Reviews:

Bearticguy7: He could. That's a pretty good idea. Though I do have a minor correction. From what I've read on the Wiki, Imps and Hellhounds are pretty much tied for last while succubi are the second lowest ranking demons. But that's just semantics, I suppose.

Alder Hill: No that's not bad at all. And it's certainly a possibility for the future, but their relationship would have to develop quite a bit more before that point. And I'm glad you think so highly of my writing! As for Danny becoming half demon, it's a possibility but I would like to wait until later in the story before that. As for him going to the other circles, technically I suppose. I mean, even if he wasn't allowed, who could really stop him when he can walk through walls, disappear, and fly? I mean I guess it's possible there might be magic to prevent the Elevator but that magic should in theory be directed towards sinner demons, not ghosts or humans.

Mizugami18: Oh... I sincerely hope the last chapter wasn't too disappointing. I do try my best to make the personalities as close to canon as possible even if I don't always succeed. I would appreciate if you could point out which parts were out of character so I can go back and fix them. But I am going to assume the character that's the most out of character is Octavia. That's because this is taking place in the Danny Phantom timeline so she isn't as old as she is in canon just yet, and thus isn't quite as jaded from her parents fighting all the time. I tried to write it as a sort of transition period between what we've seen of her childhood personality and her personality as an eighteen year old. And I'll admit, I honestly didn't think of having them meet at a party, though I probably should have. I just thought Vlad would want Danny to go to school and considering Octavia is the same or very close to the same age as Danny in this story it seemed convenient to have them meet there, especially as a way to have them start hanging out and becoming friends.

Heidao: I'm sorry the story is a bit rough. I am trying my best. I was also considering having Vlad add White Room Torture for the more severe offenders. I'm still debating whether or not I should include that or if that would be going a bit too far. I still might though, depending on what I decide.

J: Loona is a bit of a psycho. She kicked a baby stroller and presumably either seriously harmed or even killed the infant just to "blow off some steam" as she put it. Plus she's portrayed as being short tempered and bitchy as Hell in Helluva Boss. So I just can't see her and Danny getting along even as friends let alone as anything more than that. There are honestly very few characters in the Hazbin Hotel universe that I would actually pair Danny with, mainly due to their personalities. Octavia is one of the very few vaguely plausible ones.

A couple more weeks had passed and Danny had started hanging out with Octavia more and more often. They were quickly becoming very good friends. Eventually they exchanged phone numbers and would talk on the phone occasionally.

It was the weekend and Danny was in the middle of beating up a gang of insectoid demons that decided to try to claim some of his territory. He had split himself into about eight different clones to fight all of them at once.

One of his clones created an ecto-barrier as one demon tried to shoot him with an AK-47. Once the demon had depleted his magazine the clone crossed his arms and said, "Really? A normal gun? Not even a laser of some sort? I'd almost be offended if it weren't so horribly pathetic." He then flew over and ripped the rifle out of the demon's hands before using it as a club to beat him with. He could feel bones being crushed to powder with each swing of the weapon.

Another gang member tried throwing a grenade at another of Danny's clones. Danny casually caught it mid air, flew over to the demon at hypersonic speeds, stopped directly in front of the demon, made the grenade intangible, and shoved it directly into the cavity of one of the demon's lungs. The demon immediately started coughing and gasping in pain whilst scratching at its chest in a mixture of pain and panic. The clone then went intangible as the grenade exploded and a shower of blood and gore went everywhere. "Ooh, that's gotta hurt. Pull yourself together dude. I thought you wanted to take my territory. You can't exactly do that if you're all over the place like this."

"Hey, be careful with that temper there, buddy. You may just lose control of yourself." Danny said as a raging beetle-like demon charged him and tried to punch him. Danny casually dodged the punches before overshadowing the demon. He then manipulated the demon's body and forced him to attack the other members of his own gang.

The rest of the battle was continuing in a similar manner with Danny mocking the demons, making bad puns, and generally humiliating them.

