History Fanfic / CyberpunkAnotherDaybreak

** Maine's thoughts on David bring up Sasha, a former member of his crew who was only seen in a music video promoting ''Edgerunners''.

** Kiwi's interlude has her expressing frustration over not being able to hold a conversation with David without him fleeing in terror, due to her overtly threatening him over his recklessness on multiple occasions.

** David has a habit of sticking his foot in his mouth because of how fast his life is moving. During his first day on the job, he thoughtlessly calls attention to a briefcase that Aruto says the other {{Mega Corp}}s would kill to get. Later on, he congratulates Kiwi on cleaning up the media fiasco…momentarily forgetting that it's the same fiasco ''he'' caused, earning him a prolonged death threat from her.

* AdaptationalSuperpowerChange: Instead of getting the Sandevistan, David wields the power of a Kamen Rider. A side effect of this is that he has no risk for going Cyberpsycho.

* ByTheBookCop: Melissa is a loyal [=MaxTac=] agent who wants things done by the book. But she's also a TriggerHappy BloodKnight ex-Cyberpsycho who would much rather take her perps in dead than alive since that's [=MaxTac's=] usual MO.

* {{Foil}}: Pilar and Kiwi. Kiwi was on of the least emotive members of Maine's crew, while Pilar was one of the most boistrous. Kiwi's entire face except her eyes have been replaced with chrome, while Pilar's head only has cybernetic eyes. Kiwi has plenty of traditional smarts as a net runner, while Pilar has more street smarts than even he seems to be aware of (and incidintally appears to have a higher IQ than Kiwi). Kiwi initially had reservations with joining Hiden because of trust issues (namely not wanting them to make a mistake that would get Maine's group killed), while Pilar trusts them immediately for precisely this reason (namely recognizing that they need Hiden's help to at least manage Maine's chrome addiction).

* TheHeart: It's {{implied|Trope}} that ''[[TheFool Pilar]], of all people'', was this for Maine's crew, as his interlude shows that he has the most emotional concern for his teammates and recognized that Maine needed Hiden's help to treat his Chrome addiction.

* HiddenDepths: Surprisingly, his interlude reveals that despite Pilar being very self-aware about his lack of intelligence, he scored higher than Kiwi on an IQ test. He's also ''very aware'' that Maine has Chrome-addiction and needs help to avoid going Cyber-Psycho.

* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Hiden and [=MaxTac=] are ostensibly on the same side when it comes to subduing Cyberpsychos to mitigate loss of life. But in practice, the two butt heads over Hiden's idealistic desire to rehabiltiate Cyberpsychoes when [=MaxTac=] officers like Melissa Rory are {{Blood Knight}}s who'd rather take their perps dead than alive (not that Rebecca is much better in the TriggerHappy department).

* AwesomeButImpractical: Invoked. Isu deliberately jacks up the cost of the GM-01 Scorpion's ammunition to absurd levels (over 65,000 eddies per magazine) via invoices to shell companies and purposefully inefficent production methods. This is to make Hiden's weaponry look unappealingly expensive to prevent the proliferation of this level of technology even though Hiden could produce it far, far more cheaply with the technology it has at its disposal.

* ManOfKryptonite: Given how important cyberware to Night City, Ark represents an existential threat to the city's way of life. In a place where more chrome = more power, Ark's ability to subvert and turn that chrome against them makes it an unfathomably dangerous threat to Night City's population.

** Ark's presence in the Old Net didn't just leave Lucy with more trauma than her ''Edgerunners'' counterpart; it has also left the [=AIs=] in said Old Net [[[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/87598782 in disarray]]. Most if not all [=AIs=] are misanthropic, but Ark has apparently gained many of those programs as allies through fear, while other [=AIs=] just want to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get the]] ''[[ScrewThisImOuttaHere hell]]'' [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere away from this thing]]. And this is before factoring in the allies of Hiden and the [[Series/KamenRiderExAid Ex-Aid]] Kamen Riders fighting Ark within the Old Net.

