Fanfic / Built Different (Signless Acolyte)

Everything went to hell. That was Night City for you.
But through the biggest stroke of luck in David's life, he wakes up the day of his Sandevistan implant, and decides...
Not again. He'd fix things.
He wouldn't break his promises again.

—Summary text

Built Different is a Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Peggy Sue fic by Signless Acolyte on Archive of Our Own.

The story follows David Martinez returning from his death by the hands of Adam Smasher, to in the middle of his Sandevistan implant surgery months ago. Still grasping his new situation, David decides to take this chance to right his regrets from his first go-around, such as saving his crew from their deaths. Partway through, David gains an unexpected ally in the form of his experimental Sandevistan's AI.

Due to the nature of the story, all spoilers for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will be unmarked.

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The story features examples of the following tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: David might be upset and angry with Kiwi over her betrayal in Edgerunners, but he can't help but almost laugh when Sandy suddenly refers to her as "Traitorous Bird". Apparently, he'd forgotten that "kiwi" refers to both a bird and a fruit.
• Adaptational Badass: David gets quite a bit of this. Not only does he have all his Edgerunning experience from his last go-around, but getting his Sandevistan properly installed allows it to begin to merge with his body and grow more powerful, to the point where he can keep it active for minutes at a time and steal a data shard across a building with no-one the wiser to him even moving. Sure, he doesn't have any other pieces of chrome—Viktor specifically tells David to not implant anything for at least two months—but at this point he doesn't need them. Plus, he's been building up his flesh-and-blood body with exercise and boxing lessons from Viktor to supplement his new style. To put it in perspective, he can now beat the shit out of Katsuo Tanaka without relying on the Sandy and just using his boxing training.
• Adaptation Expansion: A good amount of the characters in the crew have significantly expanded pasts compared to canon:
  • Pilar used to be a member of Maelstrom before he realized that he left his little sister Rebecca behind, leaving the gang soon after.
  • Kiwi used to be a nomad until her clan sold her out to Scavengers for daring to question the path they were taking.
  • Maine's chrome addiction and burgeoning Cyberpsychosis is due to both a mix of trauma from his earlier time as a soldier and as a result of not wanting to lose any more crew members like Sasha.
  • Dorio used to be a member of the Animals before a bad batch of their homebrew steroids caused her limbs to start necrotizing, forcing her to get them amputated and replaced with cybernetics.
  • Principal Maliwan of Arasaka Academy, a minor character from Edgerunners, was actually from Santo Domingo, just like David. He also proves to be a Reasonable Authority Figure, explaining to David that some Arasaka executives above him want the young Martinez killed (and using corpo-speak to get that info around the call being monitored), and has David's school fees waived and his grades sent over once the latter makes clear his intent to leave the Academy.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In Cyberpunk 2077, a female V and Jackie are Platonic Life-Partners while Jackie and Misty are together, and female V and Misty are at most just close friends. Here, female V, Jackie, and Misty are all in a three-way mutual loving relationship, albeit one kept secret due to V's Arasaka ties.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted with the Sandy AI, who wishes only to support its host David. Unfortunately, Sandy exists in the world of Cyberpunk, where most AI programs are rogue and hostile toward humans. David and Sandy also have to worry about how they're going to break this information to Lucy, who has more reason to fear AIs than anyone else on the crew.
  • Lucy carries a deep-seated fear of AIs from her time in Arasaka's Old Net recovery project. When she learns that her boyfriend has an AI in his Sandevistan, Lucy's first reaction is to run away, devastated by the thought that David was being used in some "horrible game". After confiding in Rebecca, Lucy resolves to herself that if "Sandy" is genuine in its desire to help David and the crew, she'll tolerate it; but if not, she will destroy it to protect David. Further discussion between herself, Sandy, David and Rebecca spurs Lucy and Sandy to at least establish a bond of trust that both want to protect David.
• All Just a Dream: Before going under to have the Sandevistan properly reinstalled, David is very afraid that this trope is in effect but (wisely) doesn't say it out loud. Once he goes under, the perspective temporarily switches from David's to Lucy's, implicitly subverting the trope; before the next chapter returns to David waking up with the Sandevistan properly installed. The fear of this is still extant, but as time goes on it seems to get smaller.
• Always Someone Better: David is revealed to be this for Maine. While Maine is a veteran soldier and Edgerunner with a slew of cyberware; David has proven to be the crew's greatest asset time and again, helping them build their rep in Night City, and all with only one implant.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Kiwi demands to know why David is dating both Lucy and Rebecca, David explains the situation, then asks her why she hasn't talked to Lucy about it first. Kiwi doesn't have a response for that.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Played for Laughs. When Pilar, Falco and David all decide to stop by Lizzie's Bar, David (who's really hungry after the gig they all just wrapped up) asks if Lizzie's has food. To his embarrassment, Pilar and Falco are very amused that David asked that question.
• Berserk Button: People who talk badly and disrespectfully of Gloria are this for David. Katsuo mocking David over it elicits a reaction that makes both Sandy and Kiwi worry, forcing the latter to intervene before David attacks the bully in a fit of rage. Later, a cage fight with a Valentino gangoon who trash-talks about "[David's] mama" causes the young Martinez to see red. Fortunately, no one is seriously injured, and the gangoon learns that David had lost his mother in a shootout and apologizes for being insensitive about it.
• Big Brother Instinct: While Rebecca and Pilar tend to argue at best, the latter is certainly protective of his little sister. Pilar takes David aside to sincerely warn him not to hurt Rebecca, saying "I think you'll hurt her no matter what". Give how badly he failed to protect Rebecca before, this is likely his way to atone for it.
