Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. Please don't sue me or steal my story. Thanks!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This story takes place on Earth 723, as seen in my other stories The Day the Earth Stood Back, An Unsung Hero, An Early Morning Surprise, Wagner Rides Again, True Love Ways, and Sinister Motives. Earth 723 is my version of what the Evoverse might be like some 30 years in the future. It's something of a blend of X-Men Evolution and the comic book series "Excalibur," which featured Nightcrawler as the leader of an international superhero team based in Britain. Nightcrawler's Excalibur team included Captain Britain (Brian Braddock), his girlfriend Meggan, Dr. Moira MacTaggert, Professor Alistaire Stuart, and Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat). Alice, Marta, Suzie, Edmund, Samuel, and Eliza are all my original characters. Neither they nor their reality plane exist in any official Marvel universe.

NOTE II: Revived and freshly edited (just minor stuff, promise) for your reading enjoyment. Happy April Fool's Day!

April Fools
By Rowena

"So, Kurt..." Kitty grinned as she cut him off in the corridor. "It's April First tomorrow. Got anything devious and clever tucked up your sleeve?"

Kurt furrowed his fuzzy brow.

"Is it so late already? Mein Gott, this year seems to be just flying past! I know things have been busy, but still…"

"You didn't answer my question," Kitty prodded.

"Was? Oh, about April Fools Day. The answer, I'm afraid, is no."

Kitty's jaw dropped.

"What!" she exclaimed. "But Kurt, what about the kids? They'll surely be expecting one of your famous pranks!"

Kurt sighed, suddenly looking very tired.

"Look, Kate," he said. "I'm just not in the mood this year. The crime rate's way up and we've been hopping all over the globe tracking down the Mancour smuggling ring… Besides, the children are getting older now. Marta's nearly fifteen and Suzie has never shown any real interest in this pseudo-holiday. It's just not worth the effort anymore."

Kitty stared.

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," she said. "Since when is Kurt Wagner, the undisputed Prankster King, uninspired by April Fools Day?"

"Since now." Kurt frowned. "If it's so important to you, why don't you come up with a prank for once?"

"It won't be the same!" Kitty whined. "The fun for me is in the surprise, not the reaction. Come on, Kurt! Don't go all Scott Summers on me!"

Kurt raised a patently unamused eyebrow.

"Kate, I'm forty-seven years old. I'm the leader of a multi-national crime-fighting and anti-terrorist organization that is in the process of expanding. I'm tired, I'm overworked, I get pecked at by reporters every time I step out of the house, and I really, really need a two week holiday skiing in the Alps with Alice. I'm sorry if all this makes me seem stodgy to you, but I just don't have the time or the energy to come up with a creative prank on such short notice, OK?"

"OK," Kitty said, holding up her hands. "Fine! I'm sorry I asked! Of course you wouldn't have time for such a childish holiday."

Kurt shot her an exasperated look.

"Kitty, bitte, don't be like this. I'll think up something extra clever next year to make it up to you, all right?"

"You mean next year when you're forty-eight years old and still the exhausted, overworked leader of Excalibur?"

Kurt had to struggle to keep a smile from quirking across his face.

"Ja," he said.

Kitty shot Kurt an appraising look, then held out her hand for him to take.

"I'm going to hold you to that, Fuzzy," she said as they shook hands. "And that's a promise."

Edmund Wagner sat on the stairs outside the small, servants' entrance to Braddock Manor, the headquarters of the European branch of the International X-Men Organization: Excalibur, busily lacing up a pair of dusty, metal roller skates. Once they were knotted good and tight, he stood and looked over at his older sister.

"Marti," he said, wobbling slightly on his skates. "Hey, Marti!"

"What?" Marta asked, hopping down from the old pogo stick she'd found in the garage - the garage the three Wagner children were supposed to be cleaning out.

"Do you think Daddy has anything planned for tomorrow?" he asked, his pale-blue tail stretched out awkwardly behind him as he stagger-rolled past her and grabbed onto a tree-trunk to stop himself from crash landing on the pavement.

