Mkay, here's chapter four.

For those of you following THLITE, you know what an update here means...

An update there.

Yeah. That sounded sketchy.

Um...okay. Again, I'm really sorry for being a terrible person. Basically I just gave up for a while there. But I'm back and I'm here and I'm writing so you really can't complain anymore.

Okay I'm gonna go write the next chapter of THLITE before I have to go to work tonight...

I don't own Danny Phantom or anything else you recognize here that is obviously not mine. Blah.

Chapter four...

Sirens Suck

Chapter Four

August 21, 2012

Sam was not surprised to find that Danny was not there when she arrived at Fenton Works. She tried not to imagine where he might be at that moment, choosing to focus on the reason she was even at Fenton Works: to talk to Jazz.

"She's in her room, dear," Maddie said, her confusion at Sam's request to speak with her daughter evident in her eyes. Sam offered a polite thanks before bounding up the stairs, taking two at a time. A wave of anxiety washed over her as she slipped past Danny's open door, toward Jazz's room. Sam glanced into Danny's room involuntarily as she passed; it was empty, she realized with a pang.

Sam thought she heard a Vivaldi song playing softly behind Jazz's door when she knocked. She heard rustling papers and a frustrated sigh as the redhead within stood to open the door.

"Dad, I told you, I don't know where the fudge is!" Jazz flung the door open and blinked, obviously caught off-guard by Sam. "Oh!" Jazz squeaked in surprise. Sam smiled weakly at her.

"Can I come in?" Sam asked tentatively, glancing over Jazz's shoulder into the depths of her room. Jazz stepped out of the doorway immediately, her eyes still wide. Sam slipped inside and rubbed her upper arm nervously as Jazz shut the door.

"What's up, Sam?" Jazz asked, recovering from her shock. Sam waited until Jazz was settled at her computer desk before perching on the edge of the girl's bed. She was aware of the fact that Jazz was watching her with intense curiocity, and Sam felt a familiar sense of trasperancy; she always felt like Jazz could see directly through her whenever they had a conversation. Sam cleared her throat nervously.

"It's...about Danny," Sam said, dropping her gaze to her lap as a furious blush wound through her cheeks. Jazz nodded, her eyes softening into an understanding, sympathetic gaze.

"You want me to tell him you like him?" Jazz asked gently. Sam's head snapped up, her eyes wild. "Don't worry, he likes you back, I can get him to ask you out -"

"That's not why I'm here!" Sam said sharply. She breathed deeply, ignoring the way Jazz's brow furrowed at Sam's anxiety. "There's...I...need your help,"

Jazz blinked. "Okay..." She said slowly. "What can I do?"

"You're...you like Greek mythology, don't you?" Sam asked, glancing at Jazz's bookshelf. She thought she saw a book with the title Mythology on the spine, but she was not sure if it was just a trick of the light.

"Sure," Jazz shrugged. "I think it's interesting, it makes a good liesure read..."

"I need you to tell me everything you know about Sirens." Sam said, saying the last word with a deliberate amount of care. Confusion flickered in Jazz's eyes, but she obliged immediately.

"Well, they appear most famously in Homer's The Iliad," Jazz said. "They were women that supposedly lived on various islands in the middle of the ocean surrounded by treachorous cliffs and rocks. Who parented them is widely debated, but it is agreed that they are in some form demi-gods, meaning that one of their biological parents was a god. More than likely a minor god, if you ask me. They would lure men into the coast with song. By that, I mean that they would wait until a boat passed and they would start singing. The men on board would become so transfixed on the sound of the Sirens' voices that they would literally crash their ships into the coast and perish. It's interesting, actually, because even though Sirens are directly associated with the ocean and water, they're not actually sea-creatures."

"How many were there?" Sam asked in a hushed voice.

Jazz paused, looking confused by Sam's quietness. "Um...that's unclear," She said slowly. "The average is somewhere between two and five."

"And can they die?" Sam asked cautiously.

