MAJOR DEEJ UNIVERSE

Mary sprinted past the gate guard and up onto the front steps of the castle before the police physically stopped her.  Mary screamed at the castle demanding to tell her where Aidan was. In response, Mr. St.Lawrence, Aidan's father,  casually walked out from the castle’s front foyer entry, shooting daggers from his eyes at Mary.

 

Wide eyed and in tears, Mary demanded that Mr. St.Lawrence tell her where Aidan was.  Mr. St.Lawrence, with the casualness and couth of a man who considered himself far superior to anyone else, replied that the police would be ‘taking care’ of Aidan from here on. He then took out a handkerchief from his pocket, purposefully cleaned his glasses with it, and then purposefully dropped the handkerchief on the ground before her.  With a smirk, Mr. St.Lawrence turned and started walking back inside the castle, but not before he motioned to the police to ‘remove’ Mary from his property.

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Mary would have noticed Mr. St.Lawrence’s motion had she not instead recognized the handkerchief which Mr. St. Lawrence had dropped; a handkerchief she’d made for Aidan at the Druid school; a handkerchief with blood on it.

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Mary exploded in rage and tears, screaming at the top of her lungs towards Aidan’s father, demanding to know what happened to Aidan, all the while trying to pull herself from the police that held her fast.

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Mary was dragged outside of the the Howth Castle gate, where she immediately dropped to her knees in the mud-soaked ground, weeping uncontrollably.

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Devastated, Mary cried as the sky darkened and the rain began to fall. Hours later, she was still there, caked in mud, sopping wet. To the motorists driving past her, Mary looked to be a pathetic site to view, even as those same motorists splashed even more water and mud from the road’s puddles onto her as they passed her.

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The next morning, Mary finally got up from the mud and started walking back to the pay-to-be-a-druid school. Most of her journey she’d walked was in a daze; traumatized.  Unsure what to expect at the school, she knew she had nowhere else to go but back to her leaky stone and wood druid hut.

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Several hours later, Mary arrived at the school’s site.  Mary looked like she was the walking dead; pale, sullen, clothes disheveled, torn and muddied.  The school’s students and staff looked upon Mary with shock, yet no one went to her side or asked if she was okay. Instead, Mary plodded back to her hut. There, she noticed that someone had built a new fire in her fireplace.  Looking about, she spied Aidan, lying in her bed, sopping wet, pale…and bloodied.

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Mary raced to the bedside, hugging Aidan and rapidly talking about how much she missed him.  After a minute or so, she realized that Aidan was in far worse shape that she realized.

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He’d been shot three times in the chest. 

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Aidan was dying.

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Mary screamed for help…but no one came.  Mary ran about the school grounds demanding for help, but everyone nervously turned their heads and rapidly walked away from her.  When Mary grabbed one of her fellow adepts, the adept pulled away, wide-eyed and scared, from Mary stating she wasn’t allowed to help her.  Puzzled and confused, Mary ran to the school leader’s cabin and barged in, telling him to call for an ambulance, a doctor, a paramedic, anyone, to help save Aidan.  That’s when the school leader told Mary that his hands were tied and that, as part of his recent arrangement with Mr. Cameron St.Lawrence.

 

He’d mentioned that Mr. St.Lawrence had called the school leader hours earlier after Aidan’s purported break-in at Howth Castle, they were not allowed to even recognize Aidan’s existence, nor Mary’s for that matter, unless they didn’t want to receive a ‘generous donation of 200,000 Euros’ for their compliance. The school leader, rather than help Mary, motioned her out the door with a string of ‘sorry; I’m so sorry; sorry’ empty words and rhetoric until Mary found herself corralled to outside the school leader’s cabin door where he promptly closed the door and locked it from the inside, leaving Mary alone…and out in the mud…once again.

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After a minute of self-realization (or a turn towards the macabre), Mary rustled her hair, brushed some of the caked mud on her robes and bore the stance of her favorite LARP character, “Lady Eriu”.  With her head held high, her back straight and the look of a determined Irish goddess, Mary/Lady Eriu walked back to her stone hut. There, Mary converted the cot-made-into-a-bed that Aidan was dying on into a stretcher.  She strapped Aidan onto the stretcher, grabbed a small bag of her things and a bulky bag of Aidan’s things that she’d found tied to Aidan’s robe and began dragging the stretcher-born Aidan behind her as she walked across the druidic school grounds in full view of her ‘fellow’ adepts and began her journey to take Aidan to a hospital…wherever the closest one was.

