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Some people are just born lucky. That was certainly the case for April Frule, a premature baby who was supposed to have been born in late May, but was named for her actual birth-month instead. She might not have been lucky in the name department, but in almost every other regard, April led a charmed life, the forces of fate seeming to look out for her.
Of course, safety and security are not necessarily the same things as good fortune in all respects. April’s family barely managed to get by, and the adventurous and sometimes odd girl didn’t make many friends. Her parents told her to play it safe. Society told her to learn how to behave. Her peers told her to stop being such a weirdo. April decided she wasn’t going to listen to any of them. If they could only hear how small and petty they sounded!
So, as soon as she could, April Frule dropped out of school, said good-bye to the dead-end place everyone she knew called home and set out on her own, trusting to her luck to keep her safe. She doesn’t talk much about those times, except to say that she learned a lot. In particular, she learned she wasn’t just “lucky,” she was super lucky— far more than could be explained by mere chance. Experience and experimentation showed April the real extent of her potential, and a new awareness began to dawn upon her. With her kind of luck, she could make her fortune! It would be easy if her extraordinary luck extended to things like betting and gambling (although rumor has it the casinos have ways of ferreting out super-powered cheats). Still, extraordinary luck related solely to risk-taking and danger suited April just fine. She’d become a true adrenaline junky over the years, bolstered by her seeming invulnerability.
So it was that the costumed “April Fool” introduced herself to the world on her namesake birthday, a daring thief with a devil-may-care attitude and unbelievable luck that allowed her to evade the police and even superheroes who tried to stop her.
April’s celebrity in the criminal underworld—and the size of her cache of ill-gotten gains—grew to the point that she attracted some equally thrill-seeking henchmen looking for a piece of the action. She gladly employed her “Fooligans” (as she calls them) to handle some of the logistics, run interference, and help her to pull off even more daring and difficult jobs that no one person, no matter how lucky, could handle on her own.
Still, the more challenges April Fool took on, the more difficult things became, and the more heroes and the authorities have decided she is a serious threat. Even April wondered if it’s only a matter of time before her legendary luck runs out. So, wishing herself another happy birthday, she blew out the single candle on a cupcake and made a wish…
MOTIVATION AND GOALS
April Fool has two main motivations and goals: thrills and profit. She looks for the best opportunities to score big in the most dangerous ways imaginable, because not only are they the most fun, but the most likely to bring her extraordinary luck into play. Playing it safe isn’t for April and, in many ways, is more dangerous, since she can’t rely on her powers to help out.
Although she doesn’t admit it, even to herself, the thrills are more important to April than the money ever was. She’s lavish with her spending, precisely because she doesn’t care much about holding on to any of it. If she ever had enough to set her up for life, she still wouldn’t walk away from the excitement and the challenge of being a criminal. The Fooligans are cast in their boss’ mold, convinced that her luck is contagious (it sometimes is, but not always) and that there’s no better opportunity to make their mark and have fun doing it. April’s willingness to share the spoils, along with bringing everyone along on a real thrill-ride, has earned her the loyalty of her followers, and they idolize her.
TACTICS
“Reckless” describes the Fooligans’ tactics in one word: They take dares and terrific risks, picking targets that are “impossible” to hit and creating circumstances to enhance their risk in order to keep the faint-hearted at bay while they do their work. They’re the types to carry out a robbery while an eighteen-wheeler is dangling dangerously off a seaside cliff, or loot a bank vault as the building around them burns to the ground.
When necessary, the Fooligans run interference for April, and any one of them would do what is necessary to ensure their boss escapes, indeed, fate seems to conspire to ensure that happens when necessary. April is the biggest risk-taker of the whole group, fond of tactics like “playing chicken” with police and heroes, and courting disaster so she can skip away unscathed while the heroes clean up the mess left in her wake.
HEADQUARTERS AND RESOURCES
With a lot of cash and a few illegal fronts, April has acquired an old property in the Bayview Heights area south of Freedom City. The eccentric old mansion features secret doors, trick stairs, and a hidden bomb shelter built for the odd investor who commissioned it, then promptly went bankrupt. The bank that foreclosed was happy to finally be rid of it (a lucky break for all concerned). April christened it “The Fools’ Mansion,” and she and her gang have hidden out there successfully for a while now.