Jazz opened her mouth to answer, before furrowing her brow. "Why are you asking me this?" She asked.

Sam shifted uncomfortably on Jazz's bed. "I just...I have this hunch."

"Tell me," Jazz demanded softly, moving to the edge of her computer chair and inching toward Sam.

Sam sighed. "Okay, well...earlier, during lunch, Danny was...well, he was supposed to ask me to see a movie with him. Like, as a date." Sam flushed when Jazz grinned and clapped excitedly. "Only something happened that made him not ask me."

"What the hell would keep him from asking you out?" Jazz nearly shouted, leaping out of her chair. "He's liked you for months, there's no way he would let even Pariah Dark stop him from asking you."

"That's...um...okay, right as he was about to ask me, Mr. Lancer came over with this...new girl." Sam felt bile rising in her throat as she thought of Parthenope's melodic voice. "She's really pretty and blonde and whatever. Her name's Parthenope."

Understanding flickered in Jazz's eyes. "Parthenope is the name of one of the Sirens," She said, nodding. "Okay. Now I get it. You think the Parthenope with Danny is actually the ghost of a Siren?"

"Is that even possible?" Sam asked, feeling desperation haze her thoughts.

Jazz sank slowly back down to her computer chair, pinching the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb. "I don't know," She admitted. "I don't see why it couldn't be..."

"Then what do I do?" Sam asked. "Ever since Danny saw her, he's been following her around and drooling all over her like a lost puppy."

Suddenly, a nasally voice with a spanish accent wafted through Jazz's open window. The two girls froze, before scrambling over Jazz's bed and pressing their face against the window pane.

Paulina and Dash were standing on the sidewalk below Fenton Works. Paulina appeared to be extremely distressed, while Dash looked annoyed at the girl standing in his path.

"Dash, look at me!" Paulina whined. Dash was craning his neck to look over Paulina's head at what Sam could only guess was...

"Parthenope!" Dash called excitedly. Paulina shot a murderous glare over her shoulder, before turning back to Dash and nearly dissolving to tears.

"Dash, what is wrong with you?" Paulina whined. "We were supposed to go to the Nasty Burger today after school, remember? And then my papa was going to take us to the ice skating rink..."

"I don't wanna do that anymore," Dash huffed impatiently, still staring after Parthenope. He was shifting about anxiously, as if attempting to weave around Paulina and sprint further up the street.

Paulina glowered at the blonde jock. "Oh yes, you do." She growled. She seized the front of his letterman and yanked him down so that their lips crashed together. Dash's eyes widened in shock, before fluttering closed. His meaty hands found the dip of Paulina's waist, causing her to grin triumphantly against his lips. She pulled away a second later, a look of smugness on her face at the way he stared down at her dreamily, his eyes half-lidded in shock and affection.

"Whoa," He breathed. Paulina giggled girlishly.

"Ready for that date?" She asked innocently, looping her arm through his. He nodded, apparently still dumbfounded from their kiss. He turned his back on Parthenope, still staring at Paulina, and together they traipsed down the street.

"What the hell did we just see?" Sam breathed.

"I think we just saw the only way you're gonna be able to snap Danny out of the trance he's surely in right now," Jazz said thoughtfully as Dash and Paulina disappeared from view. Jazz peeled her face away from the glass and gave Sam a meaningful look. "I've seen Dash drool over girls, but it's never been that intense. I can only imagine what Danny's like right now,"

Sam grimaced. "You don't want to know," She mumbled.

Jazz gazed at her sympathetically. "Look, I know he really likes you. He told me. This Parthenope girl, if she really is a Siren, can only do bad things to him. And he can't do anything to stop her if he's in a trance. So it's up to you to save him."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Sam asked, though she already knew the answer.

Jazz pointed to her window. "You just witnessed how to snap him out of it!" She said, grinning in spite of herself.

Sam sighed. "This is gonna suck, isn't it?" She asked, more to herself than anything else. Jazz grinned.