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It's been two weeks since Danny's gone missing. In those weeks, things have been not only bleak but hard to get through. Danny's absence took its toll on everyone, not just the Fenton family and Danny's friends. Everyone at school, even the people who often bullied the kid were at a loss of what to do about the disappearance of someone almost everyone knew on a personal level. They, of course, didn't know the full story, only what Mr. Lancer had told him in his brief but respectful speech about the reported disappearance of 'such a bright child.' 

Word had gotten around quickly throughout the school, there wasn't a student in Casper High that wasn't aware of the school geeks sudden absents. Due to not being given any more information other than the fact that Danny went missing, and is still missing two weeks later, everyone started to draw their own conclusion. Some of them thought he was dead, others insisted that he was kidnapped by human traffickers, a few people were suspicious that Danny's nutty parents had something to do with the crime.

The top high school bullies like Dash, Quan, and Paulina often tried to harass Sam and Tucker by their lockers in a desperate attempt to get more gossip fuel off the two about Danny being gone, but neither of Danny's friends satisfied their curiosity with any more than an insistent, "We don't know where he is." Though that didn't stop them from cornering them for information. After all, Tucker and Sam were Danny's best friends, if anyone knew what had happened to the boy, it was them.

The school offered the two teens counseling whenever they felt like talking about their childhood best friends predicament, and though the teens appreciated the offered help, neither of them had the balls to go in the office and risk blurting private information.

They often stayed over at the Fenton works, ignoring their parent's protests and lectures on how it would be detrimental to their already unstable mental health to sleep in the room of their kidnapped friend, who they keep throwing in the young one's faces, that may never come back. Tucker and Sam always got defensive when their parents even implied that Danny may never be found, and would often storm out of the house in a fit of rebellious rage, which leads to them both spending more nights at either each other or Danny house.

Maddie and Jack didn't spend much time together, but they did their best to hide their problems from their daughter. The only interaction that they had was when they were actively searching for Danny, they didn't even sleep in the same room together. Jack Fenton did everything he could to both keep from having to sleep in their shared bedroom and keep from rising suspicion from their very smart and observant daughter. He made excuses daily to spend the night in the lab working on equipment to help the search for Danny, coming up with something to work on in nights that Jazz didn't go to bed first.

Maddie sometimes left the house at night and went somewhere, she didn't tell Jazz where she was going and wouldn't come home until very early in the morning. Though, it didn't take a genius for Jazz to smell the alcohol and put the pieces together on where she was going. She knew that Danny's absence was stressing her mom out, but she wished she would turn to the comfort of her family instead of the false comfort security brought.

Jazz would spend her time doing homework when she wasn't helping her parents look for Danny under the sea. She was lucky enough to have been able to transfer her classes to online courses, such a thing was almost impossible to do in the middle of the semester, but when she sent in the police reports on her brother's absence, the school took pity on her. However, she couldn't change the fact that eventually, she would have to fly back to her campus and complete the mandatory exams and labs. Those were coming up in a few weeks and she was just hoping they at least got some sort of lead to where Danny might have gone before then.

She was still skeptical about her Fathers claims about encountering a school of merpeople. In the two weeks, they had been searching what was supposed to be myth infested water, she hadn't seen so much as a fish scale out of place. She wondered if they were on a wild goose chase, that maybe her idiot father had hallucinated the whole thing because of how much he wanted mermaids to exist. It hurt to think about the alternatives though, and maybe she was a little insane for even allowing herself to believe there was even the smallest chance her brother was somehow alive. Honestly though, if she was right that her father was hallucinating, then none of them knew exactly what had happened, so there was always the chance that maybe Danny got stranded on some island they haven't found yet. Or maybe some other fisherman had picked the stranded boy up and he hasn't been able to make it home somehow. 

She would sooner believe the kid got amnesia and was crawling around some hospital somewhere than believe he was kidnapped by mermaids. However, if that were the case, then they would have been notified by then after posting numerous amber alerts and missing child posters.

Jazz yawned as she got out of bed, a nightmare had woken her up yet she couldn't remember exactly what it had been about. She distantly remembered some bright green eyes and some muffled screams, but it was like her foggy half conscious brain was forcing the images away from the front of her mind. She stretched her arms and looked for her slippers, she pulled them out from under the bed with her toes and slipped them on.  

It was quiet downstairs, and a brief glance at her watch told her it was much too early for teenagers and stressed out parents to be awake right now. She went to check her mom's room and was not surprised to see that the sleeping woman was the only one occupying the room. She was spread belly down across the bed as if she had walked in and immediately collapsed onto it, the clothes she was wearing all day yesterday still clung to her out cold body.

Jazz sighed, not only was her father neglecting his wife, who was in desperate need for his attention but now her mother also would now be hungover. She shut the door quietly so not to disturb the exhausted 39-year-old woman and headed over to Danny's room to check on his friends. Sam was the only one sleeping there, looking dead to the world in Danny's bed and unlikely to wake up for a while. The redhead shut the door quietly and wondered where Tucker was, she was sure that he hadn't gone home the night before.