  • Rebecca decides to mess with Pilar with a swollen belly after having her first time with David. What throws her and David for a loop is Pilar panicking at the sight, thinking she's pregnant, and starts asking her if she needs vitamins and a doctor, then starts to advance on an alarmed David. Rebecca immediately clears up the misunderstanding before things get hairy, but then she (in her own way) thanks Pilar for offering, and he admits that somebody had to if she needed it.
• Brain/Computer Interface: David's mental connection to his Sandevistan implant, and the Sandy AI by extension, is facilitated this way. This allows Sandy to give David nonverbal communications, such as the sensation of a friendly squeeze. However, the AI's panic and sadness can overflow to David if strong enough, such as when Viktor suggests potentially removing the Sandevistan altogether.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • David has gained a jaded view on being a Glory Seeker and the idea of "going out in a blaze of glory". He realizes that dying like that would devastate everyone he cared about (as it had in the original anime), just as Gloria's sudden death left him devastated. David has also grasped how much of a gilded trap Night City is, affirming to himself that it wouldn't take him as it had the first time.
  • Rebecca used to see Pilar as the smartest person in the world. In the present, she's angry with Pilar for abandoning her on her own after getting her away from their parents, and hasn't forgiven him for it.
  • Averted in the case of David with Maine. Despite being "stronger" than Maine, David still looks up to him like a hero. Even the NCPD item-extraction job going sideways doesn't make David angry with Maine. This contributes to Maine feeling worse about his jealousy of David.
• Call-Forward: Several references to the events of Cyberpunk 2077 are given setting up the events of the game. At Misty's Esoterica, David encounters Misty, Viktor, Jackie, and Arasaka counter-intelligence agent V. Rebecca mentions Judy when talking about XBDs with David. At the amateur cage matches near Jig-Jig Street, Katsuo is accompanied with an older woman identified in the following Interlude as Evelyn Parker. While infiltrating the NCPD to extract evidence, David, disguised as a rookie cop, encounters River Ward, who calls on "Officer Rodriguez" to join him on an incident.
• Cast from Calories: Using the experimental Sandavistan requires a lot of energy from David that he replenishes from eating large amounts of food, to the point that the narration states that David eats multiple pizzas on more than one occasion. Part of this is also revealed to be the Sandy AI needing to divert extra nutrients in order to build up David's muscle mass to better handle its abilities. There's also the fact that the majority of food in Night City is rather subpar, especially in terms of nutrients, and getting better-quality meat for it involves getting close to Pacifica (which is off the table for being too dangerous, especially with Dogtown being next door), so David has to make up for that in quantity.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Averted. Lucy tells David that she isn't the jealous type, as long as David isn't the type to abandon her. Meanwhile, Rebecca is happy to see that Lucy and David are getting together, though she's at worst disappointed at being left out of a relationship with her new best choom. Eventually, Rebecca asks Lucy if it's okay to join her in dating David, with zero competitiveness and sabotage that the Clingy Jealous Girl trope would imply.
  • Humorously Played for Laughs during the NCPD gig, where a female police officer gets flirty with David, and Kiwi has to stop Lucy from going into Violently Protective Girlfriend mode via quickhacking the offending officer, which would blow David's cover.
• Connected All Along: David is shaken by the revelation that Dorio used to be an Animal, the same gang that got his mother killed. While he's initially angry, he decides to let it go; after all, Dorio wasn't involved in the shooting herself. Dorio, for her part, is horrified to learn that it was Animals that got Gloria killed; that said, she admits that they're pretty nasty, and she herself has done things with the Animals that she's not proud of.
• Contrived Coincidence: Falkins notices that for about half of the gigs he sends Maine's crew on, the intel he has turns out to be inaccurate. Add to that, this only crops up in gigs that Falkins gives to Maine, not any other mercenary. As a result, Falkins has to step back from his role as a fixer to investigate the cause for his intel getting compromised. To the audience's lack of surprise, a following Interlude reveals that it's Faraday.
• Creator Cameo: The author makes a brief appearance in Chapter 1 as "SA", sending a message to the newly-returned David that this is the second chance he asked for, and that he won't get a third.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Combat chips may give the user skills in fighting that the user doesn't have. However, as shown with Katsuo Tanaka, it locks you into the same attack every time, with no variation. Anyone who can pay attention to how you move can reliably dodge your attacks, which is how David turns things around on Katsuo in the second half of their cage match.
• Damned by Faint Praise: This is how Sandy vocalizes its displeasure with Maine and Kiwi, after their actions during the NCPD job almost resulted in David bleeding out. It tells Maine that David cares a great deal for him, though it's not sure why he does; and when it makes itself known to the rest of the crew, it tells Kiwi—or rather, "Bird"—that she's on David's list of people important to him "for some reason".
• Dark and Troubled Past: Ties into Adaptational Expansion. Every member of the crew has a messed-up and dark backstory:
  • Pilar and Rebecca are former Corpo kids who broke away from their parents. Pilar was supposed to inherit a place in the company, but he broke down under the physical and mental pressures and got disowned after he threw a party that ended up with him drugged out of his mind and having slept with three of his dad's boss's daughters. Pilar ended up coming back for Rebecca when he learned they were intending to put her through the same pressures, but he didn't really have a plan beyond that. Pilar ended up joining Maelstrom and getting addicted to glitter and XBDs to cope, while Rebecca ended up having to prostitute herself just to eat, since Pilar was disconnected from reality, and she was too young to join the Mox. Rebecca got picked up by Maine's crew and Pilar joined later after getting snapped out of his mindset when he inadvertently discovered what had become of his sister while he was trying to lose himself. Though they still care about each other, their relationship is very strained as a result of Pilar essentially abandoning Rebecca to fend for herself.
  • Kiwi was once a nomad whose clan ended going Raffen Shiv with their unprovoked raids on other clans, and when she dared to call them out for their actions, they decided to sell her out to Scavs in response. As nomads preach family and trust as their core tenets, this left her rather understandably bitter and reluctant to extend such things to others to avoid being burned again.