* OutsideContextProblem: Ark and the Kamen Riders are entities completely outside the normal frame of reference of the Corpos and Cyberpunks in [[Tabletop/{{Cyberpunk}} Night City]]. In particular, Ark's abilities (which including violating the law of conservation) make it a threat beyond even what MAX-TAC--a police unit that specializes in stopping cyberpsychos through lethal force--can handle.
** Ark's presence in the Old Net didn't just leave Lucy with more trauma than her ''Edgerunners'' counterpart; it has also left the [=AIs=] in said Old Net in disarray. Most if not all [=AIs=] are misanthromorphic, but Ark had apparently gained many of those programs as allies through fear, while other [=AIs=] just want to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get the]] ''[[ScrewThisImOuttaHere hell]]'' [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere away from this thing]]. And this is before factoring in the allies of Hiden and the [[Series/KamenRiderExAid Ex-Aid]] Kamen Riders fighting Ark within the Old Net.

*** Apparantly, another member is [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/87556431 named]] [[Film/MyCousinVinny Vinny Gambini]].

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: David unintentionally becomes one to Lucy after saving her from Ark - Lucy is so terrified of the latter due to her DarkAndTroubledPast that, after David proves able to defeat Ark, she really starts looking for ways to spend time with him and is noticeably more relaxed around him. Her reasoning for becoming his secretary highlights this - not only does she like him, she ''needs'' to face Ark for all the hell it put her through in the past, and David is her ticket to them.

* {{Corpsing}}: In-universe, Isu and Jin are trying very hard not to laugh when David tells Mosley that a guy named Aruto sent the Cyclone Riser as part of an allegedly mislabeled shipment.
* CrossingTheBurntBridge: An interlude chapter reveals that Katsuo Tanaka has been trying to mend things with David at the request of his father, in the hopes of getting with Hiden. David, understandably, is having none of it, and permanently blocked Tanaka's number on his phone.

** David dares Ark to come at him out in the open before using his flashy TransformationSequence on live television. It isn't long before the press is breathing down his neck and picking apart his life story. He later laments that he could've transformed inside a porta-a-potty to maintain his SecretIdentity but he ''had'' to show off.

** Ark is an infamously powerful and dangerous A.I. with the ability to interact with the real world and turn anyone's cybernetics against them. Given that chrome is the bread and butter of all of Night City's most powerful individuals, this makes Ark an existential threat to Night City's way of life.

* DrinkingOnDuty: Subverted. After getting invited to the Afterlife, David considers stashing some Brosephs in the fridge to deal with the stresses of Corpo life. Lucy strongly recommends against this, citing Isu's TranquilFury when Rebecca and Pilar tried to sneak contraband into the building against her strict orders to remain sober at work. Rebecca later tries to nudge David into doing this, only for Lucy to once again bring up the possibility of Isu finding out.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Saburo Arasaka may be a ruthless, conniving, power-hungry bastard, but even he recognizes what an OmnicidalManiac Ark is and that Hiden is the only organization capable of containing it. He was ready to throw Arasaka's support behind Hiden in the event that the NUSA tried to pressure Hiden into leaving, only not doing so because Europe and Asia spoke up first, relieving him of that burden. He's also willing to, at least temporarily, bury the hatchet with his rebellious son Yorinobu to focus Arasaka's efforts on curbing Ark's influence.

* {{Foil}}: Pilar and Kiwi. Kiwi was on of the least emotive members of Maine's crew, while Pilar was one of the most boistrous. Kiwi's entire face except her eyes have been replaced with chrome, while Pilar's head only has cybernetic eyes. Kiwi has plenty of traditional smarts as a net runner, while Pilar has more street smarts than even he seems to be aware of (and incidintally appears to have a higher IQ than Kiwi). Kiwi initially had reservations with joining Hiden because of trust issues (namely not wanting them to make a mistake that would get Maine's group killed) while Pilar trusts them immediately for precisely this reason (namely recognizing that they need Hiden's help to at least manage Maine's chrome addiction).

* HenshinHero: In true Kamen Rider fashion, David is able to access incredible SuperStrength and SuperSpeed by transforming into Kamen Rider Ichi-gata with the aid of a TransformationTrinket. With it, he's able to battle Ark wherever it appears by moving fast enough to SpeedBlitz [=MaxTac=] units while kicking and punching with enough force to send tons of debris flying.

