Hey everyone, and welcome (finally) to chapter five! Once again, I apologize for how long it's taken me to get this out! School, and, oh, hurricanes have gotten in the way. X.x But I finished one of my long-running fics awhile ago, so I can give this my full attention! YAY! ;D

Onto...

Chapter Five

It was hard to say who was more shocked, Sam and Tucker, or Dash and his crew. No, wait, it was quite easy to tell: Tuck and Sam were the shocked ones, while the letter-jacket crowd were just dumbfounded.

Dash stared for a second, his mouth hanging open, before sputtering out, "Fenton?!"

"That's Phantom," Danny spit out, his eyes somehow glowing an even more evil green. Sam kept on staring at him, still hanging onto his arm, her mouth hanging open.

After a second, she regained her composure. "Danny, how many times have I told you not to, uh..." Sam paused for a second, trying to think of a brilliant lie. "...Wear your Halloween costume to school?" It came out more like a question rather than a scold.

"Good one!" Tucker hissed.

"Shut up."

"No, really!"

Sam made a face over her shoulder and turned back to Danny, who was alternating between glaring at Dash and company and glancing lovingly at Sam. Wait, lovingly? Naaah. Danny didn't feel that way about her.

Fortunately, the school quarterback seemed to believe Sam's excuse. "Weird costume you've got, Fentonowski!" Dash laughed. "It's not enough Halloween yet, Spandex Boy!"

"Spandex Boy THIS!" Danny yelled out before shooting an ecto-plasmic beam at Dash, which caused him to fly backwards into the people standing behind him, which, of course, caused them all to smash into a wall.

"Strike one for the little guys!" Tucker laughed, taking tons of digital pics.

"Danny!" Sam hissed, trying to decide whether to laugh or yell. Before she could make any sort of reaction, though, Danny suddenly stared at his hands like he had never shot a plasma blast before. He glanced up at the fallen football team, at Sam, and back at his hands, his eyes getting wider by the second.

"Sam?" he whispered. "What did I...?"

The goth blinked. "Danny? You, uh, stupidly went into ghost mode and blast Dash and everyone into the wall."

"Why?"

Sam raised her eyebrows. "You don't remember...?" Then it hit her. He must've seen Desdemona before all this! Arrguh. That little...witch. Why would she torture her and Danny like this?

"Yo, we better get out of here before someone catches us!" Tucker finally said, keeping a lookout in case Lancer or another teacher walked by.

"Right," Danny agreed, feeling sort of dizzy. He transformed back into his Fenton self and giving one last confused at the fallen football players, followed Sam and Tucker down the hall and to their next class.

"Man dude, what sparked that?" Tuck asked, pushing random buttons on his PDA.

"I saw..." Danny started. He glanced at the PDA. "Did you get any pictures from what just happened? Because I know I saw Desdemona, but then she was gone and I..." He quickly looked at Sam and then back in front of him, his face feeling hot.

"You were—no, are a total idiot," Sam finished. "Danny, do you realize the seriousness of what you did?! Dash nowknows you're not just a normal person wandering the halls! And really, if he knows, everyone knows! He can't keep his nasally little voice to himself!"

Danny's shoulders drooped. "I...I don't even remember doing it...that's the weird part." Sam widened her eyes a bit, but Danny continued: "All I remember seeing is Desdemona, and then it felt like...well, you know how when you're awake, but you're dead tired, and it sort of feels like you're dreaming? Like you're not really living that moment?"

Tucker had no clue what he was talking about, but Sam nodded, so he did too, since they were obviously supposed to agree with their half-ghost best friend.

"Well," Danny continued, sinking his hands into his pockets. "And then, after I guess I blasted them, I woke up." He shook his head to himself. "I don't know what's going on here! I see Desdemona, and BOOM, I do crazy things!"

Tucker was going through the files in his PDA. "Sorry Danny...I took a ton of pictures, but I don't see Desdemona anywhere in them."

"Gimmie that," Danny growled, snatching the device from Tucker, who narrowed his eyes but didn't protest. Danny flipped through the pictures some more, getting to the ones where he had transformed in front of Dash and everyone.

"I still can't believe I did that..." he whispered, realizing what Sam had meant when she said how serious this was: if word got around he was some sort of green eyed, white-haired freak, he was doomed.

"What's that?" Sam suddenly piped up, pointing at something on the screen. Danny squinted, trying to figure out what exactly she was pointing to.

And then, he saw it: instead of his normal white glow that accompanied him when he went ghost, it was a tinted a light pink. Not something you'd notice in the moment, but later, when you had a better chance to look it over.

"It was probably just reflecting off of something that was near him," Tucker said, waving his hand and trying to take his precious PDA back from Danny.

Danny didn't hand it over. "Tuck, what pink thing would be around for me to reflect off of?"

"How could he even reflect off of anything anyway?!" Sam said, clearly exasperated. "He was in ghost modeLast time I checked, ghosts couldn't really reflect anything!"