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All the while Mary/Lady Eriu was dragging Aidan on the stretcher, she talked with purpose, deportment and spirit just like her Lady Eriu LARP character.  The inner strength she mustered to drag Aidan through the rocks and mud down to the road was amazing to bear witness to.  When she reached the road, she set down Aidan aside the road and walked out into the middle of the road into oncoming traffic, causing two cars to barely brake in time before crashing into each other.  Mary/Lady Eriu then demanded like an Irish Goddess for those before her to care for her wounded champion before she unleashed the fury of the gods itself upon them all.

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Unsure what to think, several people got out of their cars and attended to Aidan.  Luckily, one of those people was a nurse.  The nurse noted that Aidan has been shot three times in the upper body and that he’d lost a lot of blood.  He required immediate medical care and thus called for an ambulance with her cell phone.  The nurse stopped the bleeding and bandaged up Aidan as best should could, all the while Mary continued to talk and act as Lady Eriu, demanding the nurse to save her “Elvenknight” or risk the wrath of Lady Eriu. Within minutes, an ambulance showed and took Mary (still acting like she was Lady Eriu) and Aidan to a hospital four miles down the road.  Once there, Lady Eriu escorted the ambulatory Aidan to the emergency ward.  When nurses attempted to shoo Mary/Lady Eriu from the operating room, she exclaimed that she was the Lady Eriu and she was not to be trifled with.  Although it was against the hospital’s policy, they masked her and let her stand to the side, watching Aidan undergo his surgery.

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An hour later, Aidan was taken to the Critical Case Unit (CCU) where he slept, recovered and healed for the next day.  During that whole time, Lady Eriu stood watch over him, without sleep, talking to him as her LARP champion, Elvenknight, but not as Aidan.  During that time, one of the nurses checked in on her and Aidan more routinely than necessary.  Mary/Lady Eriu was asked several times about who she was by the inquisitive nurses, but only received the same answer again as “Lady Eriu” and her champion, the “Elvenknight”. Each time the nurse completed their inquiry, Mary/Lady Eriu refocused on Aidan/Elvenknight…and nothing else. One such nurse however, tried talking to Mary/Lady Eriu in what sounded like a strange Celtic language, but after a few seconds, the words became clear to Mary as if she was translating the nurse’s words in her head.  Mary/Lady Eriu’s didn’t respond to that nurse, and instead, went back to caring for her Aidan/Elvenknight.

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The next morning, Mr. Cameron St.Lawrence visited the hospital with several policemen in tow.  The police were to arrest Aidan for trespassing and the grand theft of two priceless items found missing from the museum. When Mary/Lady Eriu saw Mr. St. Lawrence, she exploded into action, belting him in the jaw, causing him to fall to the floor.  As Mary/Lady Eriu stood over him, the police attempted to subdue her.  They’d sooner made better headway against the winds of a hurricane instead.  With an inner strength and determination Mary was never able to muster as Mary, Lady Eriu instead felled all of the policemen, one right after another in an epic hospital room fight. Lady Eriu was able to shove the police and Mr. St.Lawrence out the room’s door before she slammed the door closed and barricaded it to prevent all but Lady Eriu from getting to her Elvenknight.  That’s when Lady Eriu realized she was not alone in the room.

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Grabbing an IV pole like a professional staff fighter, Lady Eriu wheeled around to encounter the nurse from the day/night before…the one who spoke in the strange Celtic tone.  The nurse was unafraid, and for that matter, seemed to have a glowing aura about her.  The nurse asked if the Lady wished for her to depart the hospital with her champion without conflict; Lady Eriu, puzzled, nodded a strong formal nod.  To that nod, the nurse then spoke in that strange dialect once again. The nurse’s aura grew brighter, with the glow eventually encompassing both Mary/Lady Eriu and Aidan/Elvenknight. As the police broke in the hospital room’s door, they witnessed (what they later talked about in the hushed corners of a pub) Mary, Aidan and the unknown (and unrecognized) nurse disappearing in a blinding flash of light.

