We had a problem. Although the (former) Hecrenews had somehow avoided the courtroom (mostly due to the powers of a certain Af Roman), masterful litigator Hon Hon Taj Boxes demanded nothing less than the H-E-C from the (former) Hecrenews. We were reduced to Renews, a frankly quite poor name.

But there was still hope.

Since we had lost our original H, E, and C, all we had to do was procure three more letters. But how would we go about doing that. From what we had learned during the settlement meeting, it took a world-renowned persuader to even try and take letters away from an establishment as powerful as the Hecrenews. We definitely didn’t have one of those up our collective sleeves. But we did have Mister Mjir’s address book. It got us out of trouble in the last two ‘Update on our Legal Troubles’, so we were really hoping for something–or someone– miraculous.

We weren’t disappointed.

HIdden within the folds of the seemingly infinite contact list was not a master procrastinator, or a master intimidator. Instead, there was only an address. I’ll be the first to admit that this was sus, but Mister Mjir was confident in his phonebook that none of us questioned it.

On a dark and gloomy night, we assembled at the location: the local wharf. And sure enough, there it was. A sleek, spiffy cruiser bobbing on the waves. And what a name! Painted in bright gold lettering, the words “S.S. Hookah” seemed to radiate an air of superiority.

“She was once used to carry balloon troopers, back in the old days”, said Mjir. “Used to be a mobile takeoff and landing platform for them. But when they discontinued the balloon trooper program, probably because their balloons kept getting popped, I bought the ship. Gave it a few spiffy upgrades, and here you have it. Little known fact, it was actually made about a week from today, many many years ago.”

After wishing the S.S. Hookah a very happy early birthday, the hecrenews staff (minus the boss, he never does anything) boarded the ship and we were off to find (and forcibly capture) the letters.

H

First, the H. We first asked the HBA for their H, and after getting roasted horribly for being an inferior organization, we decided to search for another source. The intrepid crew of the S.S. Hookah (also referred to as “we” or “us”) traveled all over until reaching the very narrow shores of Bosnia and HHerzegovina. Apparently having a (former) warship land on your beaches demanding payment isn’t a good thing, so the army showed up to welcome us in full. It didn’t look good, but luckily, Af Roman was on a tour of the lands of his (former) empire (stretched all the way to Britannia!) and decided to tan his afro on the beaches.

Seeing us cornered and about to start (in sing-songy voice) getting shot at (end sing-songy voice), Af Roman quickly intimidated the soldiers and convinced them that they had one more “H” than they knew what to do with. As a thank you for helping them realize this (or maybe they were just too intimidated to act otherwise), the soldiers gave the H to Af Roman. Instead of re-naming himself to Ha(l)f Roman (“100%. Alway full Roman dyude”), Af Roman gave the H to us. After provisionally renaming Renews to Shrewne (we really, really didn’t want to be called Renews for any longer), we set off to find the E.

E

Not surprisingly, the army of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina wasn’t too inclined to give us another one of their all-too-precious letters, so we set our sights elsewhere. We zoomed halfway around the world to get to where we thought the next letter would be. Thank goodness for those sea currents! In about no time at all, we reached the city of Seattle, home of tech giant Ama-Zone.

Unsurprisingly, the board members weren’t all to keen on giving the Shrewne staff one of their letters. But since they were corporate types, they were willing to trade. Only letter(s) for their E, they said. We were struck dumbfounded. How were we going to pay this, when our name still had two letters missing!?

And at that precise moment, Shroops The Mighty sauntered into the board meeting. Okay, to be honest, he sauntered in a good couple of hours after we were deliberating which letter in which name was the least important (I voted for one of Banana The Human’s “A”’s, because then he could change the rest of his letters into “Ah! Bean Manhunt!”). Shroops, while lacking the intimidatory prowess of Af Roman, did possess numerous procrastination techniques. As soon as (30 minutes after) he walked in, he offered the board members an irresistible deal. They give us their “E”, and Shroops gives them his entire “The Mighty”. 9 for 1 deal! Of course the board members were ecstatic. They quickly quickly gave us the E, and then hungrily turned to Shroops The Mighty, and “un-’the-mighty’-ing” contract already drafted an in their hands.

It was almost like Shroops (still The Mighty) had started to move in slow motion. He made a nearly imperceptible movement towards the contract then another. Slowly but surely, he was actually going to sign! All of us felt great admiration for Shroops’s sacrifice. But then he horribly faked a medical disaster and made us carry him away on a stretcher made from the stretched-out body of Eif al-Tawa. The corporates were incredulously enraged, but they were too old to follow us.

That event might have been in a bit of a legal grey/gray area, but I’m no legal expert, I’ll leave that to Wopps. Still, we had our “E”! I’m sure that this will never come back to bite Shroops The Mighty in the arse (but if it does, you know that the New Shere(khan) (which is what we again provisionally named ourselves) will be there to cover it (unless we forget, or we procrastinate, or a whole bunch of other reasons)).

C

One letter left. But this one seemed like the hardest to get. We had to go all the way to the ice planet Ch’oth and somehow wrangle that “C”, with one little problem. We were still on Earth! How would the New Shere(khan) ever become the hecrenews again!? Luckily, Mister Mjir’s “upgrades” were very numerous. In addition to countless cup-holders, he had installed a pair of rocket engines onto the back. And off we were!

Ch’oth was mighty cold, and the only species there were these camel-things and a big old carnivorous yeti-type. They didn’t look like the kind that would at all notice a letter missing, so we were all poised to take the “C” when Mister Mjir (curse that guy’s goodness!) said we needed to give something in return. So when we finally touched down at (finally) Hecrenews HQ, we set the S. S. Hookah on autopilot, back to that planet. Let the yeti knock itself out zooming across the landscape, I guess.

Huzzah! We were Hecrenews again! No more Renews, take that!

And then finally there was Blat Beck to contend with. Or, as he had recently started calling himself, B. C. Heckle Beta. Heckle Beta had used the (former) Hecrenews’s most sacred letter to create such a monstrosity of a name. Word had spread that he was preparing to ally himself with [that rival blog site that the boss still won’t let any of us mention]. And to think that once upon a time, B. C. Heckle Beta was a hecrenews employee. Oh, how far he has fallen!

Well, this Legal Update has really taken its time to come out. Either because the whole staff (writers included) took a multi-stage adventure or procrastination, I’m not really sure. I’ve taken over from Wopps on this series-ting, it seems that as one member returns, another one leaves. Mighty sus, if I do say so myself. I’m not sure if these three articles should be called “An Update on Our Legal Troubles” or “Mjir’s Address Book Hardcore Carries”.

Huh, I was just informed that every Hecrenews writer needs to make daily articles. Whaaat?

Now, I really do need to come up with some sort of signature way to end these articles that isn’t too rambly or anything. Maybe I’ll just pick a random spot to stop wri