(LIMITLESS) CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: NIGHT AND FOG

The woman was fast. Too fast for a civilian, fast enough to give most Wards a bad day. She moved with a finesse usually only seen in movies.

The woman was fast. Too fast for a civilian, fast enough to give most Wards a bad day. She moved with a finesse usually only seen in movies. A deft flick of her wrist sent a flashbang clattering across the boardwalk, followed immediately by a pellet. At the same time, she flung her black cloak toward Taylor like a weighted net, aiming to disorient, blind, and bind in one smooth motion.

But Taylor wasn't worried. 

The flash went off, whitening and close. Smoke billowed. The cloak snapped through the air.

And none of it mattered.

Her eyes automatically cut through the smoke and the burst of light like it wasn’t even there. The space around her shimmered as the cloak stalled mid-air, caught inches from her face by the invisible gulf between her and the rest of the world. It was a clever thing, the cloak, weighted and embedded with micro-hooks designed to entangle. It could’ve been dangerous against anyone other than her.

She pushed it to the ground, just as the woman darted forward, clearly expecting the momentary distraction to give her an opening.

Taylor met her with a brutal front kick.

Not even full force, just enough to crack ribs and send her flying back through the air, arms flailing. She struck the stone wall of the nearby stall with a thud, crumpled, and slid to the ground with a wheeze of air leaving her lungs.

Taylor sighed derisively as she walked toward the downed woman, her stride confident. Her expression barely changed as she crouched and inspected more of her would-be attacker. Smoke pellets and flashbangs stored in easy-access compartments along a belt, and a mask with glare-dampening lenses.

No powers. Not even tinkertech. Just tricks and mundane equipment.

“Not a cape,” she muttered aloud, more to herself than anyone else.

That’s when the fog surged, and a man’s scream resounded, raw and distorted with rage.

“No!”

Taylor’s head snapped up. It moved unnaturally but coordinated, snaking low across the ground and winding around benches and streetlights. 

Her eyes flared, not visually, but in the subtle way she saw the world around her, parsing layers of the impossible. The fog wasn’t an actual fog, but the breaker-state of a cape, she realized, seeing the parasite superimposed over its entirety.

Her partner, maybe. 

Taylor didn’t panic. Instead, she expanded her forcefield in an instant, space folding outward into a smooth sphere that enclosed the fog. 

The fog’s movements slowed. 

She was aware of every pathetic attempt at escape made as the fog, still screaming, tried to force itself free again and again.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She was bored of the futility, so she compressed the field. 

Not quickly. It had to be gradual enough to avoid somehow killing the man, even if he was basically gas. A gentle, inexorable pressure.

The fog formed the vague outline of a man—tall, broad-shouldered, blurry around the edges—and with a snarl and renewed vigor, he tried to stop the space from shrinking further. But it was to no avail, and he immediately collapsed back into vapor.

Then he screamed again. No longer furious or defiant. He had become panicked and desperate.

A second later, with a convulsive gasp, the fog collapsed entirely. A body dropped to the boardwalk with a thud. A man in a gray, masculine counterpart to the earlier woman’s outfit, hooded and masked, though his mask was cracked now from the impact, and he was without her equipment. 

He groaned, rolling weakly onto his side, limbs sluggish like they weren’t entirely his.

She stepped over him, glancing once at the woman nursing her injuries.

That was that.

Two unknown hostiles subdued with little fanfare.

She tapped her comm.

“Hebert to Console,” she said calmly. “Two suspects down. One confirmed parahuman, Breaker classification. Fog-state projection. Second is non-powered with tactical equipment. Both contained. Requesting extraction team.”

There was a pause, then: “Copy that, Hebert. Extraction inbound. ETA one minute. Good work.”

She looked down at them: the woman squirming, furious but helpless under her gaze; the man still groaning, eyes glazed from whatever strain that fog-state and her actions had cost him.

They weren’t nobodies. Not with their costume and equipment. Not with the confidence to attack so brazenly in public. She wasn’t the kind of Ward you sent rookies after, so this wasn’t a random strike or an opportune attack. This had been coordinated and planned.

And it was clear she’d been the target. 

Someone had trained them. Equipped them. Given them just enough intel to recognize her on sight. Their timing, the tactics, the gear—it all pointed to professional preparation. But they hadn’t come to kill her. If that had been the goal, they would’ve brought more than one low-tier cape. No, this was something else.

A test, maybe. Or a probe for weakness. 

It might have just been a word she heard, but the man’s accent was distinctively German, and the lack of any known gang insignia proved that they were foreign, or at least not local. Which meant this wasn’t just another territory dispute, especially since Lung was gone and the E88 had lost a heavy hitter. It could have been revenge for the latter, but it was more likely that someone, somewhere, had wanted to see what she could do. To confirm what the PRT was saying behind closed doors. That the girl with the blindfold and the forcefield was very dangerous.

Fortunately, whatever their intention, they had failed. She had taken them down in a matter of minutes. 

But for the first time in her short but intense career as a cape, Taylor felt something new:

Not anger. Not fear.

Excitement.

Challenge.

A thrill that ran cold and electric down her spine.

She smiled faintly.

Because now she had questions. And whoever was behind this? They’d just made a mistake. And now, they were about to learn what happened when you poked something stronger than you understood.

Let them come.

Let them send more. 

They would meet what Stormtiger had felt, what Lung had faced, what Hookwolf had barely survived. 

She was no longer the scared girl who hid from her bullies.