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When Mary/Lady Eriu awoke, it was 18 hours after being teleported from her champion’s hospital room. 

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Mary/Lady Eriu had collapsed from exhaustion once she’d been ported to the nurse’s remote home; a home deep in an unrecognizable, hidden forest. When Mary/Lady Eriu finally awoke, the ‘nurse’ handed her a cup of tea.  Before the nurse’s mud-caked guest realized she was drinking the tea, the questions began to flow through Mary/Lady Eriu’s head... 

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Where were they?

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Where was Aidan/Elvenknight?

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How much time had elapsed? 

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The nurse then asked if she was talking to Lady Eriu now or Mary O’Casey.

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After an awkward moment’s self-assessment, the muddied woman replied. “Mary. Mary will do”.  The nurse gave her a big smile and stated, “That’s what I thought”.  The nurse explained that all three of them were now wanted as mass murderers with their images splashed across every computer, TV and news screen in Ireland and Great Britain.  The nurse mentioned about a ‘fire’ that occurred at the druid school and that all but one man, the school’s lead druid, died.  She mentioned the man who lived claimed that two of his ‘crazed’ students, Aidan St.Lawrence and Mary O’Casey went crazy, killing everyone there in what was described as a sick and macabre ‘kill-them-to-show-me-how-much-you-love-me’ act between the two ‘mentally ill’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ murderers.   Mary was in utter shock.

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In an adjacent room, a gravelly voice muttered “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m guessing we’re not really the killers, are we?”.

It was Aidan. He was alive and awake.

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Looking less pale, but still weak, Aidan sat up in the adjacent room’s moss-covered bed. He still looked haggard but that didn’t matter to Mary. All she saw were Aidan’s beautiful green eyes gazing directly back at hers.

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Mary raced to Aidan throwing her arms around his neck, crying.  Aidan winced in pain at the strength of Mary’s hug, but after a couple of seconds, he no longer seemed to care.  He hugged her with a tear in his eye. The nurse let down a string of moss across the doorway of that adjacent room and left them to their privacy for the time being.

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After several minutes of hugs (but still no kissing), they exchanged information of what had happened to them.

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 Aidan told Mary that he’d worked a bargain with the Druid school’s leader to get him twice owed after they’d graduate, but instead, the school leader called Aidan to his ‘cabin’ that previous night and demanded the money that night.  The school leader had figured out who AIdan was and told him to raid one the msueum's artifacts instead for him or they'd hurt or kill Mary.

 

Since Aidan already knew the house and grounds all too well, and figured it would be a simple operation.  Once inside, Aidan went to the Castle’s Master Bedroom, where he found his father awake in bed with two of Aidan's fellow LARP girls.  There, they talked about how those same ‘LARP girls’ had actually been paid good money to keep Aidan distracted with his stupid LARP group and ‘Mary ‘o Jax’ to be too busy to meddle in Aidan’s father’s affairs.

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At this point, Aidan knew he’d been had. He knew right then and there his father was behind his and Mary's misfortune.  Aiden Instead snuck off to his old room where he found one of his custom-made LARP costume bags.  He then gathered up his old wallet (complete with traveler’s checks, bank cards and a few hundred Euros in cash), his gold watch, diamond cufflinks, his Elvenknight costume, Mary’s Lady Eriu costume, and a couple of changes of Mary’s and his clothes. He then went off to the museum, but rather than to retrieve one artifact for the school leader, he also needed one other item.  An item that needed to have no matter the cost.

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Once again, Aidan slipped past the security system and into the Castle’s museum section, past the old guard who always slept on the job, Vince.  Once in the museum, he went straight to a glass case that displayed a sapphire gem worth hundreds of thousands of Pounds. Once he acquired and pocketed that, he wen after the item he had to have at all costs: the near-priceless silver headband he’d unsuccessfully attempted to gift Mary on her 16th birthday.  Knowing he’d bypassed the security sensors before, he knew he could easily do so again.

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Or so Aidan thought.

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Aidan tripped a new security trigger in the display, setting off a wail of alarms and a flashes of red alarm lights everywhere.  Aidan ripped open the display top and removed the headband from the case.  He then rushed to the exit only to see a new iron gate drop down from the ceiling before him.  Vince appeared on the other side of the gate’s bars and said, “Glory! Mr. St.Lawrence was right! He knew ye’d be back!  I wouldna ‘a believed it if naught fer me own eyes!” He then waddled off, bellowing for Mr. St.Lawrence, saying that Aidan was caught in the new mousetrap they’d installed.  Aidan was indeed trapped, but he wasn’t the mouse they’d assumed him to be.

