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"To hell with this! I'm not playing your fucking game!"
The robot's arm folded back towards itself, its spear-like end pointed directly at the cockpit. The others surrounded the pilot, shouting for her to stop.
She didn't.
Koyemshi whisked himself and Yoko away. They appeared a few blocks over, just in time to see the arm smash through the cockpit. The robot slumped over, lifeless.
"Ha!" Koyemshi laughed. "Humans are full of surprises, huh? I was looking forward to seeing her fight!"
Yoko's gaze dropped. "How can you say something like that?"
Koyemshi floated over to face her. "What, did you like this bunch? You knew they were all gonna die soon either way."
"Soon, but..." Yoko sighed. "Not this soon."
Their surroundings began to fade. Buildings, the horizon, even the stars in the sky.
A sight they both knew well. The end of a world - and another time their team had failed.
"You know the odds of winning fifteen matches in a row?" Koyemshi asked. "It's one in thirty-two thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight. I'd say we're doing pretty damn well, huh?"
"That wasn't much of a match..." Yoko replied.
Koyemshi would have shrugged if he still had shoulders. "So what? It's all the same in the end. There's always a winner and a loser, whatever decides it. Unless they somehow fucked up enough to cause a draw."
"So for every universe we save, over thirty-two thousand disappear."
Yoko wasn't trying to look anywhere else anymore. There wasn't anything else left to look at.
"Now you get it," Koyemshi agreed. "And new ones pop up all the time. But they won't last unless they have people who can take the heat. The more stone-cold killers they churn out, the better the chance that they'll survive and reproduce. Natural selection in action."
Yoko's eyes narrowed. "So reality evolves to have more people like you?"
"A world full of Shiros, huh?" Koyemshi laughed. "Sounds like a hell of a place."
Of course, he'd never actually fought. He'd even been pretty scared of the prospect, as a human - as Shiro. But whatever their resemblance to him, the people who took best to the challenge were so much fun.
And the people who took worst to it were hilarious. He'd miss bullying them, if they disappeared.
Stars returned to their surroundings. A new Earth appeared, looming larger and larger before them.
"Our new home," Koyemshi observed. "And somewhere it's got our new set of friends. How many do you think I can reduce to tears?"
Yoko sighed. "You're the worst."
Koyemshi's mouth stretched wide in a grin. "Damn right I am."
The new world settled into place beneath them, and their next mission began.