"Auntie Kitty said Dad's not doing April Fools Day this year," she said, adjusting the crumpled, straw gardening hat she'd discovered over her curly, red hair. "Which utterly reeks, of course. How can he be too busy for an April Fools jape? He never was before."

"Maybe he finally realized how stupid the whole thing is," a voice emanated from the depths of the cluttered garage.

"Suzie," Marta frowned disapprovingly.

"Well, it is!" Ingrid Susan Wagner stated, coming out into the light and wiping her pale hands on her denim skirt. "Last year, my boiled egg exploded in my face at breakfast. Bits of yolk got in my hair and my sweater and everything! It was gross!"

Marta found it impossible to hold in a snigger at the colorful memory.

"Maybe so," she said between snorts, "but it was a terrifically funny sight!"

Suzie shot her older sister a golden-eyed glare from beneath the shadow of her azure fringe. This glare had the power to make her younger brother and most of her schoolmates wilt from twenty paces away. It only made Marta laugh harder.

"Hmph," Suzie retorted, annoyed. "You didn't think it was so funny when you found that rubber snake in the cookie jar."

"The foul thing looked and felt so real!" Marta exclaimed, shuddering at the very thought of having touched it. "It was three feet long if it was an inch, and completely black except for those white eyes and those awful fangs! Yick!"

"That was a brilliant snake," Edmund reminisced from his tree trunk, where he was still struggling to find his footing on the roller skates. "It felt so smooth and warm. And it made the whole kitchen stink of old rubber!"

Suzie smirked.

"Yeah. Mum sure didn't like that! And neither did Auntie Meggan, for that matter. Wasn't she the one who made Dad get rid of it?"

Marta shrugged, then sighed, spinning her pogo stick around like a top between her hands.

"It just won't be right without any pranks tomorrow," she said. "It'll throw off the whole rest of the year."

"I know," Edmund agreed, plunking himself down on the grass and sullenly rolling his wheels against the palm of his hand. After a moment of heavy silence, he looked up; his hazel eyes suddenly alight with inspiration.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "I've got it! Why don't we do the pranks this year?"

"No," said Suzie, her blunt rejection causing Edmund's shoulders to hunch as he lowered his eyes back to the grass.

"But why not?" Marta asked, her own night-goggle-green eyes beginning to brighten. "It could be marvelous! Especially if no one knew it was us doing the pranks!"

Suzie squidged up her face.

"How would they not know it was us?" she asked. "They'd be sure to guess."

Marti's fuzzy, indigo face broke out in a crafty smirk.

"No they wouldn't," she said. "They'd be more likely to think it was Dad."

Suzie frowned.

"Don't quite follow you there," she said.

"Think about it!" Marta elaborated. "Here's Dad telling everyone he's too tired to pull any japes, and then suddenly, come April Fools Day, everyone's getting pranked! They'll be bound to think his whole 'I'm overworked' bit was all part of the joke! But really, the joke will be on him! He'll be the biggest April Fool of all!"

Suzie tilted her head, her golden eyes slowly widening with admiration.

"I say," she said, "that's not half bad. In fact, that's really good. In fact, it's absolutely brilliant!"

Marta took a bow.

"Thank you, thank you," she said. "I do have my moments."

"That you do," Suzie acknowledged. "But now we've got to think up a bunch of pranks worthy of the prank-master himself. Think we're up to the task?"

"Of course we are!" Edmund chirped, grabbing hold of the tree with his tail as he lurched his way back to his wheeled feet. "I've got loads of ideas! And I helped Daddy set things up last year, so I've got experience too."

"Yeah," Marta said enthusiastically. "We've already got the big one, after all - the one to outfox the fox. The rest is small potatoes in comparison!"

"Ha," Suzie replied. "You say that now. But if our little pranks aren't good enough, the big prank on Dad will never work."

"Then," said Marta, leaning in close to her sister's stern face, "we'll just have to make sure they're good enough!"

To Be Continued...