  • Maine was a former NUSA soldier who ended up getting partially blown up during his service and having both legs and an arm replaced with cyberware just to survive, not to mention losing several good friends under his command during the fighting, before eventually moving to Night City, nearly dying during his attempts to make a name for himself. Things were going pretty well after that, even forming a friendship with Viktor Vektor, but then Sasha died despite his best attempts to try and save her, which caused him to snap and start going faster and harder on his chroming, and in turn caused his relationship with Vik to break down when the reliable ripper rightly pointed out he was pushing too far too fast.
  • Dorio is the daughter of a NightCorp manager and a Joytoy. She actually had a good family life until her dad was terminated in all senses of the word when he was made a patsy by a higher-up to industrial sabotage and her mom just broke down and turned to the drugs to cope before she told Dorio to either get out of the house or whore herself out, all when she was just ten years old. After that, she joined up with the Animals and even rose to second-in-command of her pack lead by a woman named Sylvia. Unfortunately, years of loyalty were repaid badly when Dorio took a bad batch of their homebrewed drugs to get more jacked, only for her limbs to start necrotizing and fall apart, and forcing her to get expensive surgery and cybernetics to survive. Dorio later learned that Sylvia knowingly used her as a test subject for the batch, and didn't have the decency to visit the hospital and say sorry. That led to Dorio leaving the Animals and becoming an Edgerunner.
• Death Glare:
  • On the Maxim job, Kiwi gives one to David, out of concern for Lucy getting attached to a recruit who could likely drop dead. What surprises Kiwi is David giving her a Death Glare of his own that wordlessly tells her to back off, which she does.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Sandy gives one to David, in response to the knowledge of the latter's death by Adam Smasher.
  • Lucy gives one to Sandy in her first conversation with the S.I., stating that if Sandy does anything to hurt David, she'll reduce it to a program that wouldn't even work in a SCSM (the Cyberpunk universe's new form of vending machine).
• Desperately Craves Affection: After many one-night stands with other people, Lucy enjoys simply cuddling or Holding Hands with David in part because of his mostly organic body, which yields natural body heat and physical skin contact that cyberware doesn't have. And while she'd love to get intimate with David, Lucy avoids it out of fear that the experience will ruin his view of her and result in him leaving. David, for his part, is never disappointed when she avoids it, and never forces her to do anything she doesn't want to.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • The new cyberdeck that David gets for Lucy is superior to her old deck, allowing her to sling quickhacks with great ease. However, she has trouble using her hacks effectively with it in the crew's subsequent gig, which is when Kiwi reminds her that she should have upgrades her quickhacks as well.
  • Played for Drama in the NCPD job. Sandy gives David information from the NCPD handbook in order to not blow his cover as Officer Rodriguez. Unfortunately, this makes Maine and Kiwi suspicious of David, since none of this was covered in the crew's prepwork, and neither David nor Sandy realize why Maine's acting hostile all of a sudden until Rebecca snaps at Maine over the call: "so what if he knows some police codes?"
• Disappointed in You:
  • It's not said, but Maine is definitely subject to this. First, Lucy gives him an indirect one when he punches David out, saying "I'm sure Gloria would be so proud of you". Later, the crew is aghast at Maine for not only cutting the call with David during the NCPD infiltration job, which led to him nearly getting killed, but for putting David on that job in the first place.
  • Though David doesn't say it, and does his best to hide it, his disappointment in Kiwi over her betrayal seeps into his interactions with her. Kiwi does notice, and—as a result of some manner of Past-Life Memories—feels a little hurt, but can't put a finger on why.
• Double Entendre: Rebecca tends to lean toward this, being a former Mox turned Edgerunner. She's introduced dropping a few while a ripperdoc is operating in her exposed guts, dropping the second one to fluster David.
• Downer Beginning: The Prologue follows David's perspective in his final moments in Edgerunners, before Adam Smasher kills him. Regretting how things ended this way, David can only think, "Please let me do it over again" as his life is snuffed out. But shortly after, the prologue ends with the following bold text:
  He asked so earnestly, [after all]. What else was I to do?
• Drugs Are Bad: Two of Maine's crew, Pilar and Dorio, have dealt with the consequences of the Cyberpunk world's Fantastic Drugs, Glitter (for Pilar) and Juice (for Dorio). Their previous addictions stand in stark contrast with the chrome addiction that Maine and David both dealt with in Edgerunners, and that David is trying to deal with in this story.
  • Pilar getting addicted to Glitter was the big catalyst to how he ended up abandoning Rebecca to fend for herself, and Maine told him to get it under control if he wanted to join the crew. A few brushes with his Past-Life Memories causes him to decide to turn over a new leaf, starting with flushing his remaining stash of the stuff down the toilet while pointedly ignoring the part of him craving another hit.
  • Dorio, while she ran with an Animal pack led by Sylvia, indulged in their homebrew drug usage to get swole, but injecting a bad batch ended up rotting a good chunk of her body and forcing her to get expensive life-saving amputation and surgery to survive. Since then, the only drugs she takes are oral-based and ones her ripper cleared with her.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Downplayed with Pilar, the crew's "class clown". When David finally explains to the others about the SI in his Sandevistan implant, Pilar dismisses it initially, pointing out that even a high-end military implant like David's doesn't have the capacity to host an AI. And normally, Pilar would be right: after all, he's the crew's Techie with an engineering degree.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Rebecca's the one to suggest—or rather, assert—that she, Lucy, and David will seize their happy ending.
• Elective Broken Language: Once it starts using verbal communication with its host, Sandy prefers to use as few words as possible when communicating with David. It's rather annoyed that it has to use complete sentences to speak with other people, such as Viktor and Maine, but it does so if it means David gets proper support.
