Rock Climbing on a Rainy Night
"This is Stan's goods, leave them here with you for now."
"Once the heat dies down, we will come back for them."
"Remember, keep your mouth shut."
It was a harsh, raspy voice bleeding through the cheap drywall, speaking in English that Arthur was now highly proficient in.
But beneath the gruff tone, his supernaturally enhanced hearing easily picked up a distinct, underlying Italian accent.
Arthur had lived around this sprawling city for a while and had come into contact with many Italian-American immigrants daily.
His sharp mind had naturally mapped the unique inflections of their accents, making it incredibly recognizable and entirely distinct from the local Los Angeles drawl.
Soon, another man's voice came through the thin walls of the dilapidated apartment building, sounding desperate and entirely subservient.
"Paul, you know me!"
"I have always seriously completed every single thing you have assigned."
Arthur recognized that pathetic, wheedling tone instantly. It was the voice of Mathilda's father, a greedy, wretched middle-aged white man who always seemed to be looking over his shoulder.
He clearly acted as a low-level gang affiliate, but his behavior and connections strongly suggested he was also acting as an active informant for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Standing silently in the shadows of his own apartment, Arthur pieced the lethal puzzle together perfectly. The bloody, tragic plot of Léon: The Professional happened entirely because this specific, greedy man stupidly embezzled the pure drugs that Stan ,a heavily armed, corrupt, and unhinged DEA agent, had temporarily hidden within his apartment.
In the bitter, violent end, entirely because of his momentary, idiotic greed, Mathilda's father not only got himself brutally killed.
He also managed to get his beautiful wife, his older stepdaughter, and his completely innocent young child ruthlessly slaughtered in the hallway.
Leaving only the young Mathilda completely alone in the world, a girl who only managed to escape the slaughter by sheer luck, hiding her tears, and relying entirely on her raw wits by knocking on Léon's door.
However, although Arthur had absolutely no good feelings or sympathy for this wretched father, he didn't harbor any specific, burning ill will toward him either.
For absolutely no other reason than the simple fact that this guy was rarely ever home, constantly out fooling around in the dangerous streets doing who knows what.
His wife, the stunning blonde Maggie, wasn't exactly an ordinary, faithful person either; she was incredibly open, highly promiscuous, and very accommodating.
That was a physical fact Arthur had personally, thoroughly verified on multiple, exhausting occasions.
Has Stan already started putting his illicit drugs in Mathilda's house to wait out the federal heat? Arthur thought, his dark eyes narrowing in the dim light of his living room.
It looks exactly like the main plot of Léon: The Professional will officially kick off in a month at absolute most.
Arthur genuinely hadn't fully decided yet whether he actually wanted to violently interfere in the elite hitman's tragic plot.
He and the young Mathilda had chatted occasionally on the concrete stairs during this quiet time, but they absolutely weren't incredibly close.
One dark night a while back, Mathilda had accidentally bumped right into her stepmother, Maggie, sneaking out of Arthur's apartment with her clothes completely in disarray and her face flushed.
Ever since that highly awkward, revealing encounter, the young girl hadn't spoken a single word to Arthur again.
But she was just a little girl!
If she were the fully grown, adult version of the fierce superhero she resembled in his memories, Arthur might have actively, aggressively pursued her. But a traumatized little girl? He absolutely wasn't a degenerate.
So, later on, if the chaotic situation permitted, Arthur wouldn't mind seeing if he could effortlessly step in and save Mathilda's fractured family from the impending slaughter.
Well, at the very least, that gorgeous stepmother of hers was incredibly enthusiastic and highly skilled. She was an absolutely fantastic companion for his dark nights, not looking or acting like a tired mother of two children in the slightest.
If she tragically died in a hail of DEA gunfire, Arthur estimated he would genuinely feel quite regretful for a long time. After all, the absolute primary reason his [Reproduction] skill had recently broken through to an impressive LV4 was largely thanks to the tireless, dedicated efforts of his good neighbor, Maggie!
Countless tactical thoughts and future scenarios violently surged in Arthur's enhanced mind in a single instant. But he still clearly remembered exactly what dangerous task he was about to do tonight, so he ruthlessly suppressed those stray, chaotic thoughts about the hitman and the DEA.
It was currently pouring rain outside, the heavy drops lashing against his apartment window, but this miserable weather didn't affect Arthur's cold, calculated mood at all.
On the absolute contrary, a pitch-black, rainy night was exactly the perfect, flawless cover he desperately needed.
Arthur grabbed his heavy tactical gear, walked downstairs unhurriedly into the freezing rain, and found a secluded, shadowed street completely devoid of any local surveillance cameras.
He then accessed the void, seamlessly took out his heavily modified, matte-black vintage motorcycle, and drove it aggressively through the slick streets straight toward Steve's fortified luxury villa, which was a sprawling sixty or seventy kilometers away.
Over an hour later, after taking a highly calculated, evasive detour through the winding mountain roads to ensure he had absolutely no tail, Arthur finally arrived at his destination.
He had completely changed into dark, waterproof tactical clothing along the way, and under the heavy cover of the torrential rain and the inky darkness, he stood at the base of the sheer cliff he had discovered directly below Steve's property.
He looked straight up at the imposing rock face; the jagged stone seemed to pierce straight upward into the dark, stormy clouds.
