Lathe

by Penelope Orion

What happens when you combine a trigger event, a pair of commanders, and an experimental void rift engine?

Taylor Hebert was having a rather bad day. In fact, this day was somehow even worse than usual.

Aside from the normal bullying, courtesy of her once-upon-a-time friend, our hero, Taylor was being shoved into her biohazardous locker.

Just as an ARM COMMANDER was being whittled down by countless bombers.

Now, were this story following the default timeline, Taylor would be granted bug-control, and go do her thing as Skitter.

Instead, the ARM COMMANDER, taking a potshot, somehow managed to hit the CORE COMMANDER.

It also somehow happened that the CORE COMMANDER was guarding an experimental VOID RIFT ENGINE.

An unstable, easily-damaged VOID RIFT ENGINE.

Placed next to an exploding commander.

And thus, reality became a pretzel.