The lab door was unlocked, which wasn't odd anymore now that Sam and Tucker were given access to it on the hunt for Danny. Jazz walked down the steps, expecting to see her father down there working on the Fenton Diving Suits again, but she frowned in concern at the sight of her Dad, who looked just as exhausted as everyone else in the house, sitting by the suits resting his head on the desk next to him. Tucker was a few feet away from Jack in a similar position with his head resting against the desktop, his back hunched in an uncomfortable arch and his neck in an awkward position.

She looked up at the monitor that was still on in front of Tucker, unsure what she was looking at with all the codes and blinking static. 

Jazz went to her Dad and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Dad?" the tired man snapped up as if he had been electrocuted, a screwdriver dropped from his hand.

"Huh? What's going on," his eyes met Jazz's and her eyebrows furrowed at the sight of deep bags under his tired teal eyes. "Jazz, you okay?"

"Yes I'm fine Dad," she insisted, "You, however, look like you need to sleep on a nice comfy bed with your loving wife, who by the way is begging for your attention in the most unhealthy way." she was referring to Maddie's sudden alcohol abuse and Jack knew it. Though he didn't care much to try and comfort his wife, he knew Jazz expected him to respond, so he got up and told his daughter that he couldn't sleep anymore and would make everyone flapjacks.

"Dad, she needs aspirin and water," Jazz called after her dad as he went up the stairs, "And lots of caring support!" Jazz completely forgot about the other sleeping occupant in the room, and with her yelling, Tucker shot up in surprise.

"Woah, I'm awake mom," he stuttered out, at first unaware of where he was. Then he caught sight of the computer in front of him, and Jazz could practically see the bright flashing lights around Tuckers overjoyed but tired eyes. "It's recovered!"

Jazz gasped, knowing that he was talking about the footage that he'd been picking through Danny's phone to find, the near-impossible task had taken a week and a half for the techno genius. "You got it?" she asked to confirm.

"Yup, now all I need is to push a few buttons and..." Tucker typed away like the beautiful helpful genius that he was as Jazz ran up the stairs to wake everyone up. "Boo yeah." Tucker smiled in triumph when a video appeared on his screen. What he had done was highly advanced and probably illegal, but it was worth it to have the footage in front of them now. 

A stampede of multiple heavy footsteps could be heard rushing down the stairs to the Fenton lab and Tucker could feel the multiple pairs of eyes that looked at the screen from over his shoulder.

Maddie Fenton kissed the side of his face multiple times, muttering something along the lines of "I'll never doubt you again," and Tucker pushed a few more buttons to play the footage with the time stamp that matched with Danny's disappearance. Sam grabbed a chair and sat next to him.

The video quality was almost perfect, if not for a few bugs in the sound, but the family could definitely see clearly the ceiling of the hotel that Jack and Danny stayed at the morning before they went fishing. Tucker skipped the hours that the phone was left on the charger while Danny slept, and his father snored. After a few more skips, they could see a half-asleep Danny as he picked up his phone. They watched as he stuffed it in his pants, with the camera facing outward, but Tucker skipped ahead some more until they were at the dock talking to the redhead fisherman. All they could see was what the phone was recording behind Danny, which was a wide expanse of ocean and a familiar far away cove.

Tucker skipped some more until he landed on when Danny and his father were in the boat, Jack was teaching Danny how to use the pole, and all the family could see was what had been behind Danny's butt at the time. When the snoring hit and Jack told them that he did not remember what happened after that, Tucker stopped skipping, not wanting to miss anything.

It took a long impatient while, but later rather than sooner, Danny started shifting around. They could see Jack's lower half from the cell phones position and could hear the friction of Danny's pants against the speaker as the phone was angled at the sky for a few moments. The only sounds they could hear as Jacks butt cam back into view and Danny seemed to lean back and rest, was the distant sound of seagulls and the splash of water against the sound of the boat.

But everyone jumped when Danny's voice was suddenly heard.

"Woah!" Danny's staticky but clear voice shouted out, they could hear the hissing of the pole line as it was sealed in.

"Wait a minute." Jack interrupted Danny's struggling fishing skills, "His line was cut and he told me he hadn't caught anything." Jack looked slightly outraged that his son would lie to him, he wanted to know why Danny had felt the need to lie about something as small as catching a fish especially if that fish was a mermaid.

"Just watch Jack," a lying teenager was the least of Maddie's worries.

Danny had to be standing up now, the camera had a much larger view of what was going on behind Danny as he struggled to real whatever he caught in. They couldn't see anything that Danny was doing but the amount of shaking the boat was doing and the amount of grunting and shuffling that could be heard only made their confusion and anxiety grow.

Jack watched on and cursed his digital self for sleeping through all that action, he knew that he should be waking up any minute now, remembering that he had woken up from a small nap.

