Original Timeline; The Last Argonarian

A dog had just given birth to six puppies in the alley where the dumpsters were. Among the pile of trashes, she found shelter under a broken box that resembled a doorless room. The dog licked her puppies lovingly, staying still as they suckled from her.

A kind passerby saw them and was touched by how cute the puppies were. However, she was just a student and couldn't take them home. So, she returned to the alley and presented the dog and puppies with a basket, filled with a warm blanket. She didn't want to touch the puppies out of respect, but the dog understood. Because of her terrible experiences with humans as a stray, she wasn't quick to trust the girl's intentions and watched her cautiously from her shelter.

The schoolgirl understood the dog's caution, so she placed an empty fish flat can and poured milk into it. Then, she put some dog food nearby.

She wouldn't be able to return to this area, but she wished the dog well before leaving forever.

After the schoolgirl was gone, the dog greedily drank the milk and ate the dog food. She couldn't blame herself; she was hungry and needed to nourish her pups.

Apparently, not all humans were cruel.

The puppies grew healthy, but six puppies at once created a lot of noise. Just separated by the wall from the alley where she sheltered, a woman named Liana had just gotten home from the hospital alone—her husband was too busy working to pick her up.

Liana needed a calm environment to rest, as her baby would cry unexpectedly. The sound of the puppies' cries made her upset. At times, she was sleep-deprived and stressed from doing everything alone. Her husband got home late at night, smelling of alcohol, claiming he had just gotten off from overtime, and immediately crashed, leaving Liana alone with their baby.

She desperately needed rest.

Unaware of what had gotten into her, she felt angry that day. She walked into the alley and found the puppies.

In a fit of rage, she slammed the puppies one by one to the ground, making the dog watch helplessly.

All of them... died.

The dog could only howl to the sky, apologizing to her pups for being unable to protect them. She licked her dead puppies and gather them in her body, as if refusing to believe that her puppies are gone, and trying to sleep the sadness away.

A few days later...

It was midnight, most people already sleep. A young Argonarian woman ran for her life, chased by a group of armed men. They wore gray uniforms with an insignia on their left chest— a yellow triangle with a red border.

She was still dressed in the hospital gown worn by women after labor, and pain pulsed through her belly. But she had no time to rest. They were after her baby. She knew how special he was, but there was no way she would let them take him.

They were using a DNA tracker to hunt her down. It was illegal for non-law enforcement to track civilians with no criminal record, but they didn't care. That terrified her. It meant these people had power, money—and no regard for the law.

She found a hiding spot beside a trash dumpster. It would be a while before they found her. She needed to hide the baby while she led them away. As she frantically thought of a plan, she heard the soft cries of a newborn nearby, followed by an angry voice of a man; "Liana!! Calm your baby I need to sleep!"

Peering through a small window in the wall she was hiding against, she saw an exhausted mother with a newborn baby. That must be Liana and her baby.

An idea crossed her mind.

The Argonarian mother found an old, discarded basket and gently placed her baby inside, covering him with a plastic trash bag to keep him hidden.

Then, she slipped through the open window. Liana were fast asleep. Finally rest after a labor day doing everything alone and trying to not upset her husband. Carefully, she lifted their baby into her arms.

Luck was on her side. The baby slept soundly, and the mother, exhausted, didn't stir. The father was upstairs, resting—he had to work in the morning. He wouldn't be waking up at 3 AM for a crying baby.

With the child secured in her arms, she slipped back out the same window.

Now, it was time to run.

She made sure they saw her.

And just as she planned—they chased her.

Why didn't she switch her baby instead? Because that was never the plan. Her goal was to make sure they believed she was fleeing the city with her baby, leading them away. Once she escaped, she intended to return to the city by morning and return the baby. Besides, the baby that she took was a female baby. 

However, plan doesn't work well. 

She jump on a motorboat and got shot in the head by a sniper.

Those men in uniform took her baby to the lab, believing it to be the Argonarian newborn.

Her son was abandoned, alone. But like all Argonarian babies, he did not cry. He snuggled vulnerably in the basket, feeling the cold of the night, sleeping soundly—unaware that his mother was no longer there.

A pair of glowing yellow eyes emerged from the darkness of the alley as a creature slowly approached. Sharp teeth gleamed inside her mouth, grinning as she noticed a vulnerable young human lying in the basket where her puppies had once been.

She sniffed the Argonarian baby.

The fate of the child lay in the dog's decision. Would she see this as the universe settling the score—an opportunity to take revenge on another species for the merciless slaughter of her six puppies?

No.

She licked the baby lovingly and placed her head over him, warming the newborn Argonarian against the cold night.

She decided that this was not a chance for a vengeance but a gift from the universe in exchange for her lost puppies.

She close her eyes in peace, because she know, her job as a mother hasn't end yet.

***

5 years later... 

A son of a wealthy man was killed at midnight by an unknown man. It was an easy case for the police to solve, as the murderer was none other than Frendy, the victim's best friend. However, since there was no proof, they couldn't do anything about it. Even the CCTV footage made it difficult to confirm that it was Frendy because only his silhouette was visible. However, from the CCTV, they figured out that there was a witness—the boy who had been raised by a dog. 