The leader, an angry wasp demon, had an Exterminator weapon, a glowing sword, and was trying to cleave into Danny with it. "Ah, you missed. Oops, you missed again. And again… Man you are really bad at this. Really slow too." Danny's main body said as he casually dodged the sword being swung at him. The demon was fast for a low to mid ranking demon, moving several times faster than the speed of sound. Unfortunately for him, that wasn't nearly fast enough to hit Danny in his ghost form.

Eventually Danny got bored of dodging and vaporized the demon with an ecto-blast, causing his exterminator weapon to clatter to the ground, before grabbing his soul. Holding it up for all of the rest of the gang to see, he said, "HOLD IT! This is your boss' soul." The soul started glowing green and an agonized scream filled the street as it began violently ripping itself apart before fizzling out as if it had never existed in the first place. "Now, it's nothing. Unless you want the exact same thing happening to you, I recommend you get out of my territory. Now." Danny's tone became extremely threatening.

Several of the gang members panicked and ran for their lives while the rest stayed and tried to put on a brave face. "Hmph… You really should have run with the rest of your gang, because I'm done messing around with you." Danny said before having his clones move at a fraction of the speed of light to start tearing the remaining members of the gang to pieces before destroying their souls as well. When that was done he merged himself back together, picked up the exterminator weapon, and floated up into the air. "I'm never going to get used to doing that…" He muttered. He still hated killing people, let alone destroying souls, as necessary as it may have been considering the fact the prison didn't exist yet. He quickly dropped off the exterminator weapon at the penthouse before continuing his patrols.

Suddenly his hellphone rang. Pulling it out he saw that Octavia was calling him. Answering the call he said, "Hello?"

"Hey Danny. My parents are fighting again and I need to get out of the house for a bit… Would you mind hanging out right now?" Octavia's voice said through the phone.

"Sure! Good timing by the way. I just now finished getting rid of a gang that was trying to claim part of my territory." Danny said as he flew through the air.

"Seriously? What is this, the third time this weekend?" Octavia inquired.

"I know, right? I guess a lot of people don't take me seriously as an Overlord since I'm a teenager or something. That's the only reason I can think of that so many people would try claiming pieces of my territory so often. The idiots. I mean how many gangs does a guy have to dismember on a semi-daily basis before people get the idea that it's not smart to mess with me? Man am I glad that Vlad's around to deal with these guys while I'm at school or doing other things. Otherwise I would barely have any time for myself whatsoever. Anyway, where would you like to meet up?" Danny asked.

"Hm… How about we meet at Stylish Occult." Octavia suggested.

"Oh, sure. Then I'll be waiting for you there. I just have to call Vlad to let him know he needs to take care of things here for a while." Danny stated, changing directions mid flight and heading for the goth clothing store. He and Octavia had visited it before so he knew what to expect. It had been pretty fun last time. While goth stuff really wasn't his style, going there did remind him of Sam somewhat. Well except for the taxidermy, she would have hated that part. And honestly, he regretted not connecting with Sam over her interests a bit more before her death, even if he wasn't quite as interested in them as her. So he wasn't about to repeat his mistakes again.

"Alright then. See you in fifteen minutes." Octavia said before hanging up.

Danny then proceeded to call Vlad. "Hey, Vlad, I'm going to go hang out with Octavia a bit today. Do you have time to watch our territory while I'm gone?"

"No. I actually have a meeting with Marquis Gamigin. It's fairly important I attend. I'm on my way there now. However, I have recently hired some extra muscle for exactly this situation. I've been meaning to inform you about that but it kept slipping my mind as it were. They're actually the reason why I have been able to get so much more done lately." Vlad informed him.

"Oh, okay. As long as they know to follow our laws while they're protecting our territory, I guess." Danny responded.

"Don't worry, Daniel, I made sure they were reliable in that regard when I hired them. And based on testimonies from citizens within our territory, they actually do a very good job. I'll have to introduce you to them soon." Vlad stated.

"Please do. I'd like to know who's protecting our territory while we're both gone. How long have they been operating?" Danny asked.

"About two weeks. I intended to tell you about them last week once I was certain I would be keeping them on our payroll, but as I said it kept slipping my mind. Anyway, I'll have them start patrolling. Now I'm about to arrive, so I have to go. I'll speak with you again this evening, Daniel." Vlad said.

"Alright then. Talk to you later, Vlad." Danny stated before hanging up and putting his phone away.

