Hello peeps! Lovely day isn't it? Thank you all for sticking with WIR so far! I hadn't checked the number of views in a while, so imagine my surprise when it went well above 1500! Thank you all so much!

As you well know, this is the last chapter, a pseudo-chapter, of this arc.

This mean that the next arc will be published under a separate story.

*Drum roll* And now, without further ado- the poll results!


With a total of 35 votes, the distribution is as follows:

Unconsciousness pulls ahead by a stunning 14 votes, Vagabond follows with 11 votes and last but not the least, Evil Army with 10 votes!

Really guys, thank you! I didn't expect such a turnout. You guys really exceeded my expectations. Thank you all who took the time to vote!

And now, the reason I did this:

It all started because of one thing- writer's block.

I am known to do crazy things when that happens. One time, I scared my parents by screaming because I didn't know the function of a rheostat. At 11:59 pm. (My mum patted my head while papa looked it up- it's a variable resistor used to regulate current flow or something similar. I don't know what I could do without them.)

But I digress- as I said, writer's block. But then, by the grace of the nine muses, I had a stroke of inspiration- three of them in fact.

Three ideas of how the story could progress.

It was like a new world opened up its horizons.

But.

They were all equally appealing.

Then came a question of note.

What should I use?

After much deliberation and crying, I came to the conclusion that I could not bear to part with even one of them.

So, I decided to use all of them!

Of course, it was silly, but here came another question.

(Apart from the obvious, 'Am I insane?!')

In what order should I use them?

This was actually important because I had a few things in mind that would work with some and not with others.

Things like Jason's and Nico's reunion, Reyna's introduction, anything to do with Hazel, Bianca's future, if it exists in the first place, and so on so forth.

Of course, in hindsight, I should have made it a bit easier for my readers (you lovelies!) to vote, and I should have given these reason in the beginning.

But it was done in a moment of madness and by the time I came out of it, the ball was rolling.

Quite well that too.

And what more, the ambiguity of the poll allowed y'all to go crazy.

(I hope) It made you wonder and theorize and bang your head on the wall to figure it out.

That's always a good thing in my book.

So this is the effect: in the second book of Written In Reverse (whose name I haven't decided on), there will have decided three arcs- Analepsis (name of the Unconsciousness arc meaning 'hindsight'), Wanderer (one of the English translations of the French word, Vagabond) and Double Agent (a.k.a. a cooler name for the Evil Army arc).

I think you can guess what some of them are about based on their names.

I haven't written them yet, but please look forward to it!

But the third arc of WIR is already written and will be out soon! Here's a short (very short) preview-


Book one

Third Arc: Cross-tides

Chapter 10: Of Swords and Dummies


Thwump.

The sound of a sword partially imbedded into armor.

Shlink.

The sound of metal grating upon metal.

Slash.

The sound of the opponent's head as it is thrown off their shoulders.

Thump.

The sound of a head landing on the floor to rest with several others.

Silence, disturbed only with the sound of harsh panting.

Nico snarled. He stabbed his celestial bronze practice sword into his opponent's torso.

Once.

Twice.

And once more for good measure.

Each time he pulled his sword out, a bunch of his opponent's innards flew out.

Soon, all that was left of the poor training dummy was a dented piece of metal which once bore a meek resemblance to armor, and a loose cloth bag resembling a deflated balloon, once stuffed to the brim with hay.

The few lone pieces of hay that stuck to the dummy only added to the pathetic nature of the picture.


And now, for a spot of world-building.

Regarding Nico's time Travel:

In case the title and the summary haven't clued you in, this is a time travel fic. And Nico di Angelo (who's around 18 or 19) has time traveled to the past to try and make a mess of a very unpleasant future.

Why do I state the obvious, you ask?

Well, some lovely conspiracy theorists have brought up an interesting question: What happened to Nico's younger self?

This is my personal theory, but feel free to expand on or be selective about it.

So. Consider a person's life to be spring. You know, one of those loose metal coils- like the ones that come out of old furniture in Tom and Jerry?

As a person grows older, as one spends one's time in the world, the spring develops. Grows. For example, if you consider two points of time in a persons life, with a period of one year in-between, then the coil would gradually gain another turn.

This is what happens naturally.

Here, there is no pressure on either side.

But what Kronos has done: he has kind of- compressed Nico's life… spring.

Squeezed/pushed/pressed the ends together.

Basically, Nico's an old soul in a young body.

This is what Apollo picks up on.

But before go to that, here's a plot bunny to chew on.

In regards to the linear movement of time: Nico's younger self is still there, but it has matured all of a sudden.

Regarding Apollo's Suspicion:

As I said, old soul, young body.

Usually, this means Nico would stand out like a sore thumb, more so than he did the last time around.

But he has one advantage- he was in the Lotus Casino.

With Bianca.

When Apollo notices Nico's life-spring, he also notices his sister's, whose life-spring is similarly compressed because of her stay in the Casino.

So Apollo's suspicious, but since he sees both siblings as a set and if and when he looks into this using Bianca as a reference point- he will be satisfied.

This is what would happen.

If it were anyone but Nico.

But.

With his luck.

It's a case of close but no cigar.

…I warned you that things would happen.

But more of that later.

Regarding Nico's age:

Okay, this is a bit troublesome. The books weren't clear and Uncle Rick wasn't any better.

So.

Based on what we do know, canon, when Nico asked Grover what was the rating of the orientation video saying that 'Bianca's kind of strict' and Grover answers 'PG-13', we can assume that he's about that age. My personal head canon, and canon as far as this fic goes, is that he is twelve and a half in the Titan's curse.

With his b-day in Jan, he'd soon be 13, and that's why he thought it was okay to watch it even though his sis told him not to.

Of course, that could also just be little Nico being a little rebel (and if that isn't the cutest, I don't know what is).

So if Nico's 12 in TC, 13 in BotL, 14 in tLO he would be around 15 in BoO.

And now, the sticky part.

Lotus Casino.

The heck do I do with it?

Canon, Nico spent seventy-ish years in the Casino.

It wasn't touched upon much, so it has the unlimited potential of the unknown.

I haven't tapped into it yet, but maybe later.

And now, some of the more popular questions that have been asked:

Reg: What Nico Feels about Bianca

Reg: Alliance Camp Nico

Reg: Quest in Titan's Curse

Reg: What Jason saw

Reg: What happens to Zoe Nightshade and Bianca di Angelo?

These will be addressed in the upcoming chapters.

If you have any other queries, then feel free to ask! I'll try my best to explain it. I might reply late into the story because I want to avoid spoilers as and when possible, but it will be answered in all due time.

Well, that's it for now.

Once again, thank you for sticking with me through two arcs and keep an eye out for the third and last arc of this book: Cross-Tides, coming soon.

Silver Wolf, signing out.