The characters travel to Marion, Ohio where they find the portal into which Maggie disappeared. With nothing to lose, Trent leaps into the unknown, followed – despite their severe misgivings – by the others. They find themselves in a stone tunnel, beautifully and intricately carved. The very rock around them gives off heat and the air is dry. As they walk down the tunnel, they investigate noises behind a heavy wood door and find bipedal birds with pike weapons on the other side! They manage to start a needless fight, and defeat them, when more birds appear down the hall, with human priests who seem able to summon fire from the very air. However, diplomacy wins out this time, and despite the lack of common language they proceed past. They come to a door that leads into the bottom of a canyon. On the far wall of the canyon is a four story tall stone door, with chanting emanating from the other side. They shove the door open.
Inside, Maggie is held suspended in air by an energy field above a dais. A number of priests are chanting around her, and most amazing of all a massive dragon sits atop a pile of gold behind all this. They spring into action, but the dragon gouts fire, killing all the priests, and singeing everyone badly. Trent grabs the dragon and pins it with his branch arms, while Finley pulls Maggie down from on high. Rain sprays bullets at the dragon, and Leon finishes it off with a sky dive spear attack to its head. When Maggie is released she insists they visit her old village to see if everyone is ok. She tells them this is her real world, just as she has always claimed. However, when they go to the village, it is destroyed – the dragon who kidnapped her left nothing behind. However, the alien creature that had been hunting Maggie is only a head on a pike in the dragon’s lair. With Maggie’s increased power from the ritual that had been occurring, she takes them all back to Reality One.
Back home the reinforced team joins back up with Jin and heads to Chicago. As they are approaching to look for Adam, they find a military cordon stopping them as the city is in lockdown with the Sirens controlling everything! As they debate with the army officers, something falls from space and crashes into downtown Chicago! They use the confusion to slam on the gas and head towards the disturbance. They find a strange escape pod and out of it comes a bipedal lizard with a huge sword. What’s worse, the Chicago Sirens have shown up as well. A three way brawl ensues, and a fourth force is thrown into the mix as the Suji-built military robots are deployed, then hacked by Null. The heroes manage to defeat everyone, and when Elaine Shulte is defeated, Adam pops out of her interdimensional space. Even more bizarre, the space lizard – Stardragon – splits into 5 intelligent Popple-like creatures that explain they are from the Concordat and here to look for Anubis. It seems that the Xanti Imperium is attacking the Concordat, and has its sights set on Earth! And finally, Null transmits himself to San Francisco, likely to take over the Applied Robotics fabrication facility there.
The players use the smart-ass Class 2 artificial intelligence, Calamity Toggle, in Star Dragon’s escape pod to locate Anubis and smash into his location in Orlando. It seems Silkana has trapped him in a sort of “luxury resort” that is lethal to most non-Xanti. It is an ironic form of torture they reserve for their enemies. However, someone had hacked her computers and turned the heat even higher than normal! They arrive just in time and bring Anubis/Cazimir down from his chained prison over the heating elements, and find his equipment. Cazimir tries to discuss calling the Concordat with Calamity Toggle, but the AI says they will be unlikely to listen to a dispatch from a lowly police officer when they are busy fighting on multiple fronts. They track Norman’s location in Alaska, make one last sub-orbital hop, and find him freezing to death in an old boom-town jail. With the whole team back together they take another jump to San Francisco to seek Null.
By the time they arrive things have already gone to hell. The military is getting punked by newly fabricated, high tech robots controlled by Null. They make their way into the center of the city with the help of some convenient valley-girls, and find a nightmare. The factory is enclosed by small constructor bots that create forcefields that repel any normal weapons. In addition, artillery robots are using magnetic cannons to blast away any military response. However, Trent, Adam, and Leon are having none of it. Trent uses himself as a slingshot and throws Adam and Leon right through the wall and into the inner factory, with the help of Leon’s magic spear! Meanwhile, Rain takes out a heavy bot with the help of Anubis, and Maggie uses her teleportation to get the enemy firing at itself. Norman speeds all over the city checking on civilians and discovers tiny spider robots, the size of a dime spreading out on the wind killing people and absorbing matter! He tries to kill as many as he can, then returns to the party to warn them of this development.
The fight continues, and inside the force shield Leon and Adam find a Xanti hunter-seeker facsimile that Null has created. It vaporizes the cover they hide behind and hammers them with heavy lasers, but they finally get the drop and Adam smashes it open! When he does, all the other robots fall to the ground disabled. Maggie teleports to Trump’s “talent jail” and gets Suji to consult with her, while the others begin cleanup.
When Suji arrives, she and Anubis using his suit realize the robots are still active! The orb pops out of the dumpster, smaller but more perfect in its design, and the constructor bots begin to whirl around it like massive tentacles born on a wind of magnetism. They begin to absorb matter and Null explains to the heroes that humanity has abdicated its responsibility as agents and arbiters of their own future. Why else create machines to do their thinking and work? It will keep humanity alive, but usher them into a new era where it is supreme!
The heroes try to think of a solution, but Null grows weary and sends a disintigrating wave of robots into them. Trent steps forward and absorbs the blast, but he is annihilated! Thinking fast, they contact the unknown AI on Finley’s phone and ask it to draw Null’s attention into a fixed location. The AI agrees but needs help. Maggie teleports and gets the Concordat AI, and Anubis links with his ship AI as well. Null is temporarily stunned. Working together, they use Norman’s powers to focus Jin’s, Anubis’, Finley’s, and Rain’s powers at Null. Maggie drags the whole burst through the negative dimension to give it further power, and Adam will smash it all at the same time, like a plutonium collapse. However, Suji warns this might be dangerous and could create a SUN on the surface of the earth! Worse, Adam fumbles his smash, and the shot goes awry, but Norman spots the error. Acting faster than he ever has, he redirects the blast by creating a vacuum around Null. It pulls all the energy into him as well, and while a huge blast of energy begins to form, he pulls it ever closer until he and Null are just a point of infinite light and energy that vanishes in a puff. He is gone, and the Concordat AI is in shambles. Everyone is sick with mild radiation poisoning from Jin’s powers. The day is won, but at what cost?
However, just then there is a shimmering, and Norman in a white uniform phases into being like a ghost. This Norman is odd, with a cross-shaped scar on his cheek. Has he changed somehow? There is no time to be anything but overjoyed as the military takes them to a decontamination site and they pass out from the rads.
At the decon site, they are visited by Damien and Alicia. He checks up on them, tries to get them to join his “team” again, but mostly says thank you. Then he invites them to karaoke later, when they feel up to it. They take him up on the offer and he leads off the night with a rendition of “Worlds Apart” by Journey…the same song Silkana played in the alternate future.
But all is not well as Anubis sees the news outside the singing room. Bai has been shot and killed by an assailant during her United States tour. Unthinkable tragedy seems to follow them no matter where they go, and so the episode ends.