Léon: The Professional
In the early morning, Arthur Sterling stretched his sore muscles and sat up from the messy, sagging sofa.
He glanced around the somewhat cluttered living room. He genuinely hadn't expected that after the kind, incredibly enthusiastic neighbor lady came over to help tidy up yesterday afternoon, the small apartment would actually end up looking even messier than before.
Reaching out into the empty air beside him, he seamlessly accessed his invisible dimensional private space, pulling out a crisp box of cigarettes and a heavy metal lighter.
After smoothly lighting one for himself and taking a deep drag, Arthur looked down at the linoleum floor nearby, where several small, discarded foil wrappers were haphazardly scattered.
He felt that ever since he first got intimately involved with Mia Toretto, he had smartly started keeping a few boxes of family planning supplies safely tucked away in his private space, and it really was the absolute right tactical move.
Arthur also genuinely hadn't expected the stunning blonde neighbor at his new residence to be quite so wildly enthusiastic.
She was so aggressively enthusiastic, in fact, that even his supernaturally enhanced stamina found the sudden encounter a bit unbelievable.
They had just formally met in the hallway, and she graciously came over to help him move his heavy furniture. While moving a few wooden chairs, they had somehow moved right onto the soft cushions of the sofa.
Then, it was exactly like a sudden bolt of lightning hitting dry ground. Under that beautiful neighbor lady's overwhelming passion, things rapidly got completely out of hand.
As a direct, exhausting result, the two of them were intensely busy for a full two hours of unrestrained physical activity.
Only then did they finally manage to turn the newly rented apartment, which was previously almost perfectly tidy, back into a complete, chaotic mess.
On the brand-new, heavy wooden bed he had just bought, entirely because of that lady's relentless passion, the thick winter blankets and soft quilts that had just been neatly laid out had to be immediately sent out to the local dry cleaners before they could ever be comfortably used again.
Even the firm mattress needed to be heavily aired out by the open window.
Arthur rubbed his jaw, feeling it was absolutely necessary to plan ahead for these sudden encounters.
He needed to urgently buy a heavy waterproof pad, or at least prepare far more thick towels and heavy bath sheets with much better moisture absorbency.
Since it was currently late May, the coastal breeze made it the absolute most comfortable, pleasant time of the year in Los Angeles.
Last night, Arthur hadn't even bothered to turn on the humming air conditioner, opting instead to only open the heavy glass window crack slightly to let the cool night air circulate.
Thanks entirely to this simple ventilation, there wasn't much of a lingering, strange smell trapped in the cramped room when he finally woke up.
The cheap cigarette was soon completely finished. Arthur, who didn't actually have much of a heavy smoking habit to begin with, forcefully stubbed out the glowing butt and tossed it directly into the plastic trash can. He then got up on his bare feet to meticulously clean up the chaotic battlefield left behind from last night's intense activities.
After finishing the heavy domestic work, he walked into the small, tiled bathroom to take a long, scalding hot shower.
Then, he walked into the cramped kitchen and made himself a simple, highly nutritious breakfast using the fresh ingredients he had bought.
After finishing his heavy meal, Arthur casually took out the high-end laptop he had purchased earlier directly from his invisible private space.
Along the way, he spent a little bit of quiet time configuring the complex internet connection protocols he hadn't fully finished setting up yesterday afternoon.
He then spent his entire morning comfortably surfing the web while deeply teaching himself complex [Computer] programming and highly advanced, related network technologies.
It wasn't until well after a heavy lunch that Arthur finally grabbed his leather jacket and left his quiet residence.
He had already sent his secure new address directly to Mia via an encrypted email.
When he spoke with Mia on the phone yesterday, Arthur's sharp senses had picked up that she might currently be strictly grounded to the house by her fiercely protective older brother.
So he strategically decided absolutely not to call her phone line for the time being.
Arthur planned to wait patiently for a few quiet days and then smoothly pretend to inadvertently discover Brian O'Conner, who had already gone deep undercover to work at that massive spare parts store.
He would identify him as the exact same federal agent who had aggressively approached him a few days ago to ask probing questions about Dom and the others.
Then, he would give Mia an urgent call and directly tell Dom about Brian's true, lethal identity as an undercover FBI Agent.
This way, not only could he completely, violently sever the romantic possibility between the handsome Brian and the innocent Mia.
He could also take the perfect opportunity to effectively do Dom another massive, life-saving favor.
He firmly believed that afterwards, Dom shouldn't have any more stubborn objections to his supposed savior actively dating his beloved sister.
As for the hulking Vince and the others, Arthur hadn't even cared about Vince's pathetic threats before he gained his massive strength.
Now, he cared even less about a few small-time, broken lackeys crying in a hospital ward.
He spent a few grueling hours sweating at the local boxing gym in the late afternoon, continuously refining his [Boxing] footwork, and then Arthur went directly to a highly secure shooting club to rigorously practice his marksmanship for a while.
In passing, on his way back, he also wandered casually around the largest, heavily stocked gun supermarket nearby for a good while.
Looking at the massive, wide array of lethal items displayed behind polished glass, from compact pistols to heavy tactical shotguns, from specialized submachine guns to highly accurate semi-automatic rifles and long-range sniper rifles.
All sorts of heavy firearms, some Arthur recognized perfectly from action movies and some he didn't know at all, were all sitting right there on the steel racks.
While he silently marveled at the deeply ingrained, massive gun culture so prevalent in America, he could only look longingly at those heavy, beautiful items that easily cost four or five figures in cold hard cash.