He continued flying for several minutes before landing in front of the store. He then waited for a while before seeing a limousine pull up. The passenger door of the limo opened up and Octavia stepped out. "Hey, Danny." She greeted.

Danny raised a hand in greeting. "Hey, Octavia. Sorry to hear your parents are fighting again."

"Why are you apologizing? It's not your fault they can't stand each other." Octavia said in a slightly annoyed tone.

"It's an expression of sympathy. Anyway, should we go inside? I imagine you probably want to take your mind off all that." Danny suggested, motioning to the store.

"Yeah. Come on." Octavia stated, before walking into the store.

Danny followed after her and asked, "So, what are you looking for today? New clothes or more taxidermy?"

"Just new clothes this time around, I think. Speaking of which, you really should try to find a new outfit yourself. The black and white skin tight jumpsuit is just a bit… bland. Especially for an Overlord." Octavia stated.

"Ouch. I like my jumpsuit. But I guess I see your point, at least in regards to me being an overlord. I guess I don't look particularly intimidating like this, do I?" Danny said, looking down at his outfit.

Octavia shook her head. "Not in the least."

"Great… Well I'll look around but don't expect much. I'm okay with goth stuff, but it just doesn't look right on me." Danny stated.

Octavia rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. It can look right on anyone. You just need to find the right outfit. That being said, I will admit some of the more modern stuff would look pretty ridiculous on you. Chains, leather collars, and the like. But this store does have a Victorian Gothic section too. Some of the older demons get confused about how the terminology has changed so stores like this usually have Victorian Gothic sections for them."

"Ooooh… So you think it'd be better if I dressed up like Vlad." Danny said, crossing his arms.

"Better than what you're wearing now? Yeah. I mean the black and white color scheme is fine, it even looks good on you, but a skin tight jumpsuit? When you're doing your weird science stuff with Vlad it might be fine, sure, but anywhere else it just looks out of place." Octavia stated.

"Fair, I guess. It was technically lab equipment originally. But still, dressing up like Vlad…" Danny said with a shudder.

"What's wrong with the way Vlad dresses?"

Danny scratched the back of his head uncertainly. "Nothing, really. It's just the fact that it's him, of all people. We, uh… We used to be enemies before everyone I knew died and I ended up here in Hell. I'm starting to get used to him but I still have some bad memories of that, I guess."

"Well it's not like you have to wear the same outfit as him. I doubt they even sell an exact copy since his outfit looks custom tailored, but something other than this would be way better." Octavia said, motioning to Danny's current outfit.

Danny shrugged. "I guess…"

"Oh, come on. It won't hurt to at least look at a few new outfits. I can even help you pick one out if you're so scared of choosing something that will look dumb on you." Octavia stated.

"Fine. But I retain the right to veto any outfit I don't like." Danny said.

"Fine by me. I'm not your mom." Octavia told him.

The two of them looked around the store for a couple hours. The two of them would alternate on judging how eachother looked in certain clothes. Eventually they decided on a few outfits for Octavia, and one for Danny. That one being the only one Danny was somewhat comfortable with.

Danny's outfit was a fancy black and white Victorian outfit, with a bit of red in the design. It was a bit formal for his liking but having started to get used to the uniform of the school he was attending he was starting to become more okay with clothes that were a bit more formal. He had also bought a new pair of white leather dress gloves and white leather dress boots to go with the outfit. Octavia had also made him buy a white cape with a black inner lining to go along with the outfit, but he had no intention of wearing that if he could avoid it. It reminded him too much of the cape that his evil alternate future self wore.

The whole outfit was ridiculously overpriced in Danny's opinion, and considering the fact this was Hell it probably was overpriced, but fortunately he was rich thanks in no small part to the efforts of Vlad. So he was able to afford the outfit easily enough. He decided to wear it out of the store and kept his old jumpsuit, boots, and gloves in the shopping bag along with the cape.

"You look a lot less stupid like this than you did in that jumpsuit." Octavia said as they walked out of the store.

Danny chuckled at the backhanded compliment and said, "Gee thanks… The outfits you chose are pretty cool too."