"It has something to do with Desdemona, I just know it does..." Danny stared at the picture, half wondering what exactly she had to do with it, and how stupid he was to actually fall under her spell and, well, go ghost in front of the biggest bully in school.

"But I didn't even see her anywhere!" Tucker argued.

Sam and Danny both shrugged. "I did see her, actually...but I don't really remember. My mind's sorta fuzzy about that moment," Danny added.

The bell suddenly rang, shocking the trio. "Ugh, gotta get to class," Tucker groaned, taking the moment to snag his PDA from Danny, who didn't protest.

The halfa sighed as Tucker ran off and him and Sam trailed behind him. "I'm really sorry about all this, Sam."

The goth raised her eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

Danny grew uncomfortable. "Well, you know—"

Sam smiled slightly. "Yeah, I do." She squeezed his shoulder before running to catch up with Tucker, leaving a confused Danny behind her.

-o-

Luckily, the damage from the football team finding out Danny's secret didn't seem like it was permanent, the trio quickly discovered. Apparently, Lancer had found them all smashed up against a bunch of lockers. Never mind that they were covered with ghost energy. Danny heard that Lancer wrote it off as nothing but 'practice for next week's game'. Dash and the others didn't seem to remember Danny's transformation, either.

"I can't believe Lancer lets those guys get away with anything," Tucker complained as they went through the lunch line.

"Let's just be grateful that they aren't going to spill the beans," Danny replied, rolling his eyes at Sam's silent glare of disapproval at the amount of meat on Tucker's tray. "The last thing I need is for the school to know how much of a freak I really am."

They all sat down, and Sam sighed, poking her salad. "Danny, the only time you're a freak when you're in ghost mode is whenever Desdemona's near. Otherwise you're perfectly..." She blinked. "Normal."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Riiiight...as normal as a half ghost can be. Look at me! I can fly and shoot plasma out of my hands! I'm perfectly normal!"

"No need to get all snippy," Sam growled back, stabbing a lettuce leaf with her fork. "Geez...yell at someone who's just trying to make you feel better..."

Danny's shoulders sagged and he immediately felt bad. "Aw, I'm sorry Sam...this whole thing concerning Desdemona is really annoying me..." He pushed his lunch tray aside and slammed his head into the table. "And I can't figure out what's going on! They need some kind of manual on how to deal with mysteries of why you're suddenly..." He trailed off.

"Why you're suddenly what?" Tucker asked through a mouthful of sloppy joes.

The halfa raised his head a bit, and found himself looking at Sam. For some very odd reason, he blushed and slammed his head back on the table.

"Ow. Umm...I don't know. I forgot."

"Banged your head on the table one too many times," Sam put in, and Danny could almost hear her smirk.

He thought that maybe, just maybe he could lay there the rest of the lunch period and not have to think about anything for the next half hour except for why Tuck insisted on trying to tell Sam how good meat was. Geez, when would he ever give it a rest? She was an ultra-recylo vegetarian and he was a carnivore, end of story.

Of course, fate is cruel, so when Danny wished he could just sit there with his head on the table and not think for awhile, who should sneak up on him and sit down but...

"Desdemona?" Tucker squeaked, choking on a wad of meat.

Danny's head shot up and he involuntarily started to shiver. He found himself looking at none other than the black-eyed, pink-wearing girl. He stifled a yell and managed a grim smile.

"Hi..." he greeted, slowly turning his head to see Tucker swallow that chunk of meat and Sam glaring at the newcomer, her fork stabbed into her salad and not moving at all.

"I heard you caused quite a commotion this morning," Desdemona said, her accent practically forcing Danny to listen to her. She rested her chin on her intertwined hands and smiled a smile that he could only think of as 'seductive'.

Danny's arm chose that moment to disappear, and he shoved it under the table out of view...er, out of view from not being seen.

"Whaaa...what are you talking about?" he asked, trying to seem nonchalant. Tucker was staring at Desdemona, and Sam's eyes were wide. Danny knew she was thinking, "Don't blow it! Don't tell her anything! She doesn't know you're half ghost!"

Unless his shivering gave it away, of course. That was another thing...why did he go into major shivering mode whenever Desdemona was nearby? It was almost like...

Danny's eyes widened as he sudden realized something, and he wanted nothing more at the moment than to go ghost and kick Desdemona's butt. But he couldn't, because she suddenly leaned in (a little too closer for comfort, in Danny's opinion), causing he body temperature to drop about ten more degrees, and she smiled slightly again at him, her heavily lined eyes looking...well, evil.

Her accent made the next words she spoke seem more wicked than ever:

"Well, well...I saw how those football players were defeated...it seems we have a phantom in this school, now, don't we?"

-o-

And here's, I guess, where they would say, 'the plot thickens'...bwhahaha.

I really appreciate everyone who's read and reviewed this! It means a lot to me and keeps me going! ;D A really big thanks to people who have looked at my dA stuff from here, or found this fic from dA! You all rule!