Ta-dah! Chapter seven, yo! Just so you all know, since I start school next week, updates may be even slower in coming. Sorry. High School's a killer.

Warnings/Disclaimers: I do not own Danny phantom. I will never own Danny Phantom. I do, however, own a T-shirt with his logo on it.

Before I forget again: I owe this chapter and the previous one to my non-fanfiction-oriented friend Frankie the Cat for going over it and making sure it wasn't too horrible. Thanks, Frankie.

---

Destiny is not rigid and unchanging. As those who are closest to the subject know, true fate is as unpredictable as the weather. All one can do is hope to subtly influence it, and even that is bound to go wrong.

"It's like chaos theory," Kai could recall Antigoras saying to her once, the misty moonlit memories drifting back to her. There's probably a metaphor for that, too, but she couldn't be bothered to find it. "If a butterfly does so much as flap its wings, you can end up with a violent and deadly hurricane in the gulf coast." Because it was the good half of Fate she'd been dealing with, he'd added, "Now, who wants a cookie?"

Kai knew this instinctively. Among the other things she knew were: The cosmos is not ineffable, Danny Fenton is quite possibly the most clueless person on the face of the planet, and tapioca pudding is almost certainly an invention of Satan.

I never said she was sane, did I?

---

Antigoras the Good was, to be honest, a little naïve. It was a point his counterpart and friend Brother Bartholomew had spent hours beating to death with his rants, and he was glad to have provided his comrade with a source of entertainment. He was a good soul, as it was said, and a bit sappy.

He sat in the pantry of his small hovel, which doubled as a kitchen, bedroom, and storehouse. The bathroom was the only part of the living space not in the pantry, actually. It was only currently said place because he was cooking lunch.

To Antigoras, lunch always consisted of raspberry scones and poppy seed tea for the simple reason that he'd never taught himself to make anything else. He could have had a servant run to the store for something, supposedly, but the only one he currently possessed was on another errand. Besides, he disapproved of servants on moral grounds, another subject on which Bartholomew often pontificated upon. How, the other fate asked, could one get anything done by himself?

Antigoras had elected not to answer this.

The rusting metal sink was filled to the brim with unwashed dishes, but Antigoras was not giving up. After some deliberation and careful scrutiny of the piles, he managed to extract a cup, a saucer, and the burnished brass kettle, which had perched itself on top of the stack.

The blue pilot light of the stove flickered and went out the instant he placed the kettle over it, causing him to mutter harmless curses under his breath and kick the appliance's side. He sighed, and poured some water into the pot. A few seconds later, the flame guttered back into life and began boiling his tea.

The better side of Fate settled down into his chair, and looked out the window. He had, against the words of his acquaintances, knitted his own draperies. His rather lumpy style of weaving made it hard to see, but that didn't matter.

Antigoras's brow furrowed for the first time in years. The sky outside, which had been reliably sunny and clear every day for centuries, had inexplicably clouded over with roiling, rolling purple thunderheads. "Oh, no," he whined, the words having to work hard at coming out of his mouth. "Not this. Not now!"

The kettle let out a piercing scream. On the table, cups and plates rattled ominously as the crooked structure shook in anticipation of the event to come and the ground heaved below his boots. "Bother it all," he muttered, extracting another goblet, a golden jewel-encrusted chalice from the sink. The earthquake continued, shaking loose some of the crockery. It smashed to pieces on the floorboards.

He removed the kettle from its burner, and poured two glasses of tea. He hesitated when it came to scones, but decided that his friend was probably not big on pastry. Antigoras located and pulled on his best white dress cloak, tying it with the ceremonial cord girdle he'd received for the commemoration of his three-thousandth birthday.

Picking up the tea, he stood silently in the middle of the living room-come-kitchen, his eyes closed in quiet concentration. A moment later, a blinding flash of neon blue light eclipsed the space, and when it cleared, he had gone.

---

There is a place, somewhere, where there are no werewolves, or ghosts, or matters pertaining to the physical incarnation of Fate. Amity Park is not that place. Amity Park is nowhere near to being that place.

Sam knew that, had been exposed to it for a long time, but still could not get over the shock of seeing Danny de-transform the night before. Her dreams had been filled with images of him- her best friend and secret crush –sprouting fangs and claws and pointed ears, his face twisted in a terrible mask of unexplained rage and hatred. They were horrible memories that would doubtlessly haunt her for years to come.

What had happened to him? The Danny she knew would never do what the monster had done. Though the townspeople despised him for his efforts, the Phantom had worked tirelessly against those who would do them harm. He often grew fed up with it, but he was kind at heart and wouldn't dream of adding to the senseless chaos like that.

