Author's Note

“Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.”
― Gary D. Schmidt

Destiny

The noise of the bolts breaking made Rarity and the King stop to watch. At this point they had become lost in their own ecstasy, so it was like they had been reminded Spike was there. They both turned, pausing in mid motion, with the King’s hard member between her huge tits, and Rarity squeezing them together to smother his cock lovingly. Although they paused, Rarity didn’t look worried, she merely had a curious expression on her face.

The King on the other hand, perhaps felt something dangerous from Spike intent, because he completely ceased his actions and stood up. He told to a whinning Rarity “Dear Queen, I want you to leave this place. Take the limousine outside and tell the chauffeur to come back in 30 minutes. I need to talk with this interesting creature”

Rarity face was one of surprise and exasperation “Come on, he can’t do anything. He loves me, he would never hurt me. Don’t worry and let’s keep going, there is still a couple of positions I want to show to him” she winked naughtily at both men.

“Even though, a corralled snake can be dangerous, and worse, unpredictable, leave Rarity. Remember that you are carrying our child in your womb” the couple snuggled, and Rarity must have noticed something in the voice of her lover because she started to dress.

The knowledge that his wife was pregnant; carrying in her body the child of another man was the last straw for Spike. With a loud pop that sounded almost like a gun shot, a bolt holding a back leg of the chair came out of the floor board, and the chair lurched forward. The second brace on the other back leg broke immediately afterward. Spike hoped that once the chair was free of the floor he could break the chair apart. He twisted and grunted with another effort, taxing his strength, and with that, one of the front leg braces twisted free.

By that moment Rarity had left the place already. Spike couldn’t care less, he could deal with her later, but for now all his attention was on the other man in the room. The King had already dressed himself to a bare minimum and was looking directly at him.

Then for some reason the man started a very slow clap “Most impressive Spike. Nothing short of I would expect after hearing your…previous exploits. To see that you are still fighting with all your might and strength, even in the face of your greatest fear, it is remarkably admirable.” his tone was serious, but the mockery in his voice was evident.

“Unfortunately, your effort is completely useless.” he chuckled.

No sooner had the King said those words, Spike fell forward, his face smacking into the ground. His nose began to bleed, and he let out a howl of pain, and anger at his efforts not being enough. He tried to shift and push with his whole body so that he could wrench free from the last brace that held the last chair leg against the ground. However, even though the metal brace was twisted and folded, it held firm. Also, now that he was on the ground, he lost all leverage against it, and so all his effort amounted to nothing more than squirming. The most he could do was turn his head to the side so that he wasn’t lying face down.

The King just looked at Spike, a smug confident grin plastered on is face. After what was an agonizingly humiliating long time, he stepped over to Spike. With a single kick he raised Spike from the floor and left him in the starting position, the bented metallic chair barely holding his weight. Spike ceased to struggle, he couldn’t explain why, but it was as if all his strength had abandoned him for some reason.

Taking a knife from his pocket, the King quickly undid the single strap that maintained the gag over Spike mouth. Spike was relieved when he finally was ablemove his lips with freedom after what seemed to him like an eternity. Not forgetting for a single second his situation though, he tried to spit on the King’s face, yet he was unable to gather enough strength or fluids to do so.

The King took a few steps back, clearly amused by the attempts of the captive man “How uncouth of you Spike, Rarity would be ashamed of your manners. Here I am, wishing to have a nice conversation between gentlemen, and you don’t seem interested in a civilized discussion. Perhaps you would prefer to have the gag back on.”

“WHO ARE YOU BASTARD!? WAT YOU DID TO RARITY!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS YOU FUCKING MANIAC!? WHY ME!? WHY US!?” The questions spluttered from Spike mouth, in a desperate shout. He was tired, his mouth was dry and he barely could gather enough air to speak. Sitting where he was in such an uncomfortable position, he tried to breath as much as he could, in order to gather enough strength to continue shouting at the man in front of him.

“Yes, I would suppose you would want to know that. I can’t tell you everything of course; you would never be able to comprehend. But it can be entertaining to see you try. First of all, allow me the introduce myself, my name is Sombra.”

With a prideful emotion in his snarling voice, the man continued “I started using the title of King not too long ago. Three years ago I met a very special individual, an individual that made me realize my destiny, and my calling. I learned that destruction was my talent, and darkness was my…mark. It is because of him that I am the man you see right now in front of you, and because of him that you are here in this room hearing this.”

Spike was confused. He had no idea what this man was talking about. He decided to wait to hear where his point was leading, accumulating his strength. His past attempt with the chair had not been completely in vain, he could sense that the strong movement had reduced the tension in most of his binds. Sombra still had the pocket knife on his hand, if Spike could surprise him and tackle him, perhaps he would had a chance. He just needed some time.

