The second his Sandevistan dropped, Tanaka changed.
Not physically, at least not much, only his cyberware arm seeming to shift a bit, but it was his face that mainly tipped David off that they might have just poked the bear. Gone as the smile, gone was the spark in his eye…
Now all David could see was a cold look in his eyes that seemed to draw him in. Tanaka whipped around to face him now that the Sandevistan had stopped working its magic, and the guards collapsed on top of each other now that their boosts had also cut out.
David only spared a glance at the guards, and saw that they were leaking sparks from every bit of tech in them, and twitching like nothing else. He only got a moment to check on them, however, as he was forced to activate his Sandevistan and dodge a fucking spike that shot out of Tanaka's arm.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
A glance its way as his Sandevistan shut off again showed that it had enough power behind it to drive itself almost halfway into the reinforced concrete of the car park. He activated his Sandevistan again an instant later as he heard another spike being loaded into Tanaka's forearm.
David started sprinting through the green-tinged world, keeping his eye on Tanaka, who was moving uncomfortably fast compared to what David had anticipated. It wasn't equal to real-time like he was… but it was closer than he would have liked.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The sound of the giant spike firing went off in slow motion, and luckily after it left Tanaka's projectile launch system, it slowed right down, no longer affected by whatever was boosting Tanaka's speed.
Reaching down to the hip that faced away from Tanaka, David pulled his Overture out of storage, quickly whipping it up and firing at Tanaka's feet. He had to wait for an instant for the bullet to get out of the barrel of his pistol before moving again, not wanting to throw off the shot.
He technically couldn't injure Tanaka too badly, as the man undoubtedly had a high-tier Trauma Team package. And while he didn't understand all the technobabble when Lucy tried to explain, he got enough to know that an already active Trauma Team chip was harder to silence than a quiet one.
He saw Tanaka start to jump away from the bullet, albeit slowly in his Sandevistan vision, and that lets him switch focus for a second, sprinting up to his guards on the ground and firing his Overture into each of their helmets.
It was… remarkably easy to zero the guards. Flashbacks to the times that he'd watched the edgerunner series of BDs ran through his mind as the black, featureless helmet the guards were wearing cracked from the Overtures bullets.
He didn't get much time to think about the fact that he'd just killed two people, however, as he heard another spike being fired.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
His Sandevistan made it almost trivial to dodge the spike from the distance he'd put between him and Tanaka, merely stepping out of the way as he reached down to his hip, pulling 3 rounds for his Overture out of the storage space and reloading the revolver.
When he finished reloading, he let the Sandevistan drop for a moment, and heard a loud THUNK, from behind him, which was likely the third spike embedding into the wall. As he slowed down, Tanaka glared at him.
"You."
David felt his muscle tighten for a moment as the full weight of the man's cold aura was pointed right at him, but he forced them to stay as relaxed as possible. He couldn't get locked up against someone who had a speed booster as well.
Instead, he forced a toothy grin onto his face, smiling at the man. "Me."
Tanaka's arm audibly reloaded, which made David slightly wary again, but he couldn't have many more of those railway spikes loaded in his arm, could he? They were rather large, and he wasn't a very big man.
"You think this is a fucking joke? The only reason I didn't have you killed in your fucking sleep is because of your potential usefulness, you shit-for-brains punk, but you are quickly running down my patience for your bullshit."
Rumble
David actually laughed. "My potential usefulness, huh? Did you really think I was just gonna come along and be your corpo guinea pig? Well, guess what, you can fuck right off to hell, choom, 'cause I ain't going anywhere with you."
He didn't really get a chance to take a good look at Tanaka's face, because the man quickly whirled around as a large vehicle covered in scavenged armour roared into the car park, drifting to a stop a small distance away from them.
Tanaka, who realised quickly that he was being ambushed by more than just David, raised his projectile launcher arm over at the car, where David could see Maine and Becca already moving to get out of the car through the tinted windows.
Activating his Sandevistan and sprinting for Tanaka, he made a fist with both hands and slammed them into the top of Tanaka's firing arm, his enhanced speed putting the needed strength behind his arms to point the mains arms straight at the ground in front of him, even with Tanaka's own booster activated.
BOOM!
Because of how close he'd gotten, David was able to peek down Tanaka's jacket, spotting what looked like a middle-end Kreznikov peeking out of the man's skin on his back, lights yellow.
Not enough to truly keep up with his Sandevistan, but enough to likely outpace your average thug looking to kidnap or kill him.
