While traveling a few months ago I started thinking about parallels between Danny using the ghost catcher and Elktaur from Centaurworld and came up with a new AU
NowhereKing!Danny AU
Details:
Standard DP origin story (activates portal, becomes halfa, fights ghosts, ghosts considered both evil and non-sentient by his parents)
Meets Val, still wants to date her despite her wanting him dead as Phantom
Danny and Val grow closer, they start dating
Danny's self hatred starts to grow, blames his ghost half for making him something Val would hate if she knew, plans to find a way to get rid of it
Finds the ghost catcher in the lab, uses it, but instead of getting rid of Phantom both Fenton and Phantom still have all of Danny's memories
Phantom feels betrayed by Fenton, who demands Phantom leave and then goes on to date Val without his other half
Fenton becomes a ghost hunter with his parents and Val, part out of self-hatred towards Phantom, part out of his continued sense of responsibility to stop all the ghosts from coming through
Phantom shows up to confront him and tries to convince Fenton that they should merge back together, Fenton refuses and shoots Phantom
The two are still linked, so it hurts both of them
Realizing he can't hurt Phantom or leave him to get hurt by someone else, Fenton traps him in a thermos and keeps it hidden
Years later Val discovers the thermos and opens it, is shocked Danny kept the capture of her mortal enemy secret from her for so long
Seems off, begins to suspect there's more going on than it appears
Lets Phantom go, tells him to escape through the FentonWorks Portal
Fenton finds out Phantom is free and pursues him, Val chases after him for answers
Phantom, Red Huntress, and three Fentons (everyone but Jazz) all end up in one basement with an active portal
Phantom shot, tries to flee through portal
Jack shoots at him, misses but hits portal instead and it explodes
Phantom trapped halfway through portal, in void between Ghost Zone and Human Realm
Time is different in void, ages pass as injured and alone phantom warps and adapts to survival in abstract space
For extra plot, Val gets sucked through portal by explosion, gets character growth in the Ghost Zone
Where are Sam, Tucker, and Jazz? What will they do when they find out what happened to Phantom? What about Dani or Vlad?
If Fenton/Phantom link works differently then Phantom could go through Nowhere-King-creating Trauma at the hands of the GIW
Or Fenton could turn him over to Vlad with the safety net of blackmail to make sure any experiments wouldn't come back to hurt him, in which case cloning, fusing/splitting people/ghosts, etc. are possible to go with The Nowhere King's minotaurs
This stuff could lead to a scenario that matches the Nowhere King better in that people wouldn't want to open the portal and risk letting him out