King Sombra interrupted the storm of ideas Spike had in his head “Now Spike, tell me, why do you love Rarity?”

The question was so weird, so unexpected, that for a fraction of second Spike forgot that he was sitting naked in a metal chair in front of a man who had just fucked his wife repeatedly in front of him.

“WHAT!?” Spike answered, almost by instinct.

“Is it is because she is gorgeous? Is it because she is intelligent? Is it because the two of you share the same interests?” Sombra seemed genuinely interested on the topic. “Or perhaps, there is some other reason?”

Hating himself for indulging his captor curiosity, but conscious that he needed to gain time right now, Spike answered “She is the love of my life. What other reason do I need, you fucking bastard!” insulting him was one single thing he could do right now to unleash some of his rage.

“The love of your life.” Sombra repeated “And who decided that, exactly? Did that decision really came from within you, considering all of Rarity virtues and vices? Or perhaps you were forced to love her, perhaps you are forced to love even now after she betrayed you and pulverized your heart?”

“What are you talking about?” for the second time, Spike found himself unconsciously forgetting about his surroundings. “Forced by who?”

“By who? Yes, that is exactly the question that you should ask yourself. What if I told you, that you were branded with an invisible mark, a mark that is forcing you to take all the decisions in your life. Perhaps your destiny enjoys mocking you and sets you in this silly infatuation with a female completely outside your level. Perhaps fate, cruel and mischievous as it is, decided that your whole role in life should be to love this specific individual, not just in this lifetime, but also in all your past and future lives. Always forced to love the same person, most of the time without any chance of winning her genuine affection.” There was something wicked in the way Sombra was talking about the subject, as if he was enjoying a joke only he was aware of.

“Don’t you think that’s cruel? For destiny to force you to repeat the same story a thousand of times, to force you to love the same woman, always cursed to see her running to other men’s arms?” Spike thought there was some sympathy on the voice of his captor, but quickly brushed the notion as his mere imagination.

“Rarity loves me. You must have drugged her, or hypnotized her, or are blackmailing her, I don’t know! But I’m sure she loves me.” Spike voice was weak because of his condition, but he was speaking with the heart.

“That’s cute.” The King smiled towards him, but made no attempt to refute his words. “Now tell me Spike, do you know anything about termites?”

Even if Spike knew anything about those insects, he most likely would had the same reaction of astonishment. What termites had to do with anything? Was this whole nonsensical dialogue some kind of twisted torture that King Sombra was trying to set upon him?

Sombra chuckled “I imagine your thoughts are rather bewildered right now. Perfectly understandable. After all, the person who stole you wife, and has you at his mercy is lecturing you about something that you couldn’t care less about. I suspect it hardly seems fair.”

Spike was too confused and too tired to answer back. He snapped out of his momentary surprise and decided to concentrate in his plans to escape, allowing Sombra to speak without interruptions.

“Have you ever seen a termite mound? They are splendid structures. Some might even call them works of art. Termites are natural architects, and their mounds are both structurally sound and make excellent use of space.”

“So, are they following some sort of plan as they build? Are there termite blueprints, detailing which room goes where?”

King Sombra didn't wait to receive an answer to that question, and he would not receive any, since Spike was barely paying attention to his words.

Sombra answered his question himself. “No. Of course not.”

“Each termite is simply an oblivious cog in a tremendous machine, programmed by millions of years of evolution. The individual termite just repeats the same actions day after day, the same motions millions of equally oblivious termites will do before, after and in parallel to it. It is doubtful an individual termite has any idea what its contributions meant in the overall picture.”

“But a human does.”

“We can appreciate the elegant forms of their alien cathedrals. We can see the simple beauty of their perfect functionality. We can understand the perfect planning of their structure.”

“In other words, only by being in a higher plane of existence and seeing the entire creation as a whole, we can understand the beauty of what an individual termite builds, and the connections it has with everything around it.”

“Now consider ourselves. Why are we alive? Why do we hate and why do we love? Why do we create?”

Again, Sombra didn’t seemed intent on receiving an answer from Spike to the rethoric questions, even though much to his confusion, the restrained man was somewhat paying attention to his words by now.

King Sombra continued his monologue. “We are oblivious cogs in a tremendous machine programmed by destiny. Humans trudge through their lives with no greater understanding of their ultimate goal. We may be playing in the hands of some force so outside of our sphere of comprehension, that we can’t even perceive it.”

“And yet, if somehow, we could be able to see the whole picture, if we could became aware of everything and all, the vastness of that knowledge would be enough to give us power far beyond our peers” Sombra concluded, with a spark of life in his eyes.