She shuddered and pulled the sheets up over her head when her impeccably cheery mother ripped open the curtains, letting in a stabbing ray of light. "Time to get up, Sammy!" Mrs. Manson exclaimed. "You'll be late for school!

Sam waited until she had left before getting up. Morning was not something she particularly enjoyed, and this particular day was worse. She did not foresee anything good coming of Danny's transformation.

Why had he kept it from her and Tucker? Hadn't he been able to tell they could help? Had those months of ghost fighting meant nothing to him? Perhaps, as the other wolf had suggested, he had been scared. But that made little sense; she'd never seen Danny Fenton scared in her whole life.

Then again, the prospect of turning into a ferocious creature could do it. Fear was a very personal thing. What scared one person might be treated as normal to another. And if that thing that had taken him over had also been messing with his mind…

Not bothering to speak to her parents, she left without breakfast. Walking down the street, she could see clearly the destruction caused by the wolf rampage the previous night. The pavement was torn up for blocks, and sanitation crews were still hauling away broken street lamps. A police officer was busy writing out a parking ticket for the owner of half a car that lay mangled in the roadway.

In the corner of her vision, something stirred. She might have missed it if she hadn't had wolves on the brain, but there it was, the wolf from the last night. Trying not to make any noise, she followed it. She had some questions for it… but wasn't entirely sure it wouldn't attack her.

The wolf looked shiftily around it, and darted into an alley, its tail fluffed out in anxiety. Sam noticed that it was in pain, a ghastly grimace evident upon its pointed muzzle. There was definitely something suspicious about this, she thought, as she crept after it. She stopped at the mouth of the alley, and peered around the corner at the shadowy passage.

The wolf stopped and, with a short yelp of anguish… changed. It was terrible to watch, the skin snapping taut as the skeleton broke and healed again. The wolf seemed to be concentrating very hard and its body shuddered madly, stopping the transformation. It was now caught somewhere between animal and human. It was still covered in fur, and the head was wolfish, but it stood on two legs like a person.

The werewolf- for, of course, that's what it must have been –straightened as far up as she could manage, and dug a familiar sack out from where it was wedged behind a trashcan. "Bloody hellfire," she hissed, pulling on a pair of jeans, "I hate it when the transformation doesn't happen until after sunrise." After dressing, she took a deep, steadying breath, and screwed her eyes tightly shut once more.

A wave of power swept through the space, emanating from the wolf. It was like blast of hot wind, which rattled the garbage lids and chipped a few of the adjacent buildings' bricks as it hit. When it had gone, a new figure stood in the dirty alleyway, one that looked oddly familiar.

Kai caught sight of Sam, and shot her a sheepish grin. "G'day, mate. Not late for class, are we?"

---

The dreams were worse, now. Well, not worse exactly (they were actually rather good) but with every night they got stronger and stronger until… He swore it had felt real. It was like reality, but with deliberate flaws. They seemed to exist simply to erase the memories of the night.

The dreams were always the same. He would scene deleted for explicit content even though he knew it could happen, and then she would scene deleted for even explicit-er content. The odd thing was that instead of his usual objects of desire, the dreams always seemed to involve… Sam. Which was ridiculous. Nobody could be in love with their best friend! It would screw up everything.

For some reason, this thought was extremely depressing.

Fragments of his activities in hours previous floated back, and he relished them. He had gone out with Sam… alone. No Tucker, just the two of them. His eyes snapped open as two things came rushing back to him: The memory of his transformation and the stabbing pain in his shoulder. He could recall nothing beyond the knife sinking into his shoulder, wielded by another wolf that smelled recognizable.

It was peculiar, really, identifying others by smell, but it was what wolves did. With a sinking feeling, he noted that more and more of the wolf's instincts were creeping into his daily life. The world was suddenly a fresh new place full of new senses and ideas. And… power. It lay below the surface, waiting for moonrise to emerge.

Fear gripped him, along with a stiffness that came from his wound. Silver was poison to his kind (the thought of it being his kind was also very disturbing), and it was flowing through his veins like molten lead. The fear pulsated within the confines of his increasingly unstable nervous system, telling him that he couldn't live like this. He would hurt someone. He could have hurt Sam last night and if he did that… dear God, he wouldn't be able to handle the pain.

Somewhere in the fog of uncertainty, an alarm bell rang. Actually, it was only his alarm clock. A few seconds later, Danny dragged himself out of bed and added 'buy new clock' onto his mental to-do list.

