-POV is from Boone Maddox, the Gravel Saints motorcycle club leader-

“Good people of Sturgis, I’ve come here to die.”

Dafuq? The woman’s voice carried so loud it drowned the intermittent revvings at the Sturgis rally. I’d just come from the bikini jousting competition I entered with my old lady, so imagine my surprise when we followed the voice and saw a woman weirdly dressed in Victorian Era garb. I joined the other curious folks surrounding the chick.

“I’m Celestine Gale, and I beseech you all to mind your ears to me. Verily, I’m undone! I’ve been loosed from my prison in paint, yet my liberators under the Black Rainbow have taken leave of me and have bidden me to a test against the Inquisition. They’ve declared I must fight without their aid to prove my worth. They’ve commanded that I must be resourceful or risk returning to imprisonment. Thus, I yield myself to you all and implore your hearts to be tender to my words.”

“What’s she babbling about, Booney-bear?” My old lady asked. “Fuck if I know, Marthy,” I replied. Pushing my shades onto my big bald head, I took in a greater sight of Celestine. She had captivating eyes. Not the sexy kind, those belong to my wife, but hers caught me. She stood in front of a wall she’d been painting on, and part of it had information about an Anarchy wrestling show on August 7th. She spoke so strangely, though - a posh British accent but with odd word selection.

“Lord Jimmy of House Stars has departed his senses. He’s entreated me to battle the Inquisition upon a graveyard of discarded metals from your strange steel horses. He’s ordered a melee whereupon one must quell the other’s will to stand before a stanza of ten. What cruelty has besotted his lordship? Why must a man decree such bedlam? It’s madness, people of Sturgis! Madness, I tell you!”

My wife squeezed my bear paw of a hand. “Oh, honey, this poor girl. What drugs is she on?” I shook my head in disagreement. “Naw, babe, I think she’s scared. She’s a wrestler-artist, it seems.” I showed Marthy the Anarchy information Celestine had painted on the wall. “Looks like this Jimmy feller’s a dick and is making her fight in some crazy shit, and her crew or whatever is giving her a fucked up shit-test.”

I’d been coming to Sturgis from Alabama for years. Every rally has wrestling and MMA shows. I’ve caught a few in the past, but couldn’t tell you who’s who, because I’m not much of a fan and I’m usually too busy leading the Gravel Saints to make time for show watching. This was different, though. I was invested in this Anarchy thing and Celestine.

“Behold the Inquisition that comes to take a spoil, to raze my will to the ground. Take measure of he who rises from the Sanctuary beneath the earth you tread, of whose hand strikes from the Echelon’s Shadow! “

My eyes stretched when she turned away and speed-painted all over the wall. What in the actual fuck was I seeing? It wasn’t fuckin’ natural. Nobody can move and paint that fast, I don’t give a fuck how talented an artist they are. I heard murmurs and gasps from others who’d been watching. They were in the same boat as me and my old lady.

Marthy squeezed my hand again. “Booney, what the hell kinda rainbow is that?” I followed her gaze skyward and saw the black rainbow that had appeared despite it being a clear day. “Uh..” That was all I could slip out while shaking my head cluelessly.

“Cast your eyes upon the Inquisition!” Celestine bellowed. I did. The painting was a dude with a fucked up face, mouth split, scarred and gnarly as fuck. His eyes were sunken into his gigantic head. I’m a big fella. Not much scares me. But I could see why she’d be worried.

“He butchered two foes at once several fortnights ago. A man named Oz twice felled him; true, but only through good breeding stock. Had the Inquisiton been of better seed and not lacking muscle, he would’ve triumphed. He comes to XWF to weed out rot, and those who freed me from my oubliette of canvas have been cast in this role. He will not hear my case, dear friends. Inquisitors do not heed reason. They have a role and this man does his better than all. His ears will be deaf, mind fortified against logic. He will not understand my plight, how I had to reciprocate the Black Rainbow for my liberation in an accord that binds me to them. Verily, I’m grateful to them, though my soul is troubled through their means, I dare not lie.”

She paused a beat and made weird hand motions at her artwork, then spun toward us. “I’m not just a strange woman from a bygone era, I could be your wife, your daughters, your mothers. Help me triumph!”  The artwork began MOVING in the scrapyard battle scene that Celestine had painted. The Inquisition tore into Celestine, shredding her clothes, flesh, and muscles to ribbons. I somehow couldn’t turn my eyes away.

As the Inquisition continued mauling the depicted Celestine, the painted version of her face morphed into my precious Marthy’s. Heat shot through my body. What the hell was I witnessing? I watched helplessly as the Inquisition brutalized my wife in ways that’d make Satan green with envy. That Inquisitor bastard was gonna kill my wife! I didn’t know why, but I knew because the pleading blue pools in Celestine’s eyes told me.

Her point was true, too. This Celestine was someone’s daughter, could’ve been my own under other circumstances, and there was a good chance she was someone’s sister.

I’d be at the scrapyard with my gang on August 7th. We’d help her bury that Inquisition fucker, this Jimmy fella and Black Rainbow be damned.