• Everyone Can See It: The entire crew can see that Rebecca and Lucy both have a thing for David.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Viktor, a professional back-alley ripperdoc, cannot stand badly-done implant work by sketchy rippers such as Doc Borg. Learning that David had his spine replaced with the Sandevistan, and with no anesthesia save for a bite bar, leaves Vik apoplectic to the point of frightening David. He even puts this visit on the house, on the condition that David avoids Doc Borg from now on.
  • David has gained a deep disgust with extreme braindances, and is disgusted with himself that he ever had a fascination with them in the first place. He also has a hatred of the Scavs, for their cruelty and depravity (and their connections to said XBD scene).
    • In fact, everyone on the crew, in spite of their differences and disagreements, all agree that Scavs are the worst scum in Night City.
  • Rebecca gets flirty with David shortly before the Maxim job, but the second Pilar comments on David and Lucy being together, she immediately stops and backs off once she confirms that they're dating. She's also disgusted by the notion that she would ever steal David away from Lucy. On another note, Rebecca expresses horror that David watched XBDs ever since he was 13 years old, as part of a deal with Doc Borg.
  • Pilar may be a flippant jackass, but there are some lines he wouldn't cross, at least when he knows. When he wears David's high-visibility jacket as a joke, Pilar learns from the young man that the jacket was Gloria's. Realizing that he messed up, Pilar apologizes for doing that.
• Foil: David and Sandy are this for V and Johnny Silverhand. Whereas the Relic biochip in V's head is slowly killing them to make room for Johnny; the experimental Sandevistan is merely an implant, albeit with an AI that does everything it can to help David. And while V and Johnny fall under Vitriolic Best Buds at best (after a rocky start), David and Sandy are more straightforward friends, with little of the snark that most people in Night City would be used to.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • When first meeting Lucy again, David behaves a little more confidently than he had the first time, proposing a 60-40 split in Lucy's favor. He's also more open with her about where he got the Sandevistan, as well as his not feeling well after their picksocketing run. As a result, Lucy doesn't try to manipulate David, learns of his connection to the late Gloria, takes him to a proper ripperdoc, and offers to arrange a proper meeting with Maine. Unfortunately, Maine still punches David unconscious at Lucy's apartment because he'd only read Lucy's initial message about the Sandevistan, and not any of her follow-up messages about who has it now.
• Foreshadowing: After Doctor Viktor properly re-installs the Sandevistan, he mentions to David that the implant was able to mostly integrate itself into his body on its own. This surprises David and leaves Lucy spooked. Later, during the crew's first job for Falkins, David feels a strange sensation of "a friendly squeeze", as though the Sandy is agreeing with some of his decisions. Eventually, Viktor tells David that the Sandy has an on-board AI that wants to help David.
• Hand Behind Head: Lucy has one that's Played for Drama. While fretting over the prospect of finally getting intimate with David, Lucy grabs the back of her head—where her deep dive port is installed—in an excruciating grip. Rebecca notices this, but is too worried about Lucy's current problem to interrupt and mention something unrelated.
• The Heart: Rebecca. In this story, she reads the mood of her crewmates and makes sure nobody becomes uncomfortable, especially when it looks like something as innocuous as a visit to the hairdresser is about to dredge up a bad experience, as is the case with Lucy. Rebecca also becomes this for the three-way relationship between her, Lucy, and David, giving the others the shoulder they need to lean on and an ear to listen to their troubles.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: While going through Lucy's Moon virtu, David laments that no matter how hard he tried in Arasaka Academy, he'd never be more than "gutter trash". Lucy interrupts that line of thinking, emphatically pointing out that David had done incredibly well for a student with no brain implants, and that he's already a pretty admirable guy.
  • David tends to take potshots at himself in his head, prompting Sandy to intervene.
• Hidden Depths: Most of the crew are revealed to David and the audience to have hidden hobbies.
  • Lucy tends to find ways of embarassing Arasaka corpo-types and getting them into trouble. When she's not doing that or picksocketing them on trains, she sometimes watches musicals.
  • Rebecca actually likes reading paperback books and tabletop games, all holdovers from her corpo life before ending up on the streets. She's also a huge science-fiction fan.
  • Maine used to sketch in his free time, though he admits it's been a long time since he's done so. He also has a business degree.
  • Kiwi has high appreciation for the musical arts, particularly classical, and used to be a metalhead until it became her Trauma Button courtesy of the Scavs.
  • Dorio has a deep appreciation for motorcycles and their mechanics, as her father loved them and would often share his hobby with her.
• Holding Hands: David tends to do this with Lucy, despite this being Night City, where people…tend to not be so openly affectionate in public. Though initially a tad embarrassed, Lucy unabashedly enjoys it, especially since it means enjoying his natural body heat (thanks to him only having the Sandevistan on top of the standard neural ports and chip slots in his head).
• Hulk Speak: As the Sandevistan's AI develops, it gains the ability to communicate with David. Sandy seems to prefer using as few words as possible, no matter how advanced it becomes, though it is capable of using complete sentences when conversing to other people.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Kiwi uses this to justify her reporting suspicions of David to Maine, to an outraged Lucy. However, she doesn't mention the massive feeling of guilt she had when she did it, and she's forced to admit that the idea of David being a plant from the NCPD makes no sense.
• I Gave My Word: Maine tells David this is why they still have to work with Faraday despite him welching on their bonus pay for the Maxim job. Maine swore to Faraday that he would complete the overall Tanaka job the Maxim gig was building to, and unless Faraday slips up and gives them an obvious reason to back out, Faraday can use this broken promise as proof Maine and the gang are untrustworthy and cast doubt to other Fixers on their reliability, which will only hurt their reputation going forward.
