Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vlad looked down at the horrible, small, yellow things in disdain. This was the fifth time this week they had shown up at him home in Wisconsin. They somehow kept getting around his ghost-proof defenses, and his normal defenses as well. Any acts of physical violence seemed meaningless against them. They weren’t ghosts, but also weren’t like anything he had ever encountered before. 

One in the front, nearly indistinguishable from the rest, angrily babbled at him in their unknown language, kicking his shoes and pointing an accusatory finger. Vlad still had no idea what they wanted from him. They brought him random things, anything from half eaten bananas to priceless artifacts he was sure had been lost to history. They seemed to want to serve him, but also appeared to be more incompetent than the three vultures were. Absolutely unintelligent and messy (there was no way he was going to let them near Maddie, what if they hurt her or got something on her freshly groomed fur?), the only thing they had going for them was drive and ability to irritate him.  

“Fine” Vlad hissed, quite literally in this case, at his wits end. “You want to prove yourselves to me, bring me Danny Phantom.” 

Something seemed to dawn upon the small yellow creature at this command. It turned its back to him and began hastily talking to the other ones. Vlad tapped his foot impatiently. A few stole glances at him while they talked, before continuing. The leader once more approached him and he had half the mind to punt the silly thing. 

“Yes Boss!” It saluted, an joyful grin on its face. 

All at once, they scattered, and Vlad raised an eyebrow. That was the easiest he had gotten rid of them yet. Last time he had to send the multi-headed bear after them to get the to leave. At the very least, they’d be out of his hair for a good while now, and hopefully into Daniel’s. If they got into Jack’s, even better (he vaguely wondered which of them were smarter). Vlad swiped the imaginary dust of his suit and locked the door behind him, going back to run another full diagnostic of his defense system to see where they kept slipping in. How irritating, but useful in their own way. It patched up all the holes Daniel possibly could’ve had his Foley friend make in the computerized portions of his defenses and exposed any weaknesses he hadn’t anticipated for. Either way though, good riddance. 

(Vlad certainly wasn’t expecting them to turn up a month and a half later with Daniel hog tied and unconscious.) 

Chapter Text

Phantom looked down at the small creature staring up at him from Vlad’s front porch. It is small, round, and yellow, wearing what looked like appropriately sized overalls. It babbled something indistinguishable but excitedly up at him. He slammed the door in its face, sending it bouncing down the front stairs. He paused where he could hear it angrily chatter, before moving on. Phantom waited just for a moment longer, to make sure it had left, before heading back into the mansion. 

Phantom navigated through the halls, directly into Vlad’s study, slamming open the artisan hardwood doors with a swift kick, leaving hairline fractures in the structure. Vlad himself made an impressive imitation of Maddie the Cat, jumping practically to the ceiling in a bout of fright-induced power activation. Maddie herself just glanced up lazily from her hand-crafted cat-mansion.

“Vladimir, there was a creature at the door!” Phantom announced. 

Vlad had the audacity to be confused before sinking into his own hands, hair still disheveled. He somehow managed to look more tired than normal. 

“Daniel, I’m going to need a bit more of a description than just ‘ creature’, ” Vlad sighed. “Was it hostile?”

Phantom wrinkled his nose at the name ‘Daniel’. “No,” he huffed. “Just disturbing.”

Vlad raised an eyebrow. “Disturbing? Care to describe this unsettling monster then?” 

Phantom crossed his arms and glared at Vlad. He was being made fun of, wasn’t he?

“Small, yellow, and wearing overall. Very puntable in retrospect,” Phantom described. He was not frightened of the creature at the door. He wasn’t. 

Recognition flashed over Vlad’s features, followed up with an amused smirk. Phantom was overcome with the urge to claw the expression off his face. 

“Ah, I’m familiar with them. They’re quite useful when appli-IEE—!!” 

Vlad didn’t get to finish his statement as Phantom tossed himself over the Mountain Mahogany desk to drag blunt fingers across Vlad’s face, making it more of a slap than the intended clawing. The office chair slammed into the ground, and Vlad out a heavy wheeze. 

“Don’t make fun of me!” Phantom snarled into Vlad’s face.

Vlad managed to shove him off without much effort.  Phantom cursed his small body for what had to be the two-hundredth time. 

“Feral brat,” Vlad hissed, flashing his eyes, which Phantom quickly retaliated, but he didn’t attack again.  

With a groan, Vlad picked himself up, dusted his clothes off, and then fixed the chair, before seating himself again. 

“As I was saying ,” Vlad continued with much less amusement. Good. “I know what you’re talking about. I do not know what they’re called, but the yellow creatures act as servants, and will do their best to complete a task given to them, despite their lacking intelligence.”

“ There’s more of them?”

“Quite a few actually. I’m unsure of their exact numbers. They’re also unlikely to leave you alone until you give them a task,” Vlad added, to Phantom’s growing horror. It was fine… he could deal with this. 

“Vladimir, how competent, ” Phantom practically spat the word, “would you say they are?”

Vlad hummed in thought, finger on his chin. “They were good enough to bring me your counterpart knocked out tied up in Fenton-line. Though I’m not sure if that speaks to their skill or their tenacity.”