* HiddenDepths: Surprisingly, his interlude reveals that despite Pilar being very self aware about his lack of intelligence, he scored higher than Kiwi on an IQ test. He's also ''very aware'' that Maine has Chrome-addiction and needs help to avoid going Cyber-Psycho.

* HonestCorporateExecutive: In a MegaCorp-dominated world where 80-hour workweeks and a couple of days off a ''year'' are considered luxurious, Isu continues the Hiden's goal of bringing about a world of smiles. This also extends to the company's employees, as its internship benefits alone outstrip that of full-time employees at Arasaka. Employees aren't mandated to work on weekends and have full healthcare coverage. According to Isu, she hopes that Hiden Intelligence's example will improve worker rights around the world.

* IncrediblyLamePun: As per usual, Aruto's comedy skits rely too heavily on bad wordplay. He says that Hiden Manufacturing does a Satis-''Factory'' job and tells David that it's "Phone-omenal" to meet him. This inevitably elicits a LamePunReaction from David, who grimaces when he makes an AccidentalPun in a case of GotMeDoingIt not long after finishing the Kamen Rider tutorial. Jin also plays into it from time to time, saying it keeps Aruto around Hiden in spirit.

** Gloria slaved away for years and illegally [[OrganTheft sold chrome she removed from dead cyberpsychoes]] to get David into Arasaka Academy in the hopes that he would one day end up on Arasaka's top floor. The events that happen after she gets put in the hospital cause David to instead become an executive of Hiden practically ''overnight''.

* NoPaperFuture: David complains that it's 2077 when Pilar and Rebecca make a mess of his office by printing out all their findings on paper, while conducting an investigation into the gangs of Night City. He wonders why they didn't just use digital displays or at least used a different, unused meeting room to make a mess in. Dorio also struggles to gently turn the pages of paper documents because of how flimsy they are to her.

* OutsideContextProblem: Ark and the Kamen Riders are entities completely outside the normal frame of reference of the Corpos and Cyberpunks in [[Tabletop/{{Cyberpunk}} Night City]]. In particular, Ark's abilities (which including violating the law of conservation) make it a threat beyond even what MAX-TAC--a police unit that specializes in stopping cyberpsychos--can handle.

* QuicklyDemotedWoman: {{Subverted|Trope}} with Lucy - while she swiftly loses her position as Deputy Head of Cybersecurity for Hiden's Night City branch, this is because she made the choice to become David's secretary, and her old boss, the equally feminine Kiwi, is still heading Cybersecurity.

* RescueRomance: It's implied that Lucy starts falling for David after he saves her from Ark after his first transformation.

* ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow: David misses his first day at his new school at Hiden because of being stuck with a HandcuffedBriefcase, and the chaos that came with his debut as a Kamen Rider forces him to not go to school for a while longer. He's actually concerned that about how behind he'll be when he hasn't even set foot on campus by the end of the week. This is PlayedForLaughs, as his co-workers are dumbstruck that he's worried about school when he just dodged an assassination attempt (and Rebecca rescinds her disapproval of David's priorities if it means he won't turn out like Pilar).

* StunnedSilence: When Melissa asks for a statement from Hiden on the resolution of the hacked bus incident, David floors her by asking to hurry it up because he's late for school. She's so baffled by this statement that she drops her tablet and is left standing there with her jaw open.

* WideEyedIdealist: Discussed. From the perspective of the {{Mega Corp}}s of Night City, Hiden Intelligence seems suicidally generous with its pay, work hours, acts of charity, and willingness to rehabiltiate cyberpsychos as part of its goal of bringing about a world where everyone smiles from the heart. Lucy wonders if Isu was dropped on her head as a child to be this nice. Despite this, Isu is the second most powerful woman in the world in terms of resources and influence, second only to Hanako Arasaka. Hiden in general is a subversion, as they're not blind to the vices of Night City and have struggled to make a difference while trying to find a way home.

