"Cool." Jude said, giving me a thumbs up and acting like this was completely expected. "You going to change your name and pronouns?"

"Uhhhh." That wasn't something I had really thought about. Did I want to change my name and pronouns? Absolutely! Did I know what I wanted to change them to? Not at all. Well, that wasn't completely true; the pronouns question was easy. I just didn't have any ideas for names.

"I think I'd like to change my pronouns, but I've got no ideas for the name." I explained. "The same goes with my hero persona."

"Alright. You want to try they/them, or were you thinking of going straight to she/her?" Jude inquired.

My answer came very quickly. "she/her!" Taking a deep breath, I continued. "It's not that I have a problem with they/them; she/her just feels... different."

"Cool, cool." Jude replied. "The names are going to be a lot trickier, though. Any theme you want to try to stick to?"

"Not really." I answered. "I was thinking maybe something German or Irish as a nod to my heritage, but I'm not really set on anything specific."

Jude hummed for a moment, thinking. "What about Brunhilda? It's definitely got the Germanness you wanted."

"Isn't that the Valkyrie from that really long opera?" I asked, a bit surprised by the suggestion.

"I think so." Jude replied. "What don't want everyone to think, you're an opera nerd?"

"More so concerned about sounding like an old lady." I told them. "Hilda sounds kind of cute, though. I think I'll put that on the maybe list."

The next few hours passed slowly as Jude and I spitballed name ideas. We found a few more names to add to the maybe list, but Hilda was still the top contender. I decided I'd look into the other Valkyrie later to see if any of their names stood out to me.

As Jude was getting ready to leave, they turned to me, a thoughtful look on their face. "Are you wanting to get in contact with Artemis?"

Right. I had almost forgotten the entire inciting incident. "Yeah. I think I do." And with that, Jude was gone, and I was alone in my apartment once more. 

Throwing myself from the chair, I crashed onto my bed. It felt like I had done almost nothing that day. Nonetheless, I was exhausted. Why was self-discovery so exhausting?

Flipping myself onto my back, I started practicing with my powers. Sadly, I couldn't really do anything too impressive inside my apartment. Still, there were things I could work on even here.

First, I decided to test if there was a maximum length to my chains. Willing the chains to follow my commands, I watched as it coiled on the floor next to me. The minutes passed as hundreds of feet of chain flew from my palm. Then, incredibly suddenly, I felt myself weaken. Strength fled from my body, and everything screamed in pain. There was only one thing I could think of to do.

Willing the chains to return to me, I could feel the pain lessen with every link that vanished into my palm. The pain was excruciating but slowly faded as a cold sensation wrapped around my ribs. It wasn't pleasant, but it was definitely better than the pain.

Wrapping me in my blankets, I closed my eyes. I had already been exhausted, but after the pain had faded, I could barely keep my eyes open. It was time for me to get some sleep.

The next time I opened my eyes, the only light in the room came from the digital clock on the microwave. Apparently, it was 4 in the morning. The cold sensation in my ribs had faded by now, and my stomach felt painfully empty.

Throwing myself out of bed, I stumbled over to the kitchen. Deciding that the pizza didn't have much longer before it went bad, I threw it in the microwave. It was almost definitely weird, but to me, there was something strangely satisfying about microwaved pizza.

Retrieving my food from the microwave, I sat at my computer desk. Waking up the machine, I decided to look into the different Valkyrie. Starting with the genesis for this research, I found myself on Brunhilda's wiki page. What I found there was much more interesting than I had expected.

Her name was one of the most interesting things to me. Brunhilda was a combination of two old high German words: brunia, meaning armor, and hiltia, meaning conflict. Sadly, like most women in legends of the time, no matter how badass she was, most of her story was defined by the men in her life. 

There was something else on the page that stole my attention, though. As I scrolled past, a single word caught my focus. Reading further, I found it was a name of at least a way that a Valkyrie referred to herself. Sigrdrífa had instantly become the top contender for my hero name, the most straightforward translation of it being 'inciter to victory.'

There wasn't much on the site about Sigrdrífa. Apparently, her story was nearly identical to Brunhilda's, causing some to believe them to be the same person. The other piece of that argument was that Sigrdrífa was a synonym with Valkyrie. It sounded plausible, but I wasn't knowledgeable enough to call on that.

Returning to the space marine models, I zoned out working on them. A few hours passed before I was disturbed by a flurry of notifications from Discord. Checking the notifications, I found a few new messages on one of the servers I was on and a couple of direct messages from Jude. Prioritizing the direct message, I checked what Jude had sent me.

Judas: I got some more information on the Huntresses for you.

Judas: It turns out they're a sub-branch of a larger Greek mythology-themed agency. Luckily, their Zeus seems to have a pretty decent reputation.

After reading them, I decided to message Jude back before I checked the server.

DiscontentedMass: Interesting. Any idea how I'm supposed to get ahold of them?

While waiting for Jude to respond, my mind began to obsess over my discord name. I was deeply unsatisfied with it. It was supposed to be a bit of a joke referencing the discontented masses and expressing my dissatisfaction with the state of the world, but in the end, it felt more like a bad fat joke. Just another name I needed to change, I guess.

Judas: Your best bet would probably be to just go to their HQ. It would be easier to explain your story in person. 

