[center] [h1] [b] P E R S U A D E R[/b]   [/h1] [/center]

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“You here to see Dellucci, little lady?” 

Elise Kimble was stood in the squalid street that ran outside of Kai Dellucci’s safe house, in front of a massive thug, who was so colossal and well-built that he might well have had some rhinoceros DNA in him. 

[b]“My mother,”[/b] Elise began, her voice soft, yet shaken [b]“she’s very sick. I heard that M-Mister Dellucci had some kind of magic cure.” [/b]

“Go on up, Sweetheart” the gangster laughed “Dellucci has got what ya need.” 

The young woman moved past the rhinoceros, and into the ramshackled old lift which slowly chugged her up to the top floor of Kai Dellucci’s dilapidated hideout, where the man himself was sat waiting behind a rusted desk which looked about one hard kick away from falling apart. 

“All I gotta do is sit here, and the delicious babes make their way into my little slice of paradise,” Dellucci grinned, clasping his ring-clad fingers together “I don’t know no otha’ job with these kind of perks. What can Pappa Dellucci do for you then, sexy?” 

[b]“It’s my mum,”[/b] Elise repeated, in that same rattled tone [b]“I need your magic cure, Sir.” [/b]

Delluci reached one hand under his desk, fishing out a slender glass tube, that was brimming with dark red liquid. 

“When that malformed alien freak killed old Superman, a load of this super-powered mojo got left behind.” 

[b]“W-what is it?”[/b] Elise asked. 

“Kryptonian blood,” Dellucci beamed, his gold tooth glittering beneath the dim office lights “It can cure just about any ailment, infection, or epidemic known to man. The question is, sweet thing...how will you be paying for it?”

Suddenly, Elise’s hand darted into the air, the palm of her hand unclenching, which triggered the isomorphic lure that was tucked discreetly beneath her jacket sleeve. In a roar of splinters and fragments of metal, her father’s Atomic Axe hurtling through the wall of Dellucci’s office, and flying into the Persuaders hand.

Dellucci yelped and swore in shock, as Elise leapt forwards, vaulting over the desk, and slamming the mobster’s face into the cold metal surface. Blood poured out of his now broken nose, and the Persuader yanked him back up by the hair, pressing the blade of the atomic axe against his soft neck. 

“S-shit!” Dellucci cursed, blood and sweat dripping down his face “Are you one of Falcone’s?! Whatever the Roman thinks is happening, I can assure you-” 

[b]“You’ve been selling your snake oil trash to the weak and helpless; tricking cancer patients into shelling out their life’s savings for coloured water.”[/b] Elise hissed, any softness in her voice replaced by hot, burning rage.

“Listen lady!” Dellucci whimpered “if those sad saps are stupid enough to fall for-” 

[b]“Go on, keep running your mouth,”[/b] Elise snarled [b]“give me another reason to slit your wretched throat, and let you bleed out on the carpet.” [/b]

Suddenly, an array of booms and explosions, all tangled together with a cacophony of panicked screaming came wailing up from the streets below.

[b]“Mother fu-,”[/b] Elise spat, beneath her breath, before turning her focus back to Dellucci [b]“If you haven’t packed up, and left the city by tomorrow morning, I will -END YOU-.” [/b]

She gave the mobster a shove, hurling him back against the wall, before making her way into the elevator, and pressing the button for street-level. 

As the lift clanked downwards, she fished a cigarette cartoon out of her jacket pocket, lighting herself a straight, and furiously puffing away on it. 

[b]“No rest for the wicked.” [/b]