Octavia smirked. "I know. Hey, my dad's holding a party pretty soon. That's actually the reason he and mom started fighting today. It started out as an argument over some of the food and decorations before spiraling into a fight… Anyway, it would be nice if you could attend. His parties are always so boring, it would be nice to have someone to talk to. Just wear the outfit you're wearing now rather than the jumpsuit."

"Sure! Though if I do come, Vlad will probably insist on attending too. That won't be too much of a problem, will it?" Danny asked.

Octavia shook her head. "Nah. If anything, that just gives my parents an extra person to focus on rather than fighting with each other. The less time they have to argue the better."

Danny chuckled slightly, "Well if there's one thing Vlad's good at, it's talking to important people for long periods of time. I've gone with him on enough business meetings and political dinners to know that much for sure."

"Sounds good to me. Anyway, it was nice getting out of the house for a while while they sorted things out, but I should probably be going. Later, Danny." Octavia said before walking back to the limousine that was still waiting for her.

"Later, Octavia!" Danny stated before floating back up into the air and flying home.

Almost as soon as he got back his ghost sense went off. At first he assumed it was just Vlad, that was until he was suddenly enveloped by a net. "I have you now, ghost child!" A very familiar but completely unwelcome voice stated confidently.

"Skulker?! What are you doing here?!" Danny demanded.

"Isn't it obvious? Hunting you, and collecting a few demons as trophies. I'll admit it's been pretty hard to find you, let alone find a way to get to you here in Hell, but you should know better than anyone that I never let my prey escape from me so easily." Skulker told him. His mechanical suit looked slightly different than usual. It was bigger, bulkier, seemed more heavily armored, and very clearly had more weapons built in and attached to it.

Danny destroyed the net Skulker had trapped him in with an intense blast of ecto-energy. "Skulker, I'm warning you. Get out of here. Things aren't like they were back in Amity Park. I don't have a ghost portal to send you back to the Ghost Zone. If you do this, you're going to end up forcing me to kill you."

"Kill me? Hah! Were it so easy, ghost boy." Skulker said before pointing an arm at Danny. Suddenly a laser emerged from a hidden compartment in his arm and fired at Danny.

Danny blocked it with a barrier of ecto-energy. "Skulker, seriously, just stop it and leave. I've learned how to destroy souls. I don't want to have to do that to you if I don't have to."

"Destroy souls you say? A very rare and powerful ability. That just means your pelt has just gone up in value and makes the hunt all the more worth it." Skulker said, unfazed by Danny's warnings. He continued trying to attack Danny, completely undeterred.

Danny growled in frustration. "Fine… If this is how it's going to be, just don't try begging for your life later." He then blasted Skulker with ecto energy before flying towards him at a fraction of the speed of light and slamming a fist into him full force. Skulker was sent flying completely out of the city from the force of the impact. Danny flew after him and continued tearing into him with a brutality he had never shown Skulker back in Amity Park. All of his attacks were intended to rip Skulker's head off so he could get to Skulker's actual body.

In response, Skulker adjusted his strategy and fought Danny with an equal measure of ferocity. Whereas their fights in the past had been more contests of might in which Skulker was attempting to capture Danny as a trophy, this battle was a fight to the death.

Skulker stabbed Danny in the gut with his retractable wrist blade causing Danny to scream in pain before grabbing Skulker's arm, spinning, and throwing Skulker to the ground causing a decently sized crater as Skulker's body tore through the dirt and rock. Danny gritted his teeth and clutched at the wound in his stomach which was bleeding profusely. His eyes then started glowing brighter in pure rage. Raising both of his hands, he created a ball of condensed ecto-energy the size of his head and threw it at Skulker.

Skulker barely had enough time to press a button on his wrist before the sphere impacted him, causing an explosion that would have destroyed several city blocks by itself had Danny not taken them out of the city entirely. When the dust cleared, Skulker was standing there unharmed whilst his body was surrounded by a glowing green barrier. "Like it? It's a barrier generator I designed specifically for my excursion into Hell. I intend to take a few powerful demons and their pelts as trophies, And since I regularly have trouble with you I knew I would need it."

"You think that's really going to save you?" Danny snarled.

