Paulie the Pyro AKA Patricia Prima is a female arson specialist secretly pretending to be a male arson specialist within the Solano Crime Family.

Patricia was an orphan who was sent to the Prima family as a foster child. Patricia realized at puberty that she had fire powers...most notably because her fire powers are what caused her foster family's home to burn down.  Patricia was blamed for the fire and went back into the system. There, she spent day and night at the library learning about fire, fire science, pyrokinesis, pyroclastics and all the sciences related to fire. Interestingly, she discovered she had an aptitude in learning things. As such, she earned an academic scholarship to Columbia University through a Fire Science program.  From there, she earned a masters degree in Fire Science and works for a decent firm; a firm that pays peanuts for a salary. With a desire to be more, she discovered the more 'fire investigations' she was doing, the better chance for promotions, ergo, she started her own fires and investigated her own fires, learning how to 'mold' the fire starting scenario to whatever setup she chose to concoct. 

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Starting fires actually emboldened and empowered her more. It wasn't until she was investigating a fire from a potential 'mob arsonist' scenario that she realized that there was good money in contracted arson work.  She was contacted by a arsonist from the Marcone crime family to 'grease the skids' to say the arson Patricia was investigating was an 'accident' by giving her $7,000 in an envelope. Patricia instead turned the Marcone arsonist in to the police. This cemented her in with the district attorney and police such that she was given the job as a fire inspector for the state of New York.  Patricia did some 'street level research' and discovered how to get in on the criminal arson contracting. Her plan: use a secret identity to create arsons, and use her real identity to investigate and/or work on the 'inside' of the police and fire departments to empower her secret identity's abilities, mystique and credentials. It worked. 

 

As such Patricia earned her rep by simultaneously taking down several rival crime warehouses in massive fires (at the bequest of different crime bosses she was manipulating), including the Solano Crime Family. During that time, she realized the other crime bosses and families were 'low paying' and 'dismissive' of what they called 'fire bugs'...except the Solano family. They admired quality work and attention to detail. As such, they offered the 'mysterious arsonist' that Patricia had portrayed quite a sum of money...and a chance to get ahead in the family business. Sadly, Patricia overheard the Solanos say that women, especially women NOT from the actual Solano family blood line, would never achieve a position of authority in their crime family. Patricia saw the Solanos as her best best to get the most money and prestige as a secretive for-hire arsonist, so she heavily disguised herself as 'Paulie the Pyro' and took credit for her arson work looking and sounding like a male.  It took the Solanos to have 'Paulie' perform several other arson jobs (very difficult ones at that) before they even accepted 'Paulie' as one of their own contracted arsonist.

 

Within a few more years, the Solano Family considered Paulie as a 'Specialist' in their mob ranks; a specialist that answered only to the boss (Teflon Don Solano) and/or the underboss, Tall Tale Tony. To contact her for jobs, the family had to go through a series of third-party family mobsters and business contacts for her to get her assignments. She has yet to perform a face-to-face with either the Solano boss or underboss, nor will she, since they all thing Paulie the Pyro is a man.

 

Today, Paulie the Pyro has earned quite a reputation. Her efforts eventually led to to dominance of the Solanos in the eastern US for crime. Paulie also likes a 'challenge' and has encountered superheroes more often than she should, barely getting away before getting captured. As mentioned earlier, things like this only 'emboldened' her to challenge herself more...including battling superheroes.
 

Patricia has earned a master degree in Fire Science with a minor in Criminology. Not only has she risen to prominence in her professional job in investigating fires, but as Paulie the Pyro, she is the most sought after arsonists in the crime business!

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