[LNH/RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies #11

[Saxon Brenton]

[LNH/RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies #11
 
Manga Man wandered over to a vending machine and got himself a cup of
coffee.
 
In it's rather scattershot way, the Legion's total inability to focus
on the problem at hand was paradoxically reassuring.  He had seen
things like this before - with the heroes haring off in hundred
different directions at once, trying to solve a multitude of problems
simultaneously.  They would, inevitably, overcome them all, just in
time to get their act together for the big climactic fight scene
against the main bad guy.
 
He smiled.  He'd had a number of his own villainous schemes thwarted
in just that manner.  Ah, great days, great days.
 
Still, it was mildly irritating that Tsar Chasm could waltz in during
the _Birth Of A Villain_ cascade and wrest for himself the leadership
of a group of Legionnaires for battle against Melissa and the Church
of the Fourth Wall, while he, Manga Man, could not.  He made a mental
note to remember that as a slight against himself, so that he could
work it in as a revenge motive the next time he came into direct
conflict against the Legion.  Then he took a sip of his coffee and
walked off towards the computer room.  He might as well use the spare
time to start having the archive affecting virus examined while the
LNH entertained themselves with the Grapety Purple Man, and maybe
install a few backdoor programs to compromise their computer security
while he was at it.
 
When Manga Man arrived at the LNH-HQ computer room, it flickered
briefly as it reacted to his presence and reconfigured itself into a
more manga/anime design sensibility.  No longer was it a large
computing centre with impressive equipment and a few chocolate
wrappers where Renegade Programmer had dropped them.  Now it was an
absolutely gi-normous computer centre, several stories tall, with all
sorts of funky looking computer equipment and consols and
unidentifiable techy looking stuff, which included huge metallic
conduits of vaguely disturbing organic shape that flowed down from the
walls to connect to the consols.  Numerous holographic displays
floated in mid-air (some at levels and angels that made them
essentially impossible to read from ground levels, but there you go). 
It looked pretty neat.
 
The change briefly startled wReamhack and the aforementioned Renegade
Programmer.  "Wha?"
 
"Say, nice place you have here," said Manga Man.
 
"Manga Man!  What are you doing here!?"
 
"Delivering a warning to the LNH about a virus that's set to wipe
out...  Oh look, the explanation will be on the security camera tapes.
 Here," he said, and hit a button a random, which by pure plot
contrivance immediately brought up a replay of his conversation with
the other Legionnaires from #5.
 
"Okay," said wReamhack.  "So what are you doing *here*?"
 
"The others are fighting with the Grapety Purple Man," Manga Man said,
punching another random button and bringing up the camera view of what
was currently going on - which was the defeat of the Grapety Purple
Man and the arrival of the Kool-Aid Man.  "Hmf.  Well, if it's not one
thing it's another," he muttered.  "But to get back to your question,
I thought I'd appraise the LNH's computer experts of the virus problem
and let you get to work on it."
 
"Then I guess we'd better start," said Renegade Programmer.  "The
ballot was just posted, so we've got just under a month to sort this
out."
 
"A month?" said Manga Man.  "Oh, of course.  Real Life time." 
Depending on how fast the posting rate for stories in the cascade
were, the amount of time that they, personally, actually had could be
considerably less.
 
Renegade Programmer set to work right away, leaning over his keyboard
and beginning a search and diagnostic for the virus.  wReamhack, who
had a slightly better developed sense of paranoia, looked at Manga Man
and asked, "So you think we'll find a cure while the others are busy?"
 
"Immediately? No," replied Manga Man.  "Well, not unless this story is
being set up for an ironic, post-modern ending.  More likely -
certainly more preferably - several different attempts to deal with
the problem will all produce results and come together at the same
time for a dramatic ending."
 
"So why haven't you got your people working on it?"
 
"I haven't got the resources available at the moment."
 
"Hah?"
 
"No, it's true," said Manga Man.  "After Panta wrested my Otaku Empire
away from me [in _Tales Of The LNH_ #358 - Footnote Girl] I've been
having to build up my organisation from scratch.  I just don't have
any tech support among my Legions of Terror available just at the
moment."
 
Which was true... as far as it went.  Manga Man currently *did* have a
smaller organisation than he had possessed before - but not by much. 
The REAL reason that he didn't have the resources available was
because they were pretty much all tied up in his attempts to ferment
chaos in other fanfiction newsgroups as part of a power grab attempt
[as revealed in _Cauliflower The Christmas Miracle Pooch_ #4 -
Footnote Girl].  And bluntly, Manga Man wanted to keep these two
projects absolutely separate.  If they became entangled, the
inevitably the LNH would take down his own project as part of the
mopping up operation to this virus problem.  So, no siphoning off even
a tiny number of minions to help out with the virus problem; too much
risk of the LNH finding out about it.  And besides, if he couldn't
manipulate the LNH by himself while his loyal minions did their
assigned tasks, well, what sort of an evil mastermind was he?
 
Manga Man smiled beatifically.  He liked the irony.  Assisting the
Legion of Net.Heroes on one endeavour as a way of distracting them
from his own villainous scheme.
 
wReamhack's eyes narrowed when he saw that smile.  "What are you
grinning at?"
 
"I just realised that we've missed something.  All of us, you Legion
mega-brains included," Manga Man said smoothly.  "How did the Grapety
Purple Man get into Real Life -1 to mind control that dimension's
counterpart of Saxon Brenton?  I think I'd better go and investigate
that."  And with a swirl of his cape he turned and left.
 
==========
 
So gentlepersons, will that be an adequate explanation top cover Manga
Man's two 'appearances'?  I realise that Ultimate Ninja said in
_Cauliflower_ #4 that he'd dispatched some teams to investigate the
events in the other newsgroups, but perhaps they simply haven't
reported back yet.  I haven't got much of an idea of why Manga Man was
bored at the start of _Just Imagine..._ except that perhaps that
fermenting chaos is just so *routine* these days?
 
---
Saxon Brenton     Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au