Because he was deeply, fiercely worried about being visually discovered by perimeter guards if he turned on a bright tactical flashlight in the dead of night, Arthur had only brought a few relatively cheap, low-intensity chemical glow sticks.
Fortunately, as his core physical attributes had all successfully surpassed twice the genetic average of a normal, healthy adult male, Arthur's five senses had also received a massive, supernatural boost.
Thanks entirely to this enhanced, predatory vision, relying only on the faint, eerie green light provided by the cracked glow sticks, Arthur thought it would be more than enough to see the treacherous rock face!
At that exact moment, standing squarely before the towering cliff, he accessed his invisible dimensional private space.
He quickly and silently took out several heavy clusters of specialized steel climbing pitons and high-strength locking carabiners.
Arthur also withdrew a heavy steel hammer and began to meticulously follow a dangerous climbing route he had already carefully selected while scouting the dense area over the past half month.
He mercilessly hammered the sharp steel pitons directly into the solid cliff face, one after another, testing their absolute weight-bearing limits as he slowly climbed higher into the storm.
Along the grueling, vertical way, Arthur also expertly set up a dedicated, high-strength synthetic line specifically for rappelling.
This strategic move ensured that once he successfully breached the vault later, he could seamlessly rappel completely down from the villa atop the cliff in just a few dozen seconds, escaping any armed pursuit.
The sharp, metallic sound of the heavy hammer violently hitting the rock wall would normally be incredibly loud and distinct in the dead of the dark night.
Fortunately, Arthur's highly intelligent mind had made absolutely sufficient preparations before coming out here.
He had meticulously wrapped the heavy steel hammerhead in layers of thick, damp cotton cloth beforehand to muffle the harsh impacts.
And today was a chaotic, rainy night; although the rain wasn't an absolute torrential downpour, the constant, heavy sound of water crashing against the trees and stone meant a little bit of muffled hammering noise wouldn't easily attract the paranoid attention of Steve or any of his heavily armed guards patrolling inside the villa.
However, forcefully hammering steel pitons deep into a sheer stone cliff was absolutely not an easy physical task to begin with.
Trying to desperately hammer those pitons from the bottom up while precariously climbing on a slippery, rain-slicked surface made it exponentially more difficult and physically exhausting.
Although Arthur had already flawlessly chosen his intended climbing route, some weathered parts of the rock wall on the cliff would actually fracture and crack after a heavy piton was driven in, sending sharp rock fragments falling dangerously down into the abyss below.
Despite Arthur being incredibly careful and relying on his enhanced constitution, he inevitably looked quite battered and disheveled during the grueling process, his dark clothes soaked through with freezing rain and sweat.
As a direct, exhausting result, this meticulous foundational work took a full seven or eight grueling hours of non-stop vertical labor.
With the gray light of dawn rapidly approaching on the horizon, Arthur finally finished hammering his secure path all the way up from the jagged bottom of the cliff.
He successfully and heavily hammered the absolute last steel piton deep into a massive, solid rock formation right at the very top edge of the cliff.
"Phew!" Arthur exhaled a long, heavy breath of foggy air, his muscular arms burning with lactic acid.
Using the securely installed rappelling rope he had just prepared, he kicked off the rock face and quickly, flawlessly descended all the way back down to the muddy ground.
Only then did Arthur turn around and follow the long, vertical line of steel rock bolts he had painstakingly placed, aggressively climbing right back up the sheer cliff face to rigorously test their ultimate reliability.
Over the past half-month, he had poured a massive amount of intense effort and focus into leveling up his [Climbing] skill.
He had absolutely not only visited a high-end, professional indoor climbing club and paid to hire a veteran instructor to teach him systematic techniques, but he had also spent countless, grueling hours scouting out several steep, low seaside crags along the California coast for intense private practice.
After two full weeks of that relentless, dedicated grinding, his [Climbing] skill had successfully reached an impressive LV3.
For Arthur right now, scaling this imposing fifty-meter cliff was almost entirely effortless with the structural help of the steel bolts he had just driven into the stone.
Exactly like a highly lethal, nimble predator, he raced straight upward along the secure line of physical protection he had placed.
A few short, tense minutes later, his calloused hands gripped the wet ledge, and he pulled his heavy frame smoothly onto the clifftop.
Staying low to the muddy ground, he leaned out through the wet brush and carefully surveyed the security setup of the sprawling villa grounds above.
Though freezing rain and heavy sweat drenched his forehead and stung his eyes, an incredibly excited, delighted grin spread across his rugged face.
Success at last! he thought, his racing heart pounding with pure adrenaline.
He attached his gear and rappelled completely back down to the base; heavily drained of his raw physical strength, he had absolutely no reckless intention of pushing his luck or infiltrating the compound further today.
He would quietly go home, rest his burning muscles, and fully replenish his supernatural energy.
Tomorrow night, he would return under the cover of darkness for the massive mountain of gold hidden deep in Steve's fortified house.
After another flawless rope descent, he expertly used a special, tactical technique to easily retrieve his main climbing line, leaving only the secure anchor points hidden in the stone.
He glanced upward one absolute last time at the towering clifftop, memorizing the dark route, then turned and walked away into the storm without looking back.