Unfortunately, because of how he had hit Tanaka's arm, and the forward momentum he had, he was in a prime spot for retaliation, and his Sandevistan wasn't enough to get out of the way of Tanaka's arm slamming into his chest.
He coughed, his Sandevistan deactivating as he flew backwards, rolling along the floor, noticing that the [90] near the red bar that showed his 'health' drop down a couple of points each time he hit the ground, eventually dropping to [63] and stayed there as his momentum dropped.
With his Sandevistan deactivated, he was able to hear the sounds of the rest of the crew trying to pin down Tanaka in real-time. He was still a little nauseous from his sudden redirection thanks to Tanaka's attack, but after a moment, the Sandevistan did its thing, and he felt his mind and vision clear.
Before he'd even gotten up he made his Sandevistan activate, and used his arms to push himself upright, the extra power that using the Sandevistan gave his movement meant that just his arms were able to throw him to his feet, and he sprinted back over to the fight.
He didn't know much about the Kreznikov, but he did know that they weren't meant to be used this intensely or for this long, no bit of cyberware that affected your nerves was. David knew he was an exception to this rule because of his weirdly tolerant body and his Sandevistan, but Tanaka had neither.
He was quickly reaching the limit of his body's tolerance for cyberware use, and with the world slowed down as much as it was, David could tell that Tanaka knew it as well. He was also clearly out of shots for his arm cannon, because if he wasn't, it would have been easy to use them on the rest of Maine's crew, who were much slower.
He was still attempting to fight back, as his arms were made of metals and would still hurt at the speeds he was moving, but unfortunately, Maine was practically a walking tank. As David reached them, he saw Tanaka try to change focus to him, but he just wasn't fast enough.
Reaching down to his hip, he imagined the Overture swapping for a set of cuffs that Dorio had given him the previous day when they were testing what he could store. It turned out the answer was pretty much 'anything he could hold in at least two hands' which opened a lot of options for them.
Moving as fast as he could force himself to, David grabbed at Tanaka's arm and dragged it behind him, doing his best to move it so that he didn't break anything, before slapping it into one half of the cuff.
He actually had to jump back after that to avoid the metal elbow that was flying backwards at his head, and the shock jarred him out of his Sandevistan, as he hit the ground. He quickly hopped back up to his feet.
"C'mon kid! Get the other one!"
Nodding at Maine's words, he activated the Sandevistan for hopefully the final time of the fight, before shoulder-checking Tanaka's back at an upwards angle, using his knees to throw the man into the air.
With no leverage, Tanaka was practically helpless to resist as David reached up and yanked his chrome arm into place behind him, attaching the other cuff to it. He jiggled it slightly to make sure that it would hold up, and after he was fairly certain it would, he grabbed the back of Tanaka's shirt and stopped his upwards momentum.
Deactivating his Sandevistan allowed him to see Tanaka drop to the ground ass-first in real-time, letting out a loud thud as he did so. Reaching to his hip again, he grabbed out another pair of cuffs and moved in front of Tanaka, clipping them around his legs as well, so that he wouldn't be able to run somehow.
And with that, it was done. They had succeeded.
[Quest Completed!]
[800 XP | 1000 $$]
[You are Level 3!]
[+1 Attribute Point | +1 Perk Point]
As he smiled to himself about the Level Up, Becca slapped some form of tape over the man's mouth, right as he looked like he was about to start ranting, before taking a step back, a giant grin on her mouth. As Maine picked Tanaka up, practically throwing him into the back of their truck and starting it up, Becca walked up to David, elbowing his hip.
"God DAMN, Dimples! That was fucking Nova! I know that Maine told us you'd used the Sandevistan like, 11 times in one day before, but I have gotta say choom, I didn't quite believe him until now."
Rumble
David just grinned, leaning down a little to lightly elbow her shoulder in return. He looked towards the truck Maine was driving as the crew's boss waved from the driver's seat, driving off. As he did, he passed by a supremely well-looked-after Archer Hella. David kind of knew the brand, but he couldn't remember the exact model.
The car pulled up to them smoothly, parking right next to the pair, and the window rolled down, revealing a supremely well-looked-after moustache, attached to a man that looked older than David.
"Howdy, kids! The name's Falco. Are you two my pick-ups?"
After the stressful situation he'd just been in, hearing the man's southern accent say something as cliche as 'howdy' caused David to burst out into laughter, having to be guided into the back of the man's car by Becca, who was having trouble holding her own giggles down.