So, the cops took the boy from the streets. It was difficult because the boy thought humans were monsters, so he would bite and scratch any human who tried to get him. 

Even capturing him wasn't the hardest part. There were many challenges ahead before they could make him the witness they needed. The boy couldn't talk, couldn't speak, and he was extremely defensive against humans. 

The police hired private mentors to teach him how to talk and how to behave as a human. However, it wasn't an easy task. The trauma he had suffered from humans made it very difficult for him to communicate, let alone be taught by the mentors assigned to him. 

"Give it up, we don't need a witness. Let's use another method," some of the police suggested. However, the head officer handling the case realized something—the boy was similar to a stray dog—so he hired a dog trainer to tame him. 

The plan worked. The dog trainer successfully gained the boy's trust, even winning his heart. The boy always growled at anyone who tried to get near him, but when the dog trainer came, his face lit up, and he jumped in joy. The dog trainer cleaned him up, cut his hair, and gave him proper clothes. They quickly became best friends. 

Apparently, it was the dog trainer who taught him how to speak, how to eat like a human, and how to behave like one. Once he grasped it, it wasn't difficult for him to learn how to speak or read. The dog trainer named him "Jacques".

Once the boy was ready, they prepared Jacques to testify as a witness against Frendy, the murderer, and he did well—justice was served. 

Jacques was placed in an orphanage, where he could learn how to speak, how to eat like humans, and how to live as one. 

Not long after, the orphanage conducted a DNA test on Jacques to see if they could find his biological parents or list him in the DNA database in case they found his family through a DNA match. 

However, something shocking was discovered—Jacques was not an Earthling. He was, in fact, an Argonarian. This revelation drove the scientists in the lab mad. It had long been their dream to clone an Argonarian. Some believed it would be beneficial to create a group of mercenaries to work for them. Others wanted to clone Argonarians to cultivate their cells and see if they could be implanted into Earthlings to enhance longevity or create powerful human beings, due to the Aether cells in an Argonarian's body.

Instead of his biological parents, it was scientists and researchers who came for Jacques and took him from the orphanage. They placed him in a lab and made him a cell donor from the age of seven. All his life, he had lived in a tiny room, eating only soup and being completely separated from the real world.

At first, they gave him internet access so he could play video games to pass the time, which he became very skilled at. However, when he started asking the nurse for beef steak because his online friends kept talking about it, they took the internet away.

He wasted decades of his life playing offline games, building up fat, loathing himself, and believing he would never escape his small cage.

Until one day, out of sheer boredom, he stole the nurse's phone and used it to connect with the world again. That's how he met Etienne in a chatroom.

After his failed attempt to escape the lab, the Black Dragon—the strongest spirit guarding the Argonarians—took an interest in him. Jacques had proven that he could abandon his bad habits and strive to become a better person through sheer determination.

And so, the Black Dragon signed a contract with Jacques, marking him with the tattoo on his chest. When Jacques died with a bullet drilled into his head, the Black Dragon rewound time to the day Jacques was born. But this time, the boy subconsciously retained memories of what had previously happened to him.

In his second chance at life, he and his dog mother traveled to another city before he could become the key eyewitness to the murder that would have separated them.

The two wandered into another city and found themselves trapped in the cruel lifestyle of Ehreaz. Life there wasn't much better than in Relma, but at least Jacques could stay with his beloved dog mother—until she was hit by a car and left to die.

After losing his dog mother, Jacques lived alone, stealing food from a nearby bakery. He was caught and chased by an angry mob, only to be saved by Marie Gauthier, a professor of astroanthropology who happened to be visiting a friend.

Marie had only intended to save a boy from an angry crowd, but upon examining him, she noticed unusual marks on his shoulder—a tattoo of a black dragon.

Suspicion stirred within her, as the mark resembled the Black Dragon, the god of the Argonarians. She took him home, taught him how to speak, how to eat, and how to dress.

Since this wasn't Jacques' first time learning these things, it wasn't difficult for him to relearn them. Marie named him "Mateo" and gave him her surname.

However, the boy simply told her, "My name is Jacques."

Why not?

Time kept rewinding each time he died, leading him through countless lives until he finally chose to become a police cadet. That was the life where he made up his mind, where he met Charles Baxter, and where his path ultimately led him to Dr. Zhicotte.

And then—he remembered.

He remembered it all. The decades spent trapped in the lab. The lies they told him about a war with the Gemmas, meant to keep him obedient, to make him believe he was sacrificing for a greater cause. The endless cycle of cell donations, of painful experiments with Argonarian DNA that never yielded results. He had wasted his entire life for nothing. And in the end, he uncovered the scientists' true intentions—not to save the world, but to serve their own selfish greed.

And then, Jacques opened his eyes.

He woke up from the dream, back in his 19-year-old body, in the current timeline. But this time, he remembered everything.

This time, he would do it right.