Logically, that made a lot of sense. Still, I was absolutely terrified at the proposition of going. Going into a hero agency with no guarantee I wouldn't be arrested just felt wrong.

DiscontentedMass: Really?! Can't we just call them or something? She literally asked me to call her.

I could only let out an angry sigh in response to their following message.

Judas: Can you show them your powers over the phone? You need to be able to prove who you are. They probably have asshat calling them all day with fake leads and shit.

DiscontentedMass: Fine.

I sent back, resigning myself to my fate.

Judas: Great! I'll pick you up in a few hours, and we'll start making our way over to the peninsula.

Sending an affirmative thumbs up in response, I clicked over to check what was happening on the server. The server was made by a friend of mine in high school. Slowly, over the years, people came and went from the server, but I mostly only talked to the older members. Only really interacting with the new member while gaming or during the occasional tabletop campaign.

A few people were having a chat on the general channel. It was mostly ley hero news, only slipping onto unrelated tangents a few times. The only part I really paid attention to, though, was some of the more recent ones, where they started talking about the chain meta.

ShiftyGabbo: @everyone you seen this shit.

A news clip of the man strung up in the alleyway was linked underneath the message.

NoEyesGayDragon: Holy shit, dude!

LavenderMenace: I saw it last night. The news is calling them a villain in the making.

NoEyesGayDragon: Really! Like fucking nothing has been reported on what actually happened, and they're already calling them a villain. I don't even know if they ever got the guy down.

ShiftyGabbo: They did. He's in the hospital now. Apparently, his injuries were so bad they don't know how he survived up there for so long.

LavenderMenace: that's fucking crazy.

LavenderMenace: @Judas, what do you think? You usually keep a close eye on meta news.

Judas: I think the chain meta's going to be making waves, especially with the Huntresses trying to recruit her and all.

LavenderMenace: Wait, the chain meta's she and the Huntresses are trying to recruit her!!!!!!

Judas: Yes, Lav. Now calm your overactive lesbian mind (or whatever else you might need to calm). I've got nothing else to share.

LavenderMenace: You'll never be able to keep me away from chain mommy forever!!!

Lav ended her message with a series of tongue sticking out emojis.

Judas: Whatever you say, Lav. We all need dreams, don't we? 

The topic shifted from there, and I quickly lost interest. I didn't know how I felt about Lav's messages. It was definitely flattering, but there was an unfamiliar discomfort to it. I'd have to talk to Jude about that later.

On the topic of telling people things, should I start telling people I'm trans? The idea of telling my family was impossibly terrifying. It wasn't that they were bigoted or anything; we just weren't the best at talking about our feelings. There were others, though, that felt like they would be much less intimidating to tell. People like Lav, NoEyes, and maybe even Gabbo.

After arguing with myself about it for a minute, I decided to send them all the same message at the same time.

DiscontentedMass: Sooooo....... I'm trans.

NoEyes was the first to reply.

NoEyesGayDragon: Shit. Now I owe Lav $20.

DiscontentedMass: Why???

NoEyesGayDragon: We had a bet going on whether you were gay or an egg. I lost.

DiscontentedMass: Well... you might be able to convince her it's a draw since both apply.

NoEyesGayDragon: Ohhhh! I can't wait till Lav finds out.

Letting that conversation end there, I moved on to the next reply, which, to no one's surprise, was Lav.

LavenderMenace: HOLYSHIT!HOLYSHIT!HOLYSHIT!HOLYSHIT!

DiscontentedMass: Lav! Calm down! It's not that big of a deal.

LavenderMenace: NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL. One of my closest friends just told me they're trans, and you're saying it's not a big deal. 

LavenderMenace: Are you changing your name?

LavenderMenace: What about pronouns?

Lav sent in rapid fire.

DiscontentedMass: Lav, if you want me to answer, you're going to have to calm down a bit.

LavenderMenace: Right. Sorry.

Sighing at her overeagerness, I sent my next message.

DiscontentedMass: I haven't decided on a name yet, but I would like to start using she/her.

LavenderMenace: OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!OMG!

Seeing that I wasn't going to get anything coherent from Lav for a bit, I clicked over to the final person's reply. In the end, it was the least expected but most obvious reaction.

ShiftyGabbo: Okay. Have fun with that, I guess.

It wasn't the most elegantly worded response, but Gabbo had never been the most elegant of people. Still, something about his casual acceptance just hit different. I knew it wasn't likely, but I hope most people react like that.

Hopping off Discord, I got back to work on the space marine models. I still had a few hours until Jude showed up, and I was almost done with the commission. It would be nice to have some spending money while we were out on the peninsula.

gNatonthewall

Hello, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Let me know what you thought about how I integrated the messages. I wasn't really satisfied, but I have no idea how to do any of the formatting things that I would need for that. On a different note, you may have seen the announcement the other day. To go into a bit more detail, I was finally able to convince a long-term friend of mine to start writing again. The current plan is for them to write a parallel story to mine and begin posting after I reach a certain point. I hope some of you will decide to go check it out, but be warned, they are a darker writer than I am. Finally, what are your thoughts on the possible names? I haven't decided on anything yet, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Thank you all for reading, commenting, and favoriting. Have a nice day.