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Looking at the gate, he saw the control pad just out of reach on the other side of the gate. There was a button that said “Raise Gate-Emergency Override”.  Try as he might to stretch his arm out to reach the button, he couldn’t even bridge half the distance to it.  He then started looking around for something…anything…to use to reach across and press the button.

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That’s when he spied three crates with relics half wrapped in them.  One of them was a sea-growth encrusted rusty-looking longsword.  Aidan braced himself to pick up what he expected would be a heavy sword, but instead, lifted the sword as if it were made of Balsa Wood.  He took the sword and attempted to reach it through the bars and press the button.

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Aidan instead dropped the sword outside the iron gate.

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The sea growth and crustaceans that had encased the sword broke away from the sword’s blade and hilt, displaying a glowing green metal blade with archaic, unusual writing on it.  Although mesmerized by what seemed like an eternity, Aidan shook off the effect it had on him and reached through the bars, trying to grab what seemed to be his only chance to get back to Mary – the green glowy sword.

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In a painful lunge against the metal security gate, Aidan slammed his head against the gate, cutting his brow.  Blood dripped across his eye.  He tried to wipe away the blood by wiping it with a handmade handkerchief that was made at the druid school. His sight cleared for the moment, Aidan threw down the handkerchief and lunged his arm through the iron gate once again. This time, Aidan grabbed the sword. He then maneuvered the sword back up into position to stab at the override button.  Just as Aidan plunged the sword into the button the museum’s front doors opened; Vince and Mr. St.Lawrence ran into the foyer, with Mr. St.Lawrence brandishing his favorite gun.

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At this point, sparks flew from the button’s panel, startling Vince and Aidan’s father just long enough to allow Aidan enough time to roll out from under the now lifting iron gate and run across to museum’s emergency exit doors with his LARP bag in tow and the headband stuffed in said bag.  In a deft maneuver of athletic moves, Aidan arrived at the Emergency exit doors with a grin on his face.

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That’s when Mr. St.Lawrence shot Aidan three times.

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Although shot, Aidan plunged through the doors, setting off even more alarms. Aidan then barred the door with an old wall-mounted pike pole and a cut tree stump/stool.  Aidan then staggered off into the woods, climbing across rocks and trees he knew all too well as a child growing up on the property.  It wasn’t until a half a mile later that Aidan had realized how bad he’d been shot.  Remembering some of the ‘druidic’ alchemy they’d taught at the school, he quickly gathered up some mud, leaves and reeds and made an impromptu bandage, using the mud to help slow the bleeding.  He made his way back to the druid school to warn Mary and give her the headband, but according to Aidan, he didn’t remember anything after getting half way back to the school grounds.

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Mary then explained her story to Aidan (no, we’re not going to repeat it again!). 

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After telling her tale, Mary mentioned she’d tied off Aidan’s muddied and unrecognizable LARP bag with hers, and that she had since been wearing it the whole time.  She reached down and took the mud-encrusted bag off her belt and looked into the bag. There, she saw everything Aidan had packed – including the silver headband.  She gingerly pulled the headband from the bag and looked over at him with gracious eyes. Mary then stated that she had no right to keep it; it was still stolen property. That’s when Aidan stated that his grandfather’s Will had also originally bequeathed that the castle and the museum were to be bequeathed to Aidan the day after his 18th birthday, including any all remaining items and relics on said property, should the relics have not been distributed properly by Aidan’s birthday (plus one day). His father was NEVER to receive a single dime from the grandfather. Aidan’s father instead lied and had taken illegal custody of the castle and the museum – a castle, museum and artifacts that legally were supposed to belong to Aidan.

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Aidan then took the headband from Mary’s hands and placed it upon Mary’s head.  To Aidan, Mary truly looked like a goddess.  In his LARP voice of his Elvenknight character, he stated, “Lady Eriu, I give you back your crown and title; goddess of Ireland, so say us; so say all!”  Mary smiled and laughed and hugged Aidan.  Their eyes met once again for that long moment that had been so rare for them thusfar.  In that moment, Mary truly knew she was in love with Aidan.  Just as she was about to tell him so, the ‘nurse’ entered the room, disrupting the moment.

