reached the basement, there was no exit—only a dead end. Trapped on the bottom level, he was quickly surrounded by guards. With no other option, they decided to kill him off with a grenade.
That was when Jacques learned the truth. This building wasn't a tower—it was an underground bunker. A secret lab disguised as an abandoned barn. Because what they were doing here was illegal.
Their sole purpose was to extract his cells for a superhero program. His successful clones were nothing more than weapons—mercenaries and assassins working under Zhicotte's command, and die within 3 years. That's why they keep him for a lifetime. Their bloody hands paved the way for his son to rise to power, becoming a president and ruthless political figure who wouldn't hesitate to eliminate anyone in his way.
"Hero, my ass!" Jacques spits in disgust, remembering what they used his clones for in one of his past timelines.
Jacques made his way upstairs, but before proceeding further, he stopped in front of a massive iron door, unlocking it with Dr. Zhicotte's ID card.
This was the room Dr. Zhicotte had shown him on the first day he woke up from his coma. The doctor had claimed that an Argonarian hero had saved his life after a terrible traffic accident. But that was a lie.
It wasn't a hero who restored his broken organs and bones—it was the Black Dragon. The dragon had deemed him worthy after Jacques had left behind his past self in the dream simulation, signified by his disillusionment with Cezar's brainwashing and his decision to stop choosing Charles over that beautiful man—whose name he still couldn't remember.
And the clones in this room?
They weren't General Mricha's clones. They were his own. A collection of failed attempts to create a fully functional, living human being while he was in a coma.
In one of his previous timelines, he had left Zhicotte's work intact. That mistake allowed Zhicotte's successor, the other doctor--Jacques forgot his name--to continue the experiments, eventually leading to the creation of a deadly assassin who, in the future, would go on to kill Jacques' spouse and children.
But this time, now that he had returned from the future, he wouldn't waste the opportunity.
Jacques fired rounds into the machinery, shutting down the life support systems for his failed clones. Their bodies collapsed to the floor, lifeless. The Aether cells sustaining them would soon die off, ensuring that they could no longer be cultivated or duplicated.
He then gathered all the documents and journals detailing the past three years of experiments conducted during his coma—and set them ablaze.
However, some of the experimental journals were stored in the computer, and accessing them required Dr. Zhicotte's full palm print to unlock the memory chip.
Jacques made use of the severed palm, pressing it against the scanner. The machine whirred to life, granting him access and ejecting the memory chip that contained all the experimental data.
He took the chip and safely tucked it into his pocket. There was only one way to deal with this—he would find a volcano later.
As he worked, several guards entered the room. Jacques wasted no time, firing bullets into their heads and necks, killing them instantly. Stepping out into the corridor, he was met with four more incoming guards. He dispatched them just as quickly.
One of them carried grenades. Jacques took them all, then hurled the explosives into the lab, ensuring its complete destruction.
With the fire consuming the remnants of Zhicotte's research, Jacques still had one last task before leaving—the CCTV room.
In the previous timeline, he had overlooked it, which meant he had no proof of the doctors' illegal activities. As a result, they continued hunting him for his genes, their pursuit shadowing him for years.
This time, he would make sure the law protected him and his future family.
He located the CCTV room, using the ID card to unlock the door. Inside, he accessed the security footage, relieved to find that the system still stored recordings from the day he had been taken to this secret lab. He uploaded everything to his cloud accounts, locking the transfer to prevent anyone from canceling it.
With that done, Jacques left the CCTV room and returned to the lab, where guards were desperately trying to put out the fire.
He killed every last one of them—then tossed another grenade into the room, ensuring that everything inside was reduced to dust.
He refill the bullet in his gun, and now that he finished cleaning up future's problem, he is ready to leave this damned place; heading to the top floor where the true entrance located.