"No, not really. It's just to make me last a bit longer in a sustained fight with beings more powerful than me. But this is just one of many countermeasures I have concocted for the demons. Unfortunately, I can't try them all on you since you are not a demon. But I have managed to try them on some other lesser demons while I've been hunting you and they work wonderfully." Skulker explained before raising his arm and firing another ecto-laser blast at him.

Danny dodged the laser and flew down to beat Skulker with his fists. This proved to be a mistake as Skulker proved to be physically stronger than him, likely having upgraded his armor's strength beyond what it was previously capable of. It seemed that the significantly larger size of Skulker's suit wasn't just for show. And with his retractable wrist blade, Danny was at a serious disadvantage in close quarters combat too. Danny barely managed to get away from Skulker without losing limbs in the process.

But the moment Danny broke away from the close quarters fight, Skulker launched a salvo of missiles from a missile pod sticking out of his shoulder at Danny while firing at him with what looked like a massive minigun that appeared out of his other shoulder. Said Minigun was firing continuous pulses of powerful ecto-lasers.

Danny dodged the lasers and tried to lead the missiles towards Skulker only for them to swerve around him or turn intangible before continuing to chase Danny. Skulker chuckled malevolently. "Did you really think that would work, ghost boy? I've learned from our previous encounters how clever you can be, so I accounted for you trying to turn my own equipment against me and made counter measures to avoid it."

Danny said nothing but blasted the missiles with beams of ecto-energy, causing them to explode mid air. He then flew up into the air, snarled at Skulker, and tried to blast him with as powerful a beam of ecto-energy as he could possibly manage from directly above. This dug a very deep hole about a dozen meters into the ground. When it was over, Skulker was standing at the bottom of the hole. His barrier generator had fallen and he was now showing signs of damage, but he was still in fighting condition.

"Hahaha! Good shot. But if you're going to destroy my soul, you're going to need to do better than that." Skulker stated in a menacing tone, giving Danny a viscous smile. He was clearly enjoying this fight a lot more than Danny was. He flew up out of the hole and tackled Danny, impaling him through the side of his chest where his left lung would be with his wrist blades before twisting the blades to exacerbate the wound. "I've just been toying with you and showing off my suit's new capabilities until now. So what do you say we start getting a bit more serious, eh?"

"You want me to get serious? Fine!" Danny growled, gritting his teeth in agony from the pain of the stab wounds. He was very glad his ghost form didn't have functional internal organs because if it did, he knew he would be dead or dying right now. Taking a deep breath Danny unleashed a ghostly wail point blank directly at Skulker, causing the hunter to go flying backwards and his suit to start sparking as circuits inside of it were broken. When he stopped, Danny was panting for breath and his head reverted back to his human form as he struggled to maintain his ghost form.

"Now that's more like it! Bring it on, ghost child! Give me a real challenge so it is truly worth it when I finally peel the flesh from your bones to harvest your pelt then nail your still living skinless body on the wall above my fireplace!" Skulker laughed maniacally before launching more missiles at Danny and firing more lasers. More weapons started appearing all over Skulker's body, all of which began firing upon Danny. Skulker was even leading his shots to make it even harder for Danny to avoid all of them.

"Crap, crap, crap!" Danny cursed as he tried his best to avoid the overwhelming amounts of fire coming from Skulker, though despite his best efforts he still ended up getting hit quite a bit, causing him immense pain. He could feel himself starting to get weaker. If this went on much longer he wasn't going to be able to sustain his ghost form and he was going to die.

So he did the only thing he could do. He phased into the ground and started flying through the ground away from Skulker as fast as he possibly could, which meant at several times the speed of light.

Once he thought he was far enough away he floated back up above the ground and grabbed his Hellphone with trembling hands. He was losing too much ectoplasm, he needed help fast or he was dead and he knew it. Opening his phone he selected Vlad's name from his contacts and called him.

It took a few rings but Vlad eventually answered. "What is it, Daniel? I'm in the middle of an important meeting!" Vlad hissed in annoyance on the other side of the call.

"It's Skulker, he's here… He has a new suit… I've tried fighting him on my own but I'm losing… Vlad… I… I think I'm dying… I'm losing a lot of ectoplasm… Please… I need your help…" Danny pleaded.

