LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #107: Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies! Part Six

[Arthur Spitzer]

In this weeks reposting of stuff you can find in the eyrie archive
https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/
we have the sixth section of Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies!


Saxon Brenton returns with issue 11.  Will Manga man wander over to the
LNHQ's vending machine to get a cup of coffee?  And will we get an answer 
to that in very first sentence of this story?

And Martin Phipps returns with #12.  Will the Ultimate Ninja be able to
live with the fact that Sidewinder thinks he's a sellout?  Or will this
be the Ultimate Undoing of the Ultimate Ninja?

Find that out and more in...

              _						
             | |      Classic			
             | |                      =
             | |      ____    ____    _    ____    ___
             | |__   | [] |  | [] |  | |  | [] |  | _ \  

             |____|   \__]    \__ |  |_|   \__/   |_|\_\
                                 ||
                                |_|  OF NET.HEROES

                                    ADVENTURES #107


                         =====================
              Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies! Part Six
                         =====================





From: saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au (Saxon Brenton)
Subject: [LNH/RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies #11
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Date: 2 Feb 2005 06:09:53 -0000

[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

From: phippsmartin at hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [LNH/RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies #11
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Date: 2 Feb 2005 10:33:25 -0000

[LNH/RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies #12

One week later.

"What's he doing here?" Sidewinder asked Ultimate Ninja.

"It's quite simple," Ultimate Ninja explained.  "We can't allow the
Kool-Aid Man to go around causing property damage like that."

"But he's a _villain_."

"He's a lawyer," Ultimate Ninja said, "and a good one.  If we hadn't
hired him then the Kool-Aid company would have hired him.  Then we'd
have to take our chances with a different lawyer."

"So it doesn't matter to you that he has represented net.villains in
the past?"

Ultimate Ninja shrugged his shoulders.  "We have to give the man
credit.  He's represented people in the past who were obviously guilty
but he managed to get them off.  He's a good lawyer."

"He is _evil_."

"He was just doing his job."

Sidewinder shook his head.  "I don't know, Ninj.  I never saw you as a
sellout."

Meanwhile, the Legion's financiers, Irony Man and Elvis Man, discussed
the case with Leroy Laurel, aka Lethal Lawyer.

==========

At that same time, in the Monitor Room.

"Hey, wReamHack, Renegade Programmer, how are things coming a long?"
Deja Dude asked.

"Not bad," wReamHack explained.  "All the major anti-virus software
companies have been contacted and are aware of this new virus and are
including a fix for the virus in the current versions of their
programs.  They're also sending out updates to people who have already
purchased their software."

"Unfortunately," Renegade Programmer said sadly, "not everybody uses
anti-virus software and those who do still need to keep it updated to
counter threats like these.  And those who have updated software have
to remember to scan their computers regularly to remove the vruses."

"Yeah," wReamHack said, "but the biggest threat was to eyrie.org.  As
long as Eagle keeps his computers virus free then the eyrie archives
will be safe.  I don't know about google.com.  All we can do is wait
and see what happens when the RACCies results come back."

"I guess we kinda panicked a bit," Deja Dude said, sheepishly.

"Not necessarily," Renegade Programmer said.  "Viruses are a real
threat.  The only way to be absolutely safe from them is to not connect
to the internet.  Unfortunately, the internet is the main reason why
people choose to have computers in the first place."

Deja Dude nodded.  "Yeah, well, as long as the Legion can continue in
some form or another then we won't need to worry."

==========

Later, that evening, in the room belonging to Firewire, formally
Anti-septic Lad...

"I have returned!"

"Who are you?" Firewire asked.

"I am the Shoe Devil!" the Shoe Devil told him.  "Remember?  I granted
you your powers in exchange for your services!"

"What do you want?"

"I want you to help me!"

"Do what?"

"You shall help me to take from the members of the LNH all their
soles!"

"You're mad!"

"Today the LNH!  Tomorrow the world!"

==========

HOW does the Shoe Devil plan to take everybody's soles?
WHY does he want them?  Is this some kind of foot fetish?  Ew!
WILL Firewire agree to help the Shoe Devil?
WHEN will the case of the LNH vs. Kool Aid man go to trial?
WHAT wil be the outcome?

Martin

==========
Next Week: Just Imagine Saxon Brenton's RACCies! Now Imagine Part VII!
==========

Arthur "Same Classic Channel.  But Same Time?  Probably not." Spitzer