* WrongContextMagic: The Kamen Riders and Ark are completely unlike anything that Night City, much less the Cyberpunk universe as a whole, have ever encountered. With it they bring a killer A.I. able to affect the real world as well as turn any robotics into hulking {{Mechanical Abomination}}s, {{Alternate Universe}}s, and superpowered armored warriors who can kick with as much force as TNT going off while running circles around [=MaxTac=] units armed with Kerenzikovs.
* YouNeedToGetLaid: When David starts worrying about [[ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow all the school he's missing because of his new job as a Kamen Rider/executive Corpo]], Pilar says he needs to drag David down to [[BandOfBrothels Lizzie's.]]

* TheChooserOfTheOne: Aruto passes the Cyclone Riser on to David, selecting him as the Kamen Rider of Night City under the pretense of it being a mislabeled shipment.

* EndearinglyDorky: His punkish, offstandish nature aside, David is prone to sticking his foot in his mouth and coming across as a total dork, like when he cheers about having fresh underwear after being forced to bunk at Hiden Intelligence in the midst of the media storm he created. He's also equal parts nervous and excited to get invited to the Afterlife by Rogue Amendiares herself, getting tongue-tied in the process. Rebecca cites him being "adorable" as one of the reasons she doesn't mind babysitting him.
* EnemyMine: [[TheDreaded Ark]] is so dangerous that its reappearance is enough for most of the gangs and fixers with brains to call a temporary truce and focus on rooting out this threat. Saburo and Yorinobu have also ceased warring with each other to direct Arasaka's resources toward suppressing Ark.

* FaceFault: David trips from the sheer ridiculousness of learning that the NCPD and Hiden staff got attacked by an AI-controlled toilet and septic system.

* {{Foil}}: Pilar and Kiwi - Kiwi was on of the least emotive members of Maine's crew, while Pilar was one of the most boistrous. Kiwi's entire face except her eyes have been replaced with chrome, while Pilar's head only has cybernetic eyes. Kiwi has plenty of traditional smarts as a net runner, while Pilar has more street smarts than even he seems to be aware of (and incidintally appears to have a higher IQ than Kiwi). Kiwi initially had reservations with joining Hiden because of trust issues (namely not wanting them to make a mistake that would get Maine's group killed) while Pilar trusts them immediately for precisely this reason (namely recognizing that they need Hiden's help to at least manage Maine's chrome addiction).

* HonestCorporateExecutive: In a MegaCorp-dominated world where 80 hour work weeks and a couple of days off a year are considered luxurious, Isu continues the Hiden's goal of bringing about a world of smiles. This also extends to the company's employees, as its internship benefits alone outstrip that of full-time employees at Arasaka. Employees aren't mandated to work on weekends and have full healthcare coverage. According to Isu, she hopes that Hiden Intelligence's example will improve worker rights around the world.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Downplayed. David loves the perks of being a Kamen Rider and an executive Corpo, but his life is moving so fast that he wants some sense of normalcy amidst the chaos as a teenager thrust into the role of a protector of humanity. This is the reason why he's so insistent on going to school despite his responsibilities.

* IncrediblyLamePun: As per usual, Aruto's comedy skits rely too heavily on bad wordplay. He says that Hiden Manufacturing does a Satis-''Factory'' job and tells David that it's "Phone-omenal" to meet him. This inevitably elicits a LamePunReaction from David, who grimaces when he makes an AccidentalPun in a case of GotMeDoingIt not long after finishing the Kamen Rider tutorial.

* InTheDreamingStageOfGrief: Inverted. David believes he must be dreaming after flatlining in the car crash when Isu foots the bill for Gloria's continued treatment and offers him an internship at Hiden Intelligence. He brushes the thought away when he takes Isu's offer.

** Gloria slaved away for years and illegally [[OrganTheft sold chrome she removed from dead cyberpsychoes]] to get David into Arasaka Academy in the hopes that he would one day end up on Arasaka's top floor. The events that happen after she gets put in the hospital cause David to become an executive of Hiden practically ''overnight''.

* LightningBruiser: Kamen Riders are this relative to almost everything else in the Cyberpunk universe. They can punch and kick with the concentrated force of multiple tons of TNT going off, shrug off enormous impacts, and run circles around Kerenzikov users with ease. Militech estimates that a single Kamen Rider could decimate an entire armed battalion.