"I'm on my way. Where are you right now?" Vlad demanded in a frighteningly serious tone.

"I don't know… I flew away from him so fast I sort of got lost… I can see a city in the distance… Vlad, what should I do?" Danny asked.

"Head to the city, find out where you are, tell me, then hide or run from Skulker as necessary until I can get there to help you." Vlad ordered.

Danny did as he was told and flew towards the city. Seeing a road sign on the way there, he examined it for a moment before saying, "I see a road sign… It says, 'Imp City'. I think that's the name of the place I ended up at."

"Good, I know where that is. It's not too far from Pentagram City. Go there, and I will be there soon." Vlad ordered before hanging up.

Danny put his phone away. Before he could do anything else he was hit in the back by a particularly large ecto-laser that stripped the skin off of his back and knocked him to the ground.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk… Running away now, ghost child? Pathetic. Where's the boy who humiliated me multiple times over in the human world? Come on now, get up and fight me!" Skulker demanded.

Danny turned and fired a beam of ecto-energy at Skulker before bolting towards the city. Once he was in the city he immediately turned invisible and hid in an alleyway while clutching at his stab wounds in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

He saw Skulker land in the middle of the road and looked around. "I know you're here, ghost child! Come out and face me!" Skulker shouted.

Danny dove behind a trash can and pressed himself up against a wall. Only for said trashcan to be blown up moments later, sending him flying deeper into the alleyway. "There you are. I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter! You can not hide from me!"

Danny went intangible and phased through a wall, running from Skulker. Wow… Running from Skulker… Now that was something he never thought he'd have to do. But he did. Whatever Skulker had done to his suit, Danny simply wasn't prepared to deal with him at the moment. If he didn't keep running, he was going to die. If his heart still worked in his ghost form, it would have been pounding in his chest. He was legitimately afraid right now. He didn't want to die. But he knew he couldn't beat Skulker in his current iteration at the moment.

Danny kept running through walls intangibly as missiles exploded and buildings collapsed all around him. "Stop running and fight me, you insolent whelp! FIGHT ME! FIGHT ME, DAMN YOU!" Skulker roared furiously, his voice becoming deeper and more monstrous. Both his eyes and the ectoplasmic fire emanating from his head like hair slowly turning from green to yellow, to orange, and eventually to a deep crimson red. The metal making up the exterior of his suit started growing darker and darker until it turned black.

Eventually Danny was hit by a missile, forcing him out of his intangibility and causing him to slam into a wall from the force of the explosion. Danny slid to the ground and ended up in a sitting position against the wall. His vision was blurry but he saw Skulker marching up to him with his wrist blades extended.

Grabbing Danny by the hair, Skulker yanked him up into the air and held the blades to his throat. "You should have fought me when you had the chance, ghost child… Any last words before I rip your vocal cords out through your throat so you can't scream while I skin you alive?" Skulker growled.

Danny opened his mouth and tried to say something but all that came out was a strained croak. He was too weak and in too much pain to form a single word let alone a sentence. It was a miracle that he was still maintaining his ghost form at all.

Suddenly a glowing purple sword made of ectoplasmic energy cleaved Skulker's arm off from behind, causing Danny to fall to the ground. He struggled to raise his head and he saw multiple clones of Vlad tearing into Skulker with ectoplasmic weapon constructs. Then everything went black.

You know, I always thought the show misused Skulker. I feel he had a lot of potential to be a truly terrifying enemy for Danny if he was handled correctly, I mean he is the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, so he has to be really good at what he does. But the show decided to have him show up every other week and have Danny defeat him with relative ease each time. Granted, something else is going on with him in this story, as I'm sure you could tell.

How did he get to Hell? How did he suddenly get so strong? Why did his voice and form suddenly change near the end of the fight? All of these questions will be answered in due time.

Though I do have a question for all of you. Though the question involves immediate spoilers for the next chapter. So if you don't want spoilers for the next chapter, don't read beyond this point! Spoiler Warning!

It wouldn't happen for quite some time, but if Danny were to become a half demon which method would you think would be more interesting? Him dying and becoming a sinner demon or him making a deal with Lucifer for whatever reason and becoming a demon that way?