Great. He'd slept in his clothes again. How did this keep happening? He could have sworn he'd left them in the bathroom.

Getting dressed, he realized that even though he was in pain, it was a different kind of pain. Over the last few days, he'd felt vaguely drunk and sick. Now it was the stab would and its after effects controlling him. Did this mean that the curse was over or just entering a new phase? He couldn't be sure.

He left without breakfast, despite the raging hunger that clawed rabidly at his empty stomach, which stuck tightly to his spine. He was late again, and after ditching the day before, he doubted his ability to get away with any more. Lunch time was only a few hours away, after all.

Running was easier than it had been before. So used was he to flying that he'd forgotten entirely how good it felt to use his muscles, to feel the earth speed away below his pounding feet. Perhaps this too was an effect of the curse, but a new and troubling idea crept into his head: was it possible that the wolf inside him was simply awakening his hidden desires? If that was true, then there was a part of him that wanted to kill things, to tear the world apart in desperation. For what the wolf had wanted, deep down inside, was to… destroy everything. It was a horrible prospect.

Casper High loomed ahead, its towering brick façade representing everything the wolf in him hated: confinement, entrapment, and establishment. It was getting out of control, this wolf thing. He couldn't live with it. It wasn't going to work. And if it was, there were some more questions he had for Kai.

"Danny! Hey!" In his haze, he almost ran right past Tucker who called out to him.

"Oh, hey Tuck," he gasped, stopping. It was amazing how winded exercise could make you. "Have you seen your pen pal today?"

Tucker looked confused. "What? Oh, Kai. No, I haven't seen her or Sam today. I thought at least Sam would come with you."

Danny's stomach turned over. What if he'd done something he couldn't remember the night before? What if he'd hurt Sam? And what if it was too late?

---

"I can't believe this!" Sam exclaimed, staring at Kai, who seemed to want nothing more than to be able to back through a wall. "When Danny finds out, he'll-"

"He'll what? Besides, I saved his furry behind last night. He's not like me, Sam. He can't control it. Leave him alone like that too long and he'll destroy anything in his path."

"You can't be serious! This is Danny we're talking about. I know him! He'd never-"

"You're kidding yourself," Kai hissed, taking a step forward. "This isn't like the Phantom. This isn't something easy. This is an animal."

"Why didn't you tell us? We've got experience with supernatural stuff like this!"

"It's not your problem! I don't care if Danny has experience with ghosts and even that Wulf; this isn't any business of yours. Beyond that, nobody's even supposed to know about me."

"Why not?"

Kai eyed her suspiciously, then sighed. "There's no use in hiding it. Look, I'm not an ordinary werewolf. In fact there are very few conventional werewolves. I am a Messenger of Fate. We… subtly influence events on Earth so that the future comes out one way or another… but it's all going wrong. Things have to be carefully calculated before action can be taken, and that didn't happen this time."

"How so?"

"I can't talk about that right now. All I can say is that one of our number is behaving in a quite terrible manner."

Sam was mystified. This was all going way over her head. "Look," Kai went on, interrupting her thoughts, "if we don't get going we'll be late. None of this is your concern, anyway."

"Are you kidding me?" She had done it now; this wolf had gone too far. "He's my best friend!"

"Is that all?" Kai smirked. You could just feel the innuendo. "Really? If you say so." She shouldered her bag and sauntered off in the general direction of school.

Sam simmered in her anger. Kai still rubbed her the wrong way, even after any service she might have done for Danny. After a moment, she followed. This was going to end badly, she could tell.

---

Lunch hour again. Danny observed in silent fascination the eating habits of the world's leading expert on werewolves. Today's meal of choice was two foot-long subway sandwiches, minus anything with any sort of health content. He kept trying to catch her eye, but she was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Strangely enough, through the whole thing, Sam stared holes in the back of his head.

Something was really beginning to bother him. Over the course of the day, he had decided to stop fighting it. He was in love, or at least in 'like'. And, unfortunately, it was with his best friend. It made him want to smack his head into the wall but, having tried that option, decided that he was never doing that again.

That wasn't the real problem, though. No, the thing that plagued him so was the appearance, rather behind schedule, of a modest flyer that had been posted on Wednesday. Though, of course, he hadn't been there the day it had gone up, the entire school was abuzz with chatter about the event it represented: a Halloween masquerade dance to be hosted on Saturday night.

If only… but there was no way he could ask Sam to go. It would spoil their friendship. Was that worth it to him? If they were only friends, at least he would still be able to see her and talk to her.