* MirrorCharacter: Rebecca and Melissa Rory are TriggerHappy {{Blood Knight}}s who use hi-tech weaponry to take down cyberpsychoes and heavily enjoy their jobs. It's made clear the ''only'' reason they don't get along is that Melissa's generally tasked with killing cyberpsychoes while Rebecca is tasked with bringing them in alive for rehabilitation.

* MundaneUtility: The SuperSpeed and LeParkour granted by being a Kamen Rider is great for manuevering around Ark's monsters. David also uses his powers to outrun the press and get around without getting stuck in traffic jams.

** While speaking with Woz, David wonders what other powers the Kamen Riders who came before him might have. He stops himself from thinking that hammering drums or rocking out on guitar could be a Kamen Rider power because of how silly that'd be. [[Series/KamenRiderHibiki About that...]]

** Maine's thought on David bring up Sasha, a former member of his crew who was only seen in a music video promoting ''Edgerunners''.

* NoBadassToHisValet: David technically outranks Maine's crew by virtue of being an executive of Hiden Intelligence's NUSA branch. But he's so inexperienced and out of his depth that Maine and the others treat him more like a kid to be mentored than their boss.
* NoHeroToHisValet: Kiwi hates David's guts for the hordes of netrunners she had to fight off following his debut and her fears that his naivety and recklessness will get her and Lucy killed. She never minces words with him even though he outranks her as a board executive and the two trade barbs and swear words regularly. Her interlude confirms that her feelings on the matter are more complex than she will admit, and [[DidntThinkThisThrough wonders how to talk to him about it without getting him to run away in terror]].

* NoSell: David's connection to ZEA via the Cyclone Riser gives him the highest level of ICE imaginable, rendering him immune to quickhacks even from netrunners as skilled as Kiwi. This means she has to get creative when tormenting him as revenge for his screw ups.

* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: While David was a straight-A student and an outsider among the corpo elite, Arasaka intelligence indicates that there aren't any physical or genetic markers that make him special. His courage and willingness to help others aside, he's a perfectly ordinary teenager with no traits that would mark him as an ideal Kamen Rider. Given that David doesn't chrome up like his ''Edgerunners'' counterpart, he has no reason to believe he's anything special either as he doesn't discover his tolerance for cyberware. David's life before Hiden is so ordinary his classmates at Hiden International Private School are dumbstuck that he's never learned to shoot and kill to survive given the nature of Night City. One side chapter has Saburo Arasaka himself wonder what David was born with to enable his compatibility to the Hiden Rider System despite his normality and status as this trope, unable to realize that it's what's in David's character, not his genes, that determined his ability to use it.
* OutsideContextProblem: Ark and the Kamen Riders are entities completely outside the normal frame of reference of the Corpos and Cyberpunks in Night City. In particular, Ark's abilities (which including violating the law of conservation) make it a threat beyond even what MAX-TAC, a police unit that specializes in stopping cyberpsychos, can handle.

* PenPushingPresident: Despite being a Kamen Rider, David still has to deal with normal corporate things - including writing a notice of termination for Julio after the latter manages to have an EpicFail through pure stupidty ''on his first day at work''. He mentally notes that his classes in Arasaka Academy for putting BadNewsInAGoodWay are already being put to use.

* ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow: David misses his first day at his new school at Hiden because of being stuck with a HandcuffedBriefcase and then the chaos that came with his debut as a Kamen Rider. He's actually concerned that about how behind he'll be when he hasn't even set foot on campus by the end of the week. This is PlayedForLaughs, as his co-workers are dumbstruck that he's worried about school when he just dodged an assassination attempt.

*** Another member is [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/87556431 named]] [[Film/MyCousinVinny Vinny Gambini]].
** David's classmates are based upon the cast of ''Literature/EightySixEightySix''.

* AlienNonInterferenceClause: Isu and the other higher ups of Hiden Intelligence want to leave after taking care of Ark but have the problem of [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/87925801 causing a disaster due to their inability to keep their interference in this world to a minimum]].

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: David doesn't get the reference when Aruto claims he can complete the tutorial because he has all the time in [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure 'za Worldo']] because he doesn't real Japanese cartoons.

* ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow: David misses his first day at his new school at Hiden because of being stuck with a HandcuffedBriefcase and then the chaos that came with his debut as a Kamen Rider. He's actually concerned that about how behind he'll be when he hasn't even set foot on campus by the end of the week. This is PlayedForLaughs, as his co-workers are dumbstruck that he's worried about school when he just dodged an assassination attempt.

* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: {{Justified}}. When David's plan to stop a runaway bus goes awry, he tries to stop it from going careening off the road by using [[RazorFloss monowire]] as a BladeBrake to anchor the bus to the highway above it. Luckily for everyone involved, Hiden's R&D took a situation like this into account and had the monowire gradually tighten to slow the bus down rather than bringing it to a sudden stop, letting it gently hang a foot from the ground without throwing the passengers overboard.

* PassingTheTorch: The Cyclone Riser is Aruto's private property and not owned by Hiden Intelligence, meaning that Aruto specifically chose David to become a new Kamen Rider. This is part of the reason why David gets a RankUp to the head of a new department so quickly, as Isu respects Aruto more than anyone and trusts in his decisions.
* PerceptionFilter: Woz is able to manipulate people's perceptions to let him and David sit down at a diner without being hounded by people who know David's face from his Kamen Rider debut. Woz specifies that this isn't something David can learn, telling him to see if Hiden has any solutions for maintaining David's privacy.
* PretenderDiss: Frederika feels that David is not worthy of being a Kamen Rider, believing him to instead be a corporate shill in the same manner as Arasaka's corruption of other Sentai works. [[DramaticIrony She's completely unaware he's an actual Kamen Rider, having gained his powers from a different Kamen Rider setting that the Cyberpunk world never made before the [=DataKrash=]]].
* PublicDomainArtifact: ''Honjo Masamune'' is a katana forged by the legendary blacksmith Masamune and an artifact worthy of being called a national treasure. After stumbling upon it on an assignment, V uses it to cut this way through more then fifty chromed-up men in a shootout without the blade chipping, despite it being nearly eight centuries old at that point. It's so cool that V is worried that the fiercely patriotic Saburo Arasaka would have V's head for using it as a meat cleaver.

''Cyberpunk: Another Daybreak'' is a crossover between ''Anime/CyberpunkEdgerunners'' and ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' (with elements of the overall Rider franchise), which began on October 3rd, 2022, and is currently ongoing.

* SenpaiKohai: Woz calls himself David's senior as a Kamen Rider and takes him out to lunch before Woz departs this world to return to that of Zi-O's.

* AdaptationalRelationshipOverhaul: In canon, while Lucy and David are an OfficialCouple, Lucy initially keeps David at arms length for fear of losing him. Here, due to David [[RescueRomance saving her from her worst fear during his]] FirstDayFromHell, Lucy practically clings to him like a SecurityBlanket, to the point of giving up being head of Cyber Security to become his secretary. Additionally, the two start bonding much faster due to Hiden's interference.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: {{Inverted}}. The driving reason for David's descent into crime in the original anime, his mother's death, was averted by Isu stepping in to foot the bill for proper medical treatment. This, combined with the welcoming environment of Hiden Intelligence and his lack of chrome, means that he's in a much better (if still stressed out by being a teenage executive with the fate of humanity on his shoulders) state of mind.

* AdaptationalBadass: Ark. It's less that Ark is stronger in this setting than in ''Zero-One''[='=]s, and morw it simply has more material to work with. In a setting where everyone is chromed up to some degree, Ark can turn ''anyone'' into an extension of itself if they aren't protected with military-grade ICE. The abundance of hackable technology means that it can strike from anywhere and at any time, even without Metsuboujinrai.NET to serve as its arms and legs.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: Inverted. The driving reason for David's descent into crime, his mother's death, was averted by Isu stepping in to foot the bill for proper medical treatment. This, combined with the welcoming environment of Hiden Intelligence and his lack of chrome, means that he's in a much better (if still stressed out by being a teenage executive with the fate of humanity on his shoulders) state of mind.
* AdaptationalBadass: It isn't so much that Ark is stronger in this setting than Zero-One's than it simply has more material to work with. In a setting where everyone is chromed up to some degree, Ark can turn ''anyone'' into an extension of itself if they aren't protected with military-grade ICE. The abundance of hackable technology means that it can strike from anywhere and at any time even without Metsuboujinrai.NET to serve as its arms and legs.