 

“Well now.  It seems we have a predicament here.  You are wanted by the authorities and you have no place to go. For the time, I am willing to have you stay with me, but I do have a condition. A very LARGE condition. Do you want me to discuss that condition with you?”

Puzzled, Aidan and Mary looked at each other for a moment until Mary finally said, “All we want is justice…and for Aidan ‘an me to be with each other from here on after, together. Not in jail.”

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The nurse replied, “Justice is the degree of repayment dispensed or expected by those who’ve had wrongs done unto them. Today’s justice system in your world of…nations…doesn’t reflect that. I am here to tell you, neither of you two will get your justice…at least, not with them.”

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The nurse then spoke for the next several minutes about an ancient secret mystical society known as “The Conglomerate”; a society that operates outside modern civilization’s laws.  The society’s city operates underground, but their schools of magic all exist in man’s world all across the planet in secretive sects. The nurse mentioned that, should they choose that path, there would be no going back, for to join that society, you give up your current lives forever. Should you ever try to leave The Conglomerate once you’ve gone there, they’d hunt you down and imprison you for your actions for decades. The nurse then mentioned SHE was once part of The Conglomerate and was trained in the school of Druidic magic in Newgrange. She then stated that she herself has been on the run since leaving The Conglomerate some 50 years before and that The Conglomerate was still, to that day, hunting her.

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The nurse then mentioned another path for the couple - her path.

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The nurse went on to tell that she’d broken away from the Conglomerate’s training when she realized they were holding her back. Instead, she left The Conglomerate and her family and has hidden in and about man’s world since then.  The nurse mentioned that over the last five decades she’s learned more about druidic magic that anyone had ever known through formal training in The Conglomerate’s society.  She mentioned she was now getting on in years and that it was time to pass on her learnings. She considered Mary and Aidan as perfect choices to be her new adepts. 

 

The nurse then mentioned the last path – back to their own civilization.

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The nurse mentioned that if they took that last choice, they’d have to leave the next day and go back to the civilized world and face its evils and threats alone. Amongst those threats were charges of being mass murderers, grand theft, breaking and entering and trespassing. The nurse also mentioned that after that night, they’d never see her again, nor learn the secrets of druidic magic from either her or The Conglomerate. 

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The nurse told the couple to think on it. She then asked for the couple’s robes (clothing) so they could be taken care of properly.  Both Aidan and Mary stripped bare and handed over their damaged and dirty clothes to the nurse.  The nurse mentioned that there was no more room in the hut for separate sleeping arrangements, so the two of them would have to ‘bunk’ together for the night. She smiled at them and said, “we’ll talk more in the morning. You two can now spend a wonderful night making love with one another.  Goodnight!”.  Before they could respond, the nurse carrying the armful of dirty clothes walked through the hut’s stone wall and disappeared into thin air, leaving the couple  alone…and in the buff.

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And with that, Aidan and Mary finally had their moment together. They finally kissed each other and proclaimed their love for one another. It was a beautiful night (and morning) of physical love and emotional passion for both of them. Never had the two ever been so happy or content in their lives.

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By noon the next day, the couple awoke to see their LARP cos-play costumes laid out before them.  The nurse stated that their old robes were ‘disgusting’ and had to be re-purposed as mulch in the quagmire. She then motioned then to get dressed and said she’d be right back with a fresh pot of tea for them.

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Upon the nurse’s return with the tea, the now-costumed couple was then asked the big question.

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“So, what’s it going to be, you two? Go to the secret magical Conglomerate underground society? Allow the crazy old lady to teach you her version of druidic magic? Or would you rather ignore those options and make your own way in the civilized world as hunted animals?

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They chose the crazy old lady’s path.

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For the next four years, the couple and the nurse, who allowed them to finally call her “Aria”, exhaustively trained.  There were days of incredible discoveries and magical feats of amazement, but there were also days where they argued, got angry at each other, and then forgave each other and moved on.  Although it was a challenging time for the couple, they soon became masters in their new profession.