Phantom raised a brow. The fact that they were able to capture Danny was impressive, though Vlad was unfortunately right, it was more likely luck than not. Especially with the brat’s current skill, he doubted they would have much success. But he also wanted them as far from him as possible. 

There was a loud bang against the glass. Both Phantom and Vlad snapped their heads to the study window. One of the creatures had catapulted itself against the glass. It stuck there for a moment, before sliding down, then falling from the second story back to the ground below. Phantom spotted a small group of them below with their makeshift catapult. 

“Well… they’re at least resilient,” Phantom commented. 

An idea passed through Phantom’s head as he thought of another group of barely-competent, horribly dressed fools. They had been irritatingly active as of late, and it should keep both groups occupied enough that he shouldn’t need to get involved. Vlad was preventing him from killing the ridiculous humans outright, so this was at least a half-decent compromise. 

“You have an idea?” Vlad prodded. 

“Yep.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Nope.”

“Is this idea going to cause untold amounts of property damage again?”

“Probably.”

Vlad let out a weary sigh. Good, at least he knew better than to try and stop him at this point. 

“Then I suppose I’ll prepare the infrastructure budget. Now get out of my office, Daniel. I have other matters to attend to,” Vlad ordered. 

“Shut up, Vladimir,” Phantom snapped back, but left the office with a feral grin on his face, blunt teeth not doing it justice. 

Phantom had managed to gather a small army of the yellow creatures into the back garden. They obeyed easily once he gave them their orders, and they lined up easily, following his every move as he paced around the space. They babbled amongst each other, excited like he was a rock star getting ready to perform in concert. His gut was pulled tight inside at the attention, and Phantom fought the urge to flee. He directed the fear into a rage and pulled his expression into a sneer. 

Phantom walked up to the front and center, and stomped his foot, crushing a pot with a loud shatter. The creatures quieted immediately and stood at rapt attention. 

“You wanted orders, right?!” Phantom snarled. 

The creatures gave an overjoyed cheer. 

“Fine then. I need you to destroy someone for me. Go in, and cause as many problems for them as possible. Get in their way, draw their ire, break into their facilities, and burn them down. Weaken every aspect of their organization in perpetrating for the final assault, so that we can bring them to their knees!”

Phantom took a deep breath, and roared, “I want you to destroy the GIW!”  

They responded with a thunderous applause.

Chapter Text

Danny didn’t know if he should stop them, because he really didn’t want to. The GIW had met their match against the small yellow beings. But they were causing a lot of damage. Or… well the GIW were causing damage, and the yellow things were causing collateral damage. 

Apparently, the GIW thought that the yellow beings were ghosts and were determined to catch them, and the yellow things were dead set on causing problems for the GIW. They were getting in the way between the GIW and whatever poor ghost they were hunting, they were becoming targets themselves and leading the GIW on wild goose ghost chases, stealing weapons, breaking weapons, and at one point, they had even managed to hijack a van at one point and had driven it directly through the GIW’s ranks, and into a wall. But Danny was pretty sure that from the GIW’s perspective, their worst offense was the frequent use of colored water balloons, condiment packets, and even just balls of mud to stain their pristine suits. 

Danny really didn’t want to stop them, but he was undoubtedly going to get blamed for everything they did. He also really didn’t like either of the groups and was perfectly content watching them mess with each other, as long as they left him alone. 

He had no idea where the yellow things had come from, other than the fact that they were definitely not ghosts, worked for Vlad at least twice, and were very irritating to deal with. They were next to impossible to avoid since they had somehow figured out that he and Phantom were the same and came at him regardless of what form he was in. But they weren’t paying attention to him now. One had even waved and said something that could’ve been interpreted as a friendly greeting. Danny had waved back. 

Thus the spectating. Danny was trying to mitigate as much property damage as he could, so he was getting in some good shield practice, while also keeping most people away (even if they screamed and protested as he dragged them away). He was also taking videos on his phone for Tucker to compile into a compilation for him to watch and share later.  

One of the yellow things had managed to snag a bazooka but was holding it backward when it fired. The shot hit a different agent behind it, knocking the agent off their feet and into a mud puddle. Danny was so glad he was recording. 

There was an explosion in the distance, strong enough that Danny could feel the rumble of it from the roof of his current perch. With a quick glance around, he pinpointed the pillar of smoke rising from the middle distance as the most likely source. Explosions that big were usually bad. Danny sped off in the direction of the smoke. 

It turned out to be an old warehouse on the edge of town. There was a hole in the roof where the smoke poured out, and familiar white suits stained in various shades of purple streamed out. There was also the clear sign of the yellow creatures wreaking havoc here too, since they fled through a door on the opposite side of the building. Turns out they were better at finding out where the GIW had been hiding out than Danny was, and with the way the agents were scrambling to get away, he decided he liked them a lot more when they were terrorizing someone that wasn’t him. 

An agent, stained completely in a combination of fushia and indigos, tripped over their own feet, directly into a pile of mud. Danny cackled like a mad man so hard he almost plummeted from the air.