* NoPaperFuture: David complains that it's 2077 when Pilar and Rebecca make a mess of his office by printing out all their findings while conducting an investigation into the gangs of Night City. He wonders why they didn't just use digital displays or at least used a different, unused meeting room to make a mess in. Dorio also struggles to gently turn the pages of paper documents because of how flimsy they are to her.

* NotTheFallThatKillsYou: Justified. When David's plan to stop a runaway bus goes awry, he tries to stop it from going careening off the road by using [[RazorFloss monowire]] as a BladeBrake to anchor the bus to the highway above it. Luckily for everyone involved, Hiden's R&D took a situation like this into account and had the monowire gradually tighten to slow the bus down rather than bringing it to a sudden stop, letting it gently hang a foot from the ground without throwing the passengers overboard.

* OneDegreeOfSeparation: V's and David's respective social circles overlap to this extent. V's favorite ripperdoc, Viktor Vector, is based in the same building as Misty, who's the girlfriend of Jackie Welles, a friend of the Martinezs. The author has gone on the record about his intentions to keep this level of separation as V and David operate differently.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: Subverted. On the surface, this is the reason why Maine's crew "sold-out" and went from being respected Cyberpunks to Corpo minions. But their side chapters paint a different picture. Maine is a FatherToHisMen who wanted to give his crew a better, safer life, Kiwi wanted to be free of the cutthroat backstabbing and paranoia that came with life in Night City, and Pilar wanted to make sure that his FamilyOfChoice (especially Maine given his chrome addiction) got the treatment and care they needed.

** The normally foul-mouthed and boisterous Rebecca, after receiving unintentional advice by David about how to gain some of Hiden's cutting edge weapons legally, gives him a relatively quiet and serious thank you. Everyone is visibly unnerved by her DissonantSerenity.

** David has a habit of sticking his foot in his mouth because of how fast his life is moving. During his first day on the job, he thoughtlessly calls attention to a briefcase that Aruto says the other {{Mega Corp}}s would kill to get. Later on, he congratulates Kiwi on cleaning up the media fiasco he caused, earning him a prolonged death threat from her.
** This is discussed by Regina, who remarks how obvious it is that David has no experience handling the media, making him an easy target for slander and smear jobs. He asks her former colleague [[IntrepidReporter Max]] to look out for David, lest David be buried under a pile of bad press.
* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: While David was a straight-A student and an outsider among the corpo elite, Arasaka intelligence indicates that there aren't any physical or genetic markers that make him special. His courage and willingness to help others aside, he's a perfectly ordinary teenager with no traits that would mark him as an ideal Kamen Rider. Given that David doesn't chrome up like his ''Edgerunner'' counterpart, he has no reason to believe he's anything special either as he doesn't discover his tolerance for cyberware. David's life before Hiden is so ordinary his classmates at Hiden International Private School are dumbstuck that he's never learned to shoot and kill to survive given the nature of Night City.
* OutsideContextProblem: Ark and the Kamen Riders are entities completely outside the normal frame of reference of the Corpos and Cyberpunks in Night City. In particular, the Ark's abilities (which including violating the law of conservation) make it a threat beyond even what Maxtac can handle.

* QuicklyDemotedWoman: {{Subverted|Trope}} with Lucy - while she swiftly loses her position as Head of Cybersecurity for Hiden, this is because she made the choice to become David's secretary, and her replacement is the equally feminine Kiwi.

* DestructiveSaviour: While David succeeds in rescuing Jose from being one of Ark's puppets, the resulting fight totals the H.I. General Hospital's construction site and sets the project back for months.

* GoingNative: Despite continuing to work to find a way home, the members of Hiden Intelligence are equally devoted to improving the CrapsackWorld they've found themselves in, standing out as the only MegaCorp with an HonestCorporateExecutive and fighting evil with Kamen Riders.

* NoPaperFuture: David complains that it's 2077 when Pilar and Rebecca make a mess of his office by printing out all their findings while conducting an investigation into the gangs of Night City. He wonders why they didn't just use digital displays or at least used a different, unused meeting room to make a mess in.