• The "I Love You" Stigma: Averted. After dating for two months, David says the magic words to Lucy.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: A variant. During their girls' night out, Dorio starts teasing Lucy about her new boyfriend David. The embarrassed Lucy tries to avoid talking about her (lack of) intimate relationship with David; but when Dorio assumes that fumbling kisses were involved, Lucy decides to put her foot down and defend David, asserting that actually, David is a fantastic kisser.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: A variant. David's only experience with ripperdocs and cyberware installation was with Doc Borg, a slimy guy who improperly installed the Sandevistan in David's body the first time around. When David goes to the more professional Doctor Viktor, David's questions and confusion (e.g. "Where's the bite bar?") leave Viktor and Lucy horrified. After properly reinstalling the Sandevistan, Viktor gives David a crash course on how implanting cyberware improperly, as Doc Borg had, can lead to cyberpsychosis. By the end of his visit, David is fully aware of how he'd been foolish to keep going to a ripperdoc who didn't care about his well-being.
• Inner Monologue Conversation: David's perspective has two: one with his chrome addiction, which eggs him on to get more cyberware; and one with the Sandy AI.
  • Lucy's perspective occasionally has a bitter voice gnawing at her. The implication is that the voice is Lucy from after the end of Edgerunners.
• Insecure Love Interest:
  • Lucy feels that she isn't worth David's adoration, fearing that if they do get intimate, it would shatter his view of her and drive him away. When finally talking about this with Rebecca, Lucy is assured by her gun-toting friend that David—whose love for her is like "a fact of the universe"—will accept her anyway.
  • David sometimes slips into this line of thinking, including when he's dating both Lucy and Rebecca. Sandy often intervenes, pointing out that this mentality can be self-destructive.
• Insignificant Anniversary: For the anniversary of going out for two months, David gets Lucy a new cyberdeck, for her to better fulfill her role on the crew.
• Internal Reveal: After the NCPD job, David finally comes clean about Sandy, first to Lucy and Rebecca, then the rest of the crew. Lucy doesn't take the revelation of an artificial intelligence being in David's Sandevistan well, running away from David in a mixture of PTSD and betrayal. Rebecca, and the rest of the crew, are all wary of Sandy at worst, but they generally decide that if Sandy's care for David is genuine, there isn't much of a problem.
• Ironic Echo: Lucy's "Ohh, you're in trouble, aren't you?" to David having the Sandevistan becomes one for her, when she realizes that she's falling for David not one chapter later.
  [when Lucy realizes she's gently stroking David's hand] Oh, she was in trouble, wasn't she?
  • The next day, Rebecca comes to the same realization when she and David are hanging out.
    [when both kick their legs up] ...Fuck[,] she was in trouble, wasn't she?
• Kick the Dog:
  • Faraday is particularly nasty when he calls Kiwi for intel on David, pushing her Trauma Button to make her comply. The call leaves Kiwi fighting back tears.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": While calling Edgerunners "knights" is a bit of a stretch, David sees Rebecca and Dorio, both professional mercenaries, geek out over science fiction and motorcycles, respectively.
• Lap Pillow: After Maine punches him unconscious, David comes to with his head resting on Lucy's lap.
• Lets Wait Awhile: Though they hit it off relatively quickly, David and Lucy refrain from actually having sex. David doesn't want to make Lucy do anything she doesn't want; while Lucy does want to, but is afraid that it will ruin David's view of her to the point of driving him away. Eventually, after finally opening up to him about this, David reassures Lucy that nothing will ever make her less than the woman he loves, and they make love shortly after.
• Love Confession:
  • A platonic one that throws Lucy, Rebecca and David for a loop comes from Sandy, who considers David to be their "best choom" and "other half".
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Gender-Inverted case with David. Lucy is at a loss with how someone like David can exist in Night City, where such qualities can get punished with betrayal. While learning about Sandy makes her react with despair, with part if her considering the possibility that the Sandevistan was using David to "tell her everything she wanted to hear", Rebecca calms Lucy down, assuring her without dismissing her trauma from being part of Arasaka's Old Net data retrieval program.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Misty's tarot reading for David leaves the protagonist spooked, mainly because of how accurate it is for his situation (an upside-down World, signifying a completed journey filled with regret; an upright Death, standing for change and acknowledge of mistakes; and an upright Fool, standing for a new beginning).
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Pilar had one before the events of the story, when he learned in the worst possible way that he'd abandoned Rebecca to survive for herself in Night City.
  • Maine is horrified and angry with himself for his treatment of David during the NCPD job, which could have resulted in David dying from a gunshot would with no one there to retrieve him.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Maine is still haunted for failing to save Sasha, which has driven him to getting more cyberware implants in the belief that it will make him stronger.
  • Despite his loud front, Pilar is deeply ashamed of and disgusted with himself for abandoning Rebecca after he got them away from their parents, only to fall apart and abandon her because he had no plan beyond that. Discovering that she was in a porn BD he'd chipped into was a revolting wake-up call for him, leading him to break off from Maelstrom to find her again.
• Moving the Goalposts: After the Crew gets the information that they were told to steal from Maxim exactly the way that they were told to, Faraday doesn't pay them the bonus that he promised for doing the job quietly, because he didn't get the intel he could use due to Tanaka switching drivers between jobs. A later Interlude chapter reveals Faraday deliberately does this when he doesn't want to hand off the bonus pay, and he'll reach for any excuse he can for his new goalpost.
• Named by the Adaptation: Tanaka's first name is revealed to be Jinta in this fic.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Why Kiwi is firm with her "trust no one" philosophy. She trusted her old clan, and that left her helpless in the hands of Scavs. By not trusting anyone, Kiwi believes she's safer from getting burned. After the NCPD job, David points out (in a private call with her) that Kiwi's definition of "safe" just leaves her isolated and alone, especially among her fellow crew members; and despite their mutual wariness of each other, Kiwi can't help but feel hurt that David was starting to trust her.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: One of David's goals this time around is to get the Crew away from Faraday (though he also plans on getting rid of him entirely). As it turns out, Faraday manages to drive a wedge between himself and the Crew by denying them the bonus for the Maxim job despite it going perfectly. His pulling a fast one on the bonus requirements angers the Crew to the point that Maine starts looking for a different fixer, leading them to build a reputation with the likes of Falkins and Wakako Okada. While the Crew is still bound to Faraday thanks to Maine having given his word about a certain job, they'll still be working to leave him behind.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The Sandevistan AI has one when Viktor suggests the option of replacing the implant with a generic cyber-spine if only to avoid having said AI. Sandy's panic and sadness actually takes David by surprise, nearly making him fall over as the AI's emotions overwhelm him, but he assures Sandy that he's not going to get rid of them, which calms them down.