Spike was now seriously wondering about the sanity of this man. All what he had said sounded as nothing more than the incoherent words of someone out of touch with reality. And yet Spike was in no hurry to say anything. During Sombra's whole monologue he had been working on softening the hold of his ties, by now his right hand was virtually free. And by his calculations he was just a couple of minutes far from being able to jump from the chair and attack him.

“Oh, but hear me, here rambling about termites. You’ll have to excuse me. Now, let’s talk about a topic that I am sure you will appreciate far more: dragons, the king of monsters” Sombra who during the whole lecture about termites had barely paid attention to Spike, looked up to his eyes when he said “What do you know about dragons, Spike?”

It was not rhetoric, and Sombra was looking directly to him. Decided to play along, he went with it “They are big, strong, they breath fire and hoard treasures. Who cares about this shit, they are not real!”

Sombra smiled, seemingly pleased with the answer “They are not real you say? How can you be so sure. You just described elements of their appearance, their abilities and their activities. Most likely you have seen a drawing of a dragon at least once, or read about them”

Spike was really losing his patience with this man, he was clearly crazy, “ARE YOU MAD!? Dragons are not real, they are just myth, folklore...”

Sombra turned his back toward him “And what is it real? What you imagine, what you dream, what you think, is it less real than what I imagine, what I dream and what I think? You know far more about your thoughts than you know about me, perhaps your imagination is real and I’m not. Perhaps dragons are real and we…”

What they were Spike wouldn’t hear, because in that moment he had jumped from the weak metal chair, and charged against Sombra in a frenetic movement. With the so called King pined to the floor, Spike could use his now free hand to snatch the pocket knife. Finally, the bastard was at his mercy.

But for some reason, Sombra seemed calm, almost bored by Spike attempt. “As expected from the legendary Spike. Please, by all means, strike me at the heart; I know you want to kill me. After all, I stole your wife, I fucked her repeatedly and right now she is carrying my spawn in her womb. Every man in your situation would kill me without a second thought.”

“That’s right, you fucking son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you! Any last words?” Spike could almost smile, the fucking bastard was just about to die.

“Mhh…not quite. I have a question for you tough. What are you waiting for?”

“WHAT!?” Spike couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. Sombra was completely at his mercy, and still seemed intent on mocking him.

Sombra smile was smug and condescending “Let me help you with that. You can’t. You want to kill me, you want to destroy me, and believe me, and in normal circumstances you would be more than able. But alas, currently you cannot.”

Spike was not hearing. Right now all his thoughts were on the knife on his hand, and wondering why he couldn’t use to end the life of the perverse man below him. His hand refused to obey his commands, instead, it started to lose strength steadily, until he was not even able to hold the weapon between his fingers.

King Sombra seemingly had enough of the whole charade. In a single move he removed a very weak Spike from him and stood up. Clearing his clothes from dust, he looked down at the fallen man. “You see? It is impossible.”

Seeing how his opportunity escaped from his grasp and how he was unable to explain why it happened, it was too much for Spike. He started to cry again, facing down, one of his fists punching the floor in raging impotency.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU!?” Over his sobbing, Spike was able to raise his head and look directly at the eyes of his captor.

"Why you? Yes, that is a good question. This universe is a yawning chasm, filled with emptiness and the puerile meanderings of sentience. After all, why should you deserve special consideration within it, Spike?" he let out a confident snarl while keeping the eye contact. “As for what I am, you can say I’m a man, with knowledge so vast, that puts me in a higher plane of existence than any other miserable life form in this world.”

"Your wife is a gorgeous woman, that by itself would be reason enough for me to made her my Queen" Sombra licked his lips in a menacing way “But that was not the only reason I went for her. You see, I had to go for her. She and I, you and I…we are connected by the invisibles strings of fate."

Spike red crying eyes widened at that. He had no idea what this man was talking about.

“My power, my knowledge, it was invested to me by a very special somepony. It was because of him that I acquired my mission, a mission that involved vengeance against you.” Sombra let out a cruel, evil laugh “You got yourself a very dangerous and vengeful enemy back in another one of your lives, Spike!”

Spike couldn’t believe his ears, it seemed all too surreal “You are telling me you are just following orders!? Who is it, who can hold such a grudge against me!?”

“For you to understand why I went for you and your wife Spike, you will need to hear a story. Perhaps then you will catch a glimpse of the whole termite mound you and your previous, future and parallel existences are fated to mindlessly create. Perhaps then you will start to realize what is real, and what is not. Perhaps then you will believe that you are nothing but a puppet of destiny.”

“You need to hear the story of King Sombra. The glorious unicorn tyrant of the Crystal Empire. Only then you will understand why are you here right now…you stupid Dragon.”