In particular, Arthur absolutely most coveted the sleek, neutered civilian versions of several well-known, highly reliable military weapons.
The steep price tags securely attached to those five specific rifles truly made him, whose pockets were still a bit light for an arsenal, only able to feast his eyes for now.
It is widely said that there are literally thousands of massive firearm supermarkets exactly like this one, closely resembling regular grocery supermarkets, scattered all across the United States where gun ownership is deeply legal and fiercely protected.
Here, any registered citizen could legally buy everything from standard handguns and tactical rifles used by various national militaries to even heavy, high-caliber sniper rifles.
However, the sprawling firearm supermarkets only legally sold the heavily neutered, civilian versions of these weapons.
At absolute most, one could only buy the semi-automatic models.
The open sale of fully automatic, military-grade weapons was strictly and heavily prohibited by federal law.
Finally, knowing he needed reliable protection, Arthur registered with his real, clean name and purchased several heavy boxes of premium 9mm handgun ammunition.
Only then did he finally leave the massive gun supermarket, looking back over his shoulder every few steps, genuinely reluctant to depart from the armory.
Late in the afternoon, he still hadn't received a secure phone call from Charlie Croker.
However, Arthur absolutely wasn't in a rush.
It certainly wouldn't be easy for this legendary master thief to successfully steal the massive mountain of gold from the heavily fortified Steve.
Before this, in the cinematic timeline, their highly specialized team had spent well over three grueling months meticulously preparing to perfectly steal that full ton of gold bars from an Italian Mafia secret base located in Venice.
Arthur could easily afford to wait patiently in the shadows.
In the historic downtown market district, he bought some more fresh, high-quality ingredients for his dinner.
In a completely deserted, shadowed corner of an alleyway, Arthur smoothly put the heavy shopping bags directly into his invisible private space.
Over the past few quiet days, he had delightfully discovered that the supernatural private space could not only store a massive, terrifying number of heavy items.
Moreover, after actively putting things inside the void, they wouldn't chemically or physically change at all.
Yesterday afternoon, Arthur had bought some frosty cold beer and frozen ice cream, and in the evening, after his humming new refrigerator was finally installed.
He accessed the void and took them out of his invisible private space to put them into the freezer.
He miraculously realized that the frozen ice cream and the frosty cold beer hadn't melted or changed a single bit.
They were exactly the exact same cold temperature as when they were put in as when they were taken out hours later.
Because of this incredible, physics-defying discovery, Arthur even felt a tiny bit of lingering regret.
If he had brilliantly discovered this massive loophole earlier, he absolutely wouldn't have spent those few hundred hard-earned dollars on buying a brand-new refrigerator for the apartment.
Fortunately, consumer electronics prices in the US are notoriously very low, and the new, massive discovery about his power kept Arthur in an incredibly good mood, so he didn't dwell on the lost cash for long.
He soon returned to his quiet residence. Since the weathered, rented apartment building completely lacked a working elevator.
Arthur casually climbed the concrete stairs all the way up to the sixth floor, his enhanced stamina making the long climb feel like absolutely nothing.
As he walked up the dimly lit steps, his highly intelligent mind suddenly had a brilliant brainwave.
I wonder if extreme rock climbing and highly dangerous extreme sports can actively trigger brand-new, powerful skills? Arthur thought, his eyes narrowing in calculated thought.
Once this exciting thought popped up, Arthur's racing heart grew incredibly fervent with the lethal possibilities.
He strategically planned that if the master thief Charlie and Old Parker didn't actively contact him over the next few quiet days.
Then Arthur would absolutely go out to the mountains and do some proper, rigorous research on extreme sports.
He desperately wanted to see if he could smoothly trigger more powerful, physical skills as soon as humanly possible.
Soon, his heavy boots reached the fourth-floor landing.
With his supernaturally keen, enhanced sense of smell, Arthur instantly caught the sharp, distinct scent of cheap cigarette smoke drifting down the stairwell.
He glanced up through the gaps in the railing and could vaguely see something small swinging back and forth in the shadows.
Climbing up one more concrete floor, Arthur finally saw the source clearly in the dim fluorescent light.
It was a pale, white teenage girl with a sharp bob cut, looking to be only about twelve or thirteen years old at most.
She was sitting quietly at the edge of the entrance to the sixth-floor stairs, skillfully smoking a cigarette while looking around the empty hallway listlessly.
When Arthur's dark eyes looked at the young girl, she immediately turned her head and looked right back at him, her gaze guarded and cautious.
The absolute moment their eyes met, Arthur's jaw tightened, and the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily in absolute shock.
Yesterday, he had vaguely felt that the wildly passionate, beautiful blonde neighbor lady who had aggressively come to his door seemed somewhat vaguely familiar.
He felt exactly like he had seen that stunning blonde lady, who was absolutely in the prime of her life, somewhere on a screen before.
But at the chaotic time, Arthur genuinely hadn't thought much of it, chalking it up to a simple coincidence.
He just logically assumed his predecessor had briefly crossed paths with her somewhere in the neighborhood before his memories merged.
Who in the world would have ever thought that right now, seeing this specific, rebellious young girl smoking quietly on the concrete stairs.
A massive, distant cinematic memory would violently awaken in his enhanced brain!
Mathilda, Arthur realized, his heart hammering against his ribs. Is this the lethal world of Léon: The Professional too?
This dangerous, sprawling cinematic universe really is quite an absolute, terrifying mess!