  • Played for Laughs during the girls' night out. When Dorio notes that Lucy is probably fantasizing, Lucy immediately tries to hide it by being deflective and looking to Kiwi for help. Unfortunately, Lucy's face is obviously heating up, her attempt at deflection falls flat, and Kiwi pointedly looks away from her protegé.
    Lucy: (internally) Traitor!
• One Degree of Separation: The Animal gang responsible for the hit-and-run that got Gloria killed in the crossfire was the same one Dorio ran with years before.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When Maine learns from David about how Katsuo Tanaka insulted Gloria, he becomes quietly furious. David is stunned by this; as bad as Maine had gotten before he died the first time around, he'd never looked so angry.
  • During the NCPD item-extraction job, David is roped into police work, and Sandy has to relay to him police codes and protocols in order to maintain his cover. This makes David suspicious to Maine and Kiwi, as his behavior makes him fit in very well in the NCPD, and the jargon he uses wasn't covered in the pre-gig prep. However, David, Sandy (who doesn't realize this makes David look suspicious, being an AI), and the audience, don't realize that this is why Maine and Kiwi are suddenly behaving more coldly to him until Rebecca calls him, snapping "so what if he knows some police codes?!" at Maine.
  • Maine is a boisterous man, so his defensiveness about him getting chrome deflating into a defeated confession about his jealousy of David leaves Dorio worried and scared.
• Open Relationship Failure:
  • Subverted with Maine and Dorio. While they did have a few stumbles, they managed to make it work.
  • Averted with Lucy, Rebecca, and David.
• Outside-Context Problem: As a result of being a doomed cyberpunk sent back in time to the moment he chipped the Sandevistan in, David becomes this for Kiwi: a seventeen-year-old school dropout who exhibits more skill in the Edgerunner trade than anyone else his age, and with no prior behavior to explain it. On top of that, David cares a great deal for the crew, on a level that usually isn't seen in Night City. To Kiwi, this doesn't make sense, and to her that makes David dangerous.
• Passing the Torch: Discussed, but Maine's behavior following the end of the NCPD job suggests that he's planning to do this for David, recognizing the latter's potential and his own capabilities as a leader starting to falter. While Lucy is shocked by the idea that Maine will retire, Rebecca thinks it makes sense.
• Past-Life Memories: Each member of the Crew occasionally gets flashes of what went down in the original timeline, usually prompted by something David does or when thinking about him and his odd behavior. None of them yet realize they're actually memories, but they're more than enough to give them a start and seriously bad déjà vu.
  • The first hint to David that this is happening to other people is Lucy casually stating that she'll get David some vodka, stating that David doesn't like carbonated drinks as if it were scientific fact. This makes David pause, because he didn't actually say anything about that yet this time, and he'd accepted a can of NiCola Purple from Lucy earlier because it was Lucy's favorite drink.
  • David sometimes has panic attacks whenever something reminds him of his previous go-around in Edgerunners such as seeing the Moon travel commercial, or Rebecca saying to him "I got your back!" Most of the time it happens outside of combat and while he's by himself, but the two examples happen to David while with Lucy and Rebecca, so they know that something's weighing heavily on him.
  • Maine writes these memories off as hallucinations, while Dorio seems to take these "nightmares" more seriously.
  • In one chapter, Pilar does realize that the strange things he's been seeing are flashes of his previous self's memories, including those of his unceremonious death. He takes it seriously enough that he takes his stash of Glitter and flushes it down the toilet, pointedly ignoring the small part of his mind screaming for a dose.
• Polyamory: David, Lucy, and Rebecca form a triad.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • David gives Lucy the go-ahead to let Maine know where the Sandevistan implant is. After understanding David's situation, Lucy sends Maine some follow-up messages...which Maine completely ignores, which results in him punching David out, again. Fortunately, Lucy immediately takes Maine to task and forces him to actually read her messages.
  • Narrowly averted when David learns about his Sandevistan's AI, which makes David scared. When Viktor mentions the option of removing the Sandevistan, David is overwhelmed by the AI's panic and sadness washing through him. Understanding its fear, David mentally reassures the Sandevistan that he's not going to get rid of it. Assuaged, the Sandy replies in David's head: Stay.
  • Played for Drama in the NCPD gig. Maine and Kiwi both get suspicious of how knowledgeable David appears to be on police codes, resulting in Maine cutting the call. Unfortunately, David and Detective River Ward are then caught in a Scav ambush, resulting in David getting shot in the gut. It costs the crew precious time when David has to start a new call to request a pick-up, during which he could have bled out.
• Posthumous Character: Gloria Martinez. As the story "restarts" shortly after her passing, David learns more about her from Maine and the others, and is taken aback by how much of a good person she was to them and how proud of David she was.
• Properly Paranoid: Kiwi regards David with suspicion, considering that he's a seventeen-year-old Arasaka Academy dropout who has no history of Edgerunning, yet seems to have the bearing of one anyway.
  • This ends up hurting Kiwi's relationships with the crew in spite of her attempts to keep them at arm's length. Her considering the possibility that David was actually a plant from the NCPD nearly gets him killed, leading to Dorio and Rebecca getting angry with her. Even Lucy is disappointed in her mentor that she honestly thought David could be that.