Danny gasped and the people in the lab could hear a splash and then a lot of hissing as Danny seemed to freeze up for a bit. The family and friends stared on with their teeth clenched and their eyes glued to the screen as they waited for any indication of what Danny had caught. The hissing wasn't normal for any kind of fish so Tucker, Sam, and Jazz all wondered what Danny could possibly have caught. While Maddie and Jack looked at each other like they knew exactly what Danny was looking at.

The sound of hissing didn't stop even as Danny's arm could be seen reaching around to grab his pocket knife.

"Would you chill out?" Danny's voice hissed out, sounding nowhere near as threatening as the actual hissing did, "I'm trying to free you, damn it."

'What was he trying to free and why was he trying to free it,' occupied all the thoughts rushing through their minds as they watched Jack's digital body stir.

'This is it,' Jack thought, 'This must be where I wake up.'

They watched Danny as he suddenly sat down and started whistling just as a loud splash could be heard and Jack woke up.

They couldn't see Jack from Danny's position anymore, but they could hear him as he turned towards his son, "Hey, Danny, catch anything yet?"

The boy's lie seemed so unconvincing now as Jack heard it for the second time, and he shamed himself for throwing the suspicious behavior off his ignorant mind so easily. "Nope! Nothing at all, I haven't caught anything. Been sitting here bored, nope, nothing at all."

Sam and Tucker rolled their eyes, Danny had never been a good liar. For the millionth time in the last few years, they cursed Danny's father for being so unobservant to Danny's behavior.

"Well no wonder you haven't caught anything, your line is cut. Here, take mine." Maddie chose not to point out to Jack the obvious sign's that Danny was keeping something from the virtual Jack, instead, continuing to search for any clue to what was going on.

"Um, actually Dad, I think we should get back," oh if only they had, "Remember what the redhead said about the tide?-"

"Danny." virtual Jack interrupted as the people in the lab started to hear a strange humming sound. 

Danny could be heard whimpering over the sound of the sirens calling, and his friends and sister gasped at both the sound of the hypnotic singing and the sight of woman peaking their heads above the surface of the water behind Danny. They all had brightly colored hair and glowing eyes as they stared at the occupants on the boat.

There was not a doubt in Sam and Jazz's mind anymore. "Oh my gosh, Tucker can you believe?-" she looked at the male as he stared at the screen with his mouth hanging open. Maddie's eyes furrowed in confusion as she watched Jazz wave a hand over the Africans blank face only to receive no response. The woman looked up at her husband in fear and realization when he had a similar expression. "Jazz, get the Fenton phones, quick, they filter out hypnotic sound waves."

Jazz, still in shock from the existence of merpeople dove for the Fenton phones and helped the other girls as they plugged them into the two males ears. They seemed to snap out of their trances a second after they were in, and the woman sighed in relief that they worked.

"Do you hear them, son?" Jacks voice could be heard as the camera caught a brief glimpse of him getting up, and though they could all see that Jack had made it out alive even after getting hypnotized, they watched anxiously as he stepped towards the edge of the boat. "It's so beautiful."

"I think I'm in love." they could all see as the merpeople started advancing on them, and their concern started to grow, is this were Danny disappeared? While his father was under the influence of their demonic singing?

Apparently not as the camera went out of focus as Danny sprang into action, obviously the singing wasn't affecting him and they could only assume it was because he was gay. They caught a glimpse of a closed toolbox only for the view of it to turn pixely as the camera shifted at a fast pace when it focused again the box was opened next to Jack's comatose body, and Jack could see that a gun was missing.

"Attaboy, Son," Jack encouraged as he watched, proud that his boy didn't freeze up in his panic and allow them to die. Most of the motion that the camera picked up was pixeled and out of focus, the only caught glimpses of the mermaids at the attacked the boat. They all watched as Danny put up a good fight and was able to throw his father onto a rock, the images becoming distorted and staticky as the phone started to take on water damage. They saw a mermaid try to drag the boat out from under Danny's feet from behind, and they all panicked when the phone went under water for a couple seconds. 

The last thing they saw before the video cut off as it died, was the sight of a mermaid grabbing Danny's ankle, its eyes burning a demonic bright red as it ripped his clothing and tried to drag him back into the water. They heard Danny howl in pain before he shot his blaster at the creature a second later.

That was it? That was the end of the video? Tucker angrily exited out and started digging deeper for anything else that could be useful on Danny's phone. There had to be more, there had to be something else to clue them in on what happened to Danny. Jacks story became all the more believable as they all swallowed the fact that mermaids did exist, and Danny could very possibly be fish food.

He had to be alive, Sam thought, she wouldn't be satisfied with his death until they found a body. He was alive the last time they saw him, alive when the video cut off, alive when Jack watched him get dragged under. There was no way that their best friend that they knew since before elementary, was dead.

Jazz started crying and Maddie grabbed around her shoulders, the truth of what happened to Danny had never been such a smack in her face.

He had to be alive.

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