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As fate would have it, Mary had an incredible advantage, thanks to Aidan. The headband Aidan had given Mary, aside from being a priceless ancient artifact, was also imbued with “Conglomerate” magic. The headband’s magic properties allowed the wearer’s magical energies to ‘flow’ to and from the wearer at greater strength and volume than any druidic master could channel.  This made Mary’s spells, casting and defenses twice as potent as Aidan’s or Aria’s magic.

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For Mary and Aidan, over the years, their love grew even more. In their second year, Mary and Aidan asked Aria to wed them in a formal druidic marriage ceremony that spring. Aria was honored to do so, and in a ceremony that would put any storybook fairytale wedding to shame, Mary and Aidan were married in the beauty of nature and its fauna. Where some would think their passionate love would diminish once betrothed, the couple instead grew more passionate and more in love than ever before.

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Mary and Aidan were perfect for each other.

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At the end of the fourth year, Aria, who’d grown exponentially older and feebler over that time, proclaimed that she could teach them no more than they had already learned.  They’d already exceeded the training The Conglomerate would have provided and had since learned and mastered all of Aria’s skills, knowledge and abilities.  Aidan even learned how to be a master swordsman through the teachings of a 15th century master swordsman’s ghost over those same years.  Aria stated that they were now ready to embark on a new path of their own choosing.  Aria, however, did offer up one option; an option that, according to Aria, was brave, daring and fraught with danger, but at the same time, the most fulfilling opportunity a soul could ever do – being a hero.

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She’d mentioned that she’d seen a single vision of the couple fighting alongside others of Irish decent in the city of Boston, in America, in a team led by a man known as the “Irish Fighter”.  In Aria’s vision, she saw the couple saving thousands of lives while simultaneously fighting and defeating evil creatures and monsters amassed about them with a ‘society of other green-clad heroes’. She also said that of all the future visions she’d tried to conjure up for the couple, only that one vision, that one path, ever presented itself to her.

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The next morning, Aria died. 

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In a formal druidic ceremony, they consecrated her to the earth.  The couple believed she was close to 104 years of age at the time of her death, based on what Aria had mentioned about her earlier life experiences.  The funeral done, the druidic couple packed what they could and left the magically hidden forest they’d resided in for the past four years in Ireland.

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Knowing they might still be sought out, Aidan used his new druidic magical power to slightly alter Mary’s and his face.  To ensure this ‘charm’-based spell remained active even when they slept, Mary infused the spell into her own headband (making the headband even invisible), while Aidan used magical tattoo ink to infuse the spell into a sword tattoo on his right arm.

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Using their own magic to make themselves invisible, the couple boarded a cargo ship that was scheduled to go to Boston. Onboard, they lived (and loved) in the cargo hold, with no one being the wiser.

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Once they arrived in Boston, they’d dressed in regular street clothes and used their magics again to make themselves invisible so that they could sneak out from the Port Authority. As with any well-conceived plan, the occasion for failure can occur; this was one was just such an occasion.

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As they stealthily neared the Port Authority exit gate, Mary and Aidan walked within range of a special ‘Magic Detection, Depower and Nullification’ (MaDDeN) station set up by the federal government to inspect imported cargo for any dangerous magical power, weapons or wards (these stations were installed by G.U.A.R.D. four years prior). As such, the couple’s magics were nullified, leaving them visible to the naked eye…and the Port Authority security cameras.  The station also nullified the couple’s charm spells, showing everyone their natural, real faces – the same faces that were considered mass murderers.

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They didn’t realize what had happened until a security guard started yelling at them to stop where they were.  Knowing how bad this was, they both bolted into a nearby maze of cargo containers. The couple darted and dodged amongst the cargo containers until finally they fell out of range of the MADDeN station.  They quickly recollected their things and made off to their true destination: Boston’s Castle Island, otherwise known as the home of the leader of the Emerald Society – The Irish Fighter.

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Sadly for our couple, an APB was put out on them, now identifying the pair by their Christian names as wanted for mass murders and now ‘dangerous terrorists’ who covertly entered the United States. The police were out everywhere, earnestly looking for the couple. Now that they had their magical powers back, they were able to stealthily make their way to Castle Island, but not without realizing the trouble their own personal identities now presented.

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As such, the couple found space to hide long enough for them to create new image ‘charms’. Again, the charms were imbued in Mary’s headband and Aidan’s tattoo.  This time however, they both realized that in order to see Irish Fighter, they may need to dress the part.