  • This feeds into how the trope is deconstructed. Kiwi has very legitimate personal reasons for not trusting anyone in Night City, where trust can get you burned. However, the fact that she doesn't try to trust her own crewmates, including Lucy, winds up hurting Kiwi anyway.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Jeffrey Falkins is a low-level Fixer working under Wakako Okada, but he's essentially everything Faraday isn't. He's all-business but professional and even pleasant once he warms up to the crew; he doesn't try to bullshit them; he doesn't pry into the details of specific members' abilities (e.g. David's experimental and AI-operated Sandevistan) because he doesn't need to know; he gives them all the info he has on the mission at hand; and if things go wrong because of bad intel or things outside of their control, he gives them the compensation they're due, especially if they succeed in spite of it. It's fairly clear from the beginning of his business relationship with Maine that Falkins' rep as a fixer will reflect on Wakako's rep as the fixer over him, so he has good reason not to behave as unprofessionally as Faraday. The only reasons Maine's crew eventually stops working with Falkins is that the team's rep is getting too good to stick to a small-timer like Falkins, and that Falkins himself needs to step back from his role in order to figure out who's sabotaging his intel sources, which has put Maine's crew at risk. Needless to say, David, Maine, and the rest of the team have a much better time working with Falkins because he treats them with respect.
• Recovered Addict: What David is trying to do now. With his past experiences in Edgerunners, David is painfully aware of how his chrome addiction led to his downward spiral and subsequent death. It's mainly due to his memories of the crew that drives him to agree with Viktor Vector's orders to not implant chrone for two months.
  • Pilar has recovered from his addiction to Glitter by the present, but he kept a baggie of the drug for when things became too much. Spurred by his Past-Life Memories, he dumps the drug down the toilet.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Sandy tells David that his Heroic Self-Deprecation borders on unhealthy levels, David asks them if their his therapist. Sandy responds that they don't qualify for being a therapist, but that David's situation goes beyond anything a qualified therapist would believe, and that a therapy session would be prohibitively expensive. The fact that Sandy, despite all of this, still tries to help David as best they can leaves him humbled.
• Servile Snarker: Sandy tends to play this dynamic to its host David, despite being an experimental implant and not an actual servant. It also takes some jabs at Maine and Kiwi ("Bird") for being two people David cares about, "for some reason". (Keeping in mind, Sandy's upset that they cut off the call with David while he had to maintain his "Officer Rodriguez" cover, which cost precious time to get him medical attention when he'd been shot in the gut.)
• Ship Tease:
  • Dorio expresses to Maine (both in an open relationship with each other) her interest in "trying it" with David, on account of the formermost's "competence kink". Of course, she's willing to refrain from doing so when Maine expresses his jealousy, and guilt thereof, of David's strength.
• Shout-Out:
  • The story makes a few to Mad Max: Fury Road, with David using the phrase "dying historic on the Fury Road" as a synonymous phrase for "going out in a blaze of glory".
  • At the library, Rebecca hands David her favorite science-fiction book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• Sincerity Mode: This time around, the members of Maine's crew seem to be more open to talking about themselves with David, which surprises him. Even Kiwi leans toward this despite her firm "trust no one" policy, frustratedly telling David that she's revealed more about her past to David than to Lucy, despite having taken the latter under her wing years ago. It's possible that their Past-Life Memories experiences are factoring heavily into this.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • Katsuo Tanaka thinks that, just because his family has a history with Arasaka Corp, he's automatically superior to any of the low-class trash who should be licking his shoes for the privilege of walking past them, and that his "lesser" peers only deserve to be his lackies. He has no problem flaunting his money by buying chipware in order to dominate his less-fortunate opponents in the boxing ring. Also, he thinks the fact that he "only" has access to his personal accounts, rather than the family one, after his parents have him leave the estate and get a high-class apartment with cleaning is "suffering", because he doesn't have enough free cash to buy expensive cars new instead of used.
  • Faraday embodies this trope in spades, most notably with his condescending mannerisms towards his fellow fixer/minion William and delusional belief that he's somehow on the same league as Wakako Okada, who, for starters, is a far better fixer than he is and ever will be. He likes to drink "real" scotch despite how expensive it is because he believes if the world's elites don't bother worrying about prices for their desires, neither should he. And to say nothing on how he wants to overthrow Saburo Arasaka in the corporate world, who, put bluntly, views the likes of Faraday the same way one might pay attention to dirt under his feet.
• Smoking Is Cool: Subverted. Though Lucy occasionally smoked cigarettes in Edgerunners, here she inexplicably refrains from doing so as far as Chapter 2, including in her own apartment. David does notice how her empty hand twitches as if grasping a cigarette, but she doesn't actually light one up around him.
• Spit Take: David has this reaction while eating katsu ramen with Rebecca, when she bluntly tells him about how Pilar got himself booted out of their corpo household. Later, to avoid talking about Kiwi much, David tells Lucy about Pilar having once joined a threesome with Maine and Dorio, resulting in Lucy having this reaction.
• Stations of the Canon: The story starts by returning David to the moment he had the Sandevistan installed by Doc Borg. From there, some events deviate from the original anime: David and Lucy complete the train picksocketing job, but stop after David starts getting sick; Lucy takes David to her apartment, but with a more sincere motive; Maine punches David out because he failed to read Lucy's messages telling him what the situation was; David meets Rebecca earlier than the Maxim job, etc.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After having his Sandevistan properly reinstalled by Doctor Viktor, David realizes that he might not be able to afford the ripperdoc's services. However, to his immense surprise, Viktor decides to put this visit on the house, on the condition that David never goes back to Doc Borg ever again.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While David's a good guy, his experience from his first go-around made him realize, among other things, how he'd taken Rebecca for granted considering how much she stuck with him during his downfall, and how too swept up he was in his relationship with Lucy to really bother with checking on her following Pilar's death. In this story, David treats Rebecca with more respect as a person, not just a fellow Edgerunner or an ex-Mox. Rebecca, who's used to being treated like either a kid or a prostitute, is surprised that David takes her advice and opinions seriously, but is glad that he does, sealing their bond as best chooms. Later, David, upon learning that Rebecca's a fan of science fiction, takes her to the library because he wants her to show him the books she's read. The gesture, and David's sincerity, do move Rebecca to tears.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: During the NCPD gig for Wakako. While following David during his stint as "Officer Rodriguez", Maine and Kiwi both get suspicious that David would know so many police codes, resulting in Maine cutting the call. This nearly ends up getting David killed when he and River Ward are ambushed by Scavs. Though David manages to get rid of the Scavs and escape, the need to re-dial the team costs precious time. David is eventually stabilized at Doctor Viktor's, but the sequence of events leaves Maine cursing himself for basically leaving David like that.