Kai's temporary locker was next to his, which was convenient. It made it easy to corner her. "Kai?" he asked tentatively, beginning his latest volley of questions.

"Hey Danny," She said, rather hurriedly. "Look, this had better be real important or-"

"It's about… the thing."

Her eyes darkened. "You mean werewolves?"

"Yes. Us. I mean them."

She looked at him guardedly. "What about them?"

Danny turned his gaze away. "Um… this may seem like a weird thing to ask, but… can werewolves fall in love?"

She laughed in relief. "Bless your heart, Dan, of course they can. Remember, werewolves are regular people most of the time."

"But could being one… alter your feelings for someone?"

"No. What it does is bring out buried feelings." Kai glared at him hard. "It finds hidden emotions and makes them… not hidden. It does not, let me repeat, does not change them. It lets you know they're there, and nags you about doing something about them. But the strength of the emotions is all you, man." She sighed. "Why do you want to know, anyway?"

Danny faltered. "Ah… well, I was thinking of inviting somebody to the dance… but it's ridiculous. She doesn't like me anyway."

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter," Danny muttered.

"Oh. Sam. Why didn't you just say so?"

"That's crazy!" He said, blushing profusely. "We're not lovebirds!"

"I never said you were," she replied coolly.

"Look, I don't like Sam, okay? Drop it!" Honesty, he had long decided, is not the best policy in matters of the heart.

She gave him a pitying glance. "Oh, Danny," she sighed, "you're so clueless."

"I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. You're so clueless that if you were an investigative reporter, it would take you five weeks to write a report on what you ate for breakfast this morning."

"Ha, ha," Danny scoffed, intending to be sarcastic. "Hilarious. You're a laugh riot."

"You like that? I've got more. You're so clueless, you couldn't win a game of Clue if you were cheating and playing against yourself."

"Seriously. Stop it." Luckily for him, Sam walked up to them, aiming a glare at Kai.

"I think I'll leave you two alone," Kai sneered, winking wolfishly at him. "Go for it."

Scowling, Danny watched her go before turning to his friend. "Sam?" He could feel the nervousness welling up in the pit of his stomach. He felt sick.

"Yes?"

"Would you like to... I don't know… go to the dance together Saturday?" Quickly he added, "As friends, obviously… just so we wouldn't have to go alone?"

She looked at him cheerfully. "Danny, I'm surprised at you! I thought you'd ask Valerie or something."

He rubbed the back of his neck. It was a nervous tick, sort of, and it helped to have something to do with his hands. "So that's a yes?"

"Pfft. Duh."

Danny felt elated. A huge weight had been lifted from him. This was something, right? "Okay. I'll come pick you up at… eight?"

"Pending that my parents let me go."

"Great!" Danny trudged off to class, a goofy grin on his face. It was impossible to walk anywhere in such a dreamy state, and he ran into several lockers, as well as Dash prompting his stay inside a locker for most of fifth period.

Sadly enough, sixth period (by which time he'd been rescued by Sam and Tucker) was P.E. Another new kid leaned against the bleachers, his untidy black hair flopping into his face… over his eerily familiar glasses…

Kai growled. It wasn't a noise that any human should be able to make with homo Sapien vocal cords. It was low and loud and guttural, coming from the chest and the throat at the same time. She bared her teeth. "Kai?" Danny said to her. "Is that…"

"I'm on it," she snarled, marching over. "When I get through with you, Drakkus K. Bacchus, there won't be enough left to make a fur hat!"

Drake looked calm. "Hello to you too, Kai."…...t his empty stomach, which stuck tightly to his spine. ...im Over the last few

Danny thought that, despite how he would like to see Drake knocked into Tuesday of next year, now was the worst time for a fight. "Today's lesson is dodge ball, guys. Hammer each other there!"

A whistle blew. While they'd been distracted, the game had started. After a few short minutes and a couple bouts of isolated screaming, Drake and Kai were the only two left on the field. Those not knocked out had dived for cover by that point, due to the amount of rubber balls flying through the air at high velocity. Kai was out first, but she wasn't giving up. After a bit and more whistle blasting from the baffled and helpless supervisor, both sported hefty bruises. Drake's glasses were shattered, Kai's nose could have been broken, except for the profuse lack of blood that was not pouring down her shirt. There were a few dents in the blacktop.

Danny suddenly had a sinking feeling. The week was not going to end on a high note, 'date' with Sam or no.

---

Longest chapter yet. And some fluff… sort of. I'm working on it! Forgive me. I love reading sappy romance, but I'm terrible at authoring it. Yet, I promise, it will end with at least some D/S-ness.