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Being LARP players (and character actors by affiliation), they both decided to don their cosplay costumes and masquerade as Lady Eriu and Elvenknight once again.  They both knew that the authorities might link their LARP character names to them, but with their use of druidic magic, they ensured themselves a means of not being ‘formally’ identified.  Aidan gave himself real ‘elf’ ears, while Mary gave herself a full head of long, thick colorfully red hair (her natural hair was a stringy, darker red type of hair). They once again made several ideal changes (not slight as the last time) to their faces and bodies, even altering their fingerprints and baseline DNA enough so as not to provide a positive or direct match. Mary, now Lady Eriu, even gave the charms a powerful ‘boost’ to ensure something like the MaDDeN station wouldn’t shut their charms down again. They’d agreed that from that point on, they’d have to play the parts of an Irish goddess and her champion elf knight.

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With that, Lady Eriu and the Elvenknight walked out from their space several blocks from Castle Island and strolled out onto the streets for the first time in their (relatively) new identities.  People on the street immediately started taking cell phone snapshots of the pair and before they even reached Castle Island, the police stopped them.

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In character, the two regally stated that they were on a quest to speak with the Irish Fighter and aid his Emerald Society to help protect humanity from evil…and itself.  The police were baffled and Mary knew she had to do something to prove who they were.  She used her magics to make a tree grow up out of the middle of the road, and then demanded to ‘prevent delaying’ a goddess.

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That’s when the Irish Fighter arrived with a customary super-jump hero landing before them.

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Again, acting as their LARP characters, the couple explained that they’d traveled from a Celtic land that is ‘betwixt and between’ each other’s worlds, and that they were sent forth by other gods greater than they so as to ‘stand with’ and ‘assess’ the human world and whether it was finally time for both their worlds to finally meet. For humanity to prove its worth, Lady Eriu and her champion, Elvenknight, must conclude, after an assessed time, whether Earth was ‘worthy’ and ‘heroic’ enough.

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Irish Fighter, after hearing all this, had his reservations, but wasn’t about to say anything in front of the Boston populace.  Instead, he formally invited the Celtic duo to join him on Castle Island so as to ‘discuss’ the situation.

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Once down inside the Castle Island base, Irish Fighter mentioned that he can’t help but feeling that he’s being tricked to them.  He’d been told by powerful heroic mages that there was ‘no way’ any dimensional portals would ever be popping up on Earth or for that matter, in the last two thousand years.  Again, Lady Eriu and the Elvenknight held true to their story, but even they were beginning to see the inevitable folly of their story. Still, Lady Eriu demanded to be part of the teams ‘adventures’ and ‘heroics’.  Irish Fighter reluctantly agreed and swore that if they turned on him, his team or his trainees, he’d ‘find yuir dimensional portal and cram ye right back through it…no matter the size ‘o the hole”.

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For the next few months, Lady Eriu and the Elvenknight fought bravely and heroically, with both even getting cut up and hurt in one particular super-villain battle.  Not long after that battle, Irish Fighter pulled the couple aside and apologized.  He said he’d collected blood samples from each during the last super-villain battle and had their DNA tested to ensure they weren’t who they claimed to be. The results of the DNA test proved, as far as Irish Fighter was concerned, that Lady Eriu and the Elvenknight were who they claimed to be.

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To this day, the couple has yet to tell anyone else who they secretly are.

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On an added note, Mr. St.Lawrence is alive and well and is obsessed with finding Mary and Aidan.  He is so obsessed, he’s placed mercenary ‘marks’ on Mary and Aidan, as well as hired super-powered trackers and expensive troubleshooting agencies such as Legacy Corps to ‘track down’ and eventually ‘eliminate’ the couple.  With the couple’s last accidental sighting at the Port Authority, Mr. St.Lawrence has moved to a penthouse in Boston so as to oversee his paranoid and obsessive need to lead the efforts in finding and killing them.

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As for Mary and Aidan, they are finding it more difficult each month to continue their role-playing ruse and not be romantically involved with each other.  They fear that if they ‘break character’, they’ll be found out who they really are.  This is putting a HUGE dent in their romantic relationship and is providing nothing but lonely nights and even lonelier tears for each of them.