• Trauma Button:
  • Kiwi has a breakdown when a kid plays death metal on his music player. It turns out Kiwi used to be a metalhead, since it spoke to her in ways few other genres of music could; but when her clan sold her out to a group of Scavs, they used death metal to cover up her screaming as they cut her up. Nowadays, she can't listen to it without the experience coming back to her.
  • David seeing the same van that shot at him and his mother that fateful day causes him to shut down for a time, with neither Dorio nor Sandy being able to talk to him. To David's dismay, he discovers that he'd gripped Dorio's waist tightly enough to draw blood, though Dorio herself brushes her wounds off.
  • Lucy still has her deep-seated fear of AI programs from her time in Arasaka. This puts David in a tight position, since his Sandevistan eventually manifested its own AI, Sandy. The Internal Reveal that her input has an AI in his back causes Lucy to freeze up, before running away to have a panic attack in David's apartment. However, her love for David, and her confiding in Rebecca, helps her calm down enough to embrace David in a hug, internally swearing to protect David if the AI has a sinister agenda for David.
• Undying Loyalty: Sandy, the AI within David's Sandevistan implant, is focused on helping David no matter what. In fact, Sandy knows that David "came back" from the previous timeline, and considers it—and the fact that there was a previous timeline—unimportant; to Sandy, David's life and well-being is more important than that.
  • Sandy doesn't have a high opinion of Kiwi, on account of her betraying David and the others in Edgerunners. But because David is willing to give her a second chance despite his lingering anger and disappointment, Sandy doesn't argue the matter with him. When Kiwi has a breakdown due to someone playing death metal on a music player, Sandy recognizes that a Trauma Button has been pressed and helps David break the offending machine via remote hack.
  • David is loyal to the crew, no questions asked. The fact that the loyalty wasn't reciprocated by Maine during the NCPD job upsets Sandy, as it makes clear in its argument with Maine.
• Title Drop: David drops this pretty early in the story, after using an improperly-installed Sandevistan six times before feeling the reprecussions. Lucy pointedly corrects him that he's built stupid, which David concedes.
• The Unreveal: An interlude with Jinta Tanaka reveals that no one, not even Arasaka, knows where exactly David's Sandevistan came from or who made it. The only things that are known is that it's been stolen several times from several megacorps, and that the Arasaka Tokyo office has ordered the Night City branch to uncover its secrets.
• This Is Gonna Suck: After the crew wraps up a gig with Falkins, Maine gets another gig immediately from Faraday that he needs David for. The gig is to spike Katsuo Tanaka's ICE, and David needs to work with Kiwi for this one. Naturally, neither David nor Kiwi are very excited about it, since it means they have to cooperate despite their mutual distrust.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Jinta Tanaka initially planned on having David assassinated when he hears from Evelyn Parker that David defeated Katsuo in their fight. But then he decides that David's more useful to him alive as a test subject for his Cyberskeleton project, contacting Principal Maliwan of the Arasaka Academy to offer David a full-ride scholarship with generous amounts of financial aid as bait.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Lucy. Compared to Edgerunners and how it had disastrous consequences, she doesn't fall into the trope as much in this story, but she does show hints of it. The NCPD infiltration sees David in disguise being flirted with by a female officer, resulting in Kiwi having to stop Lucy from quickhacking the offending officer, which would have jeopardized both David and the gig.
• Wham Line: Viktor gives one to David in Chapter 12 regarding the latter's Sandevistan implant. Specifically, that it has an artificial intelligence, and said artificial intelligence likes its host David.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Lucy gives a scathing one to Maine when he punches David unconscious over the Sandevistan. Maine is horrified that not only is Gloria Martinez dead, but he'd just punched Gloria's son, and broke Lucy's reassurances to the young man that Maine would try to be civil upon meeting him.
  • After David starts dating both Lucy and Rebecca, Kiwi takes him aside to demand to know what he's doing to Lucy's heart. David tells Kiwi the truth, that Rebecca and Lucy talked about it before giving him the final say in the matter; and that if Kiwi still doesn't believe him, she can ask Lucy.
  • Maine gets the brunt of another one after the NCPD job ends with David getting shot in the gut. Dorio chews him out for cutting the call with David, which could have led to his death. Kiwi also gets one off-scene for the same reason, the netrunner commenting that her bad call resulted in the girls on the team being very mad at her.
• Why Didn't I Think of That?: Maine has this reaction when David asks if they are going to bet on the fight they rigged in the plan to rob Maxim, to earn some more cash on top of the job itself.
• Worth Living For: With a second chance at life, David can actually keep his promise to Lucy that he won't die. When Lucy morosely comments that the only way Cyberpunks get remembered is by how they die, David states that he doesn't care about the glory of dying; to him, it means nothing next to living with Lucy.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Just before his first cage match, David learns that his opponent is a "corpobrat". David then sees said opponent: Katsuo Tanaka, his former schoolmate/school bully. David and Sandy are both flabbergasted that they've run into him a second time after David dropping out.

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