crowspace | call me out v. 13.0

I could never insult you by holding back.

[danny's gonna get his ass kicked tbh]

[Oh he absolutely will, but listen... sometimes getting your ass kicked by your now-husband is attractive, okay.]

Good. As such, I will do my best to display my own dancing skills to their fullest potential, even with this minor setback.

[Still, it seems that Danny has some kind of plan up his sleeves here (possibly literally, given this is Danny we are talking about) before he turns his attention away from the flame and onto Grimm's face.]

So? Are you ready to begin our dance?

Yes, of course. Dance with me, my love.

[He bows first, a sweeping flourish. Of course you bow to your dance partner first!]

[And Danny will step back to give a bow as well.

The old Danny before meeting Grimm would have probably used this opportunity to try to attack him rather than bow, or if he did bow, it would be a sarcastic one as opposed to one done out of respect.

That is not the case here. He has nothing but respect and love for his partner, and so he refuses to do something as underhanded as strike instead of bowing back, though he still watches Grimm carefully, waiting to see if Grimm will strike first or will have Danny make the first move before he does anything.]

[Good call there. Attacking while he's bowing would not be received well.

Grimm straightens up, and extends his cloak-wing along with one tentacles. Three fireballs in the shapes of dragons emerge from underneath his cloak, one after the other, and zoom towards Danny. It should be possible to dodge them all, but it'll require tight timing and a pretty good jump.]

[Wow, those are really cool... alas, Danny doesn't have time to just stand around and admire the fire dragons when they are being aimed at him. Instead he's focused on having to dodge them lest he ended up getting severely burned before he's even gotten started here.

In hindsight, it turns out that rabbit features are actually helpful this time, the jump he makes to avoid the worst of it giving just enough of a boost to work thanks to the muscles in his legs.

And sure enough, it seems that Danny did have something up his sleeves in the form of several scalpels and knives that the tentacles that have replaced his hands can thankfully get a grip on once they come sliding out of their hiding space in his coat, throwing several at once at where Grimm is standing.]

[He'll happily show them off later in a calmer environment, don't worry~

Before the scalpels can connect with Grimm's body, he vanishes in a puff of red smoke, only to reappear on the other side of the room. His cloak sinks into the floor and spreads out before reemerging as a pattern of long, sharp spikes. There is enough space to stand between them... if you're the Knight's size. Danny will find it a much tighter fit.]

[It will indeed be a much tighter fit for Danny here when he moves into a space that he can avoid being struck in, but listen, he didn't crawl through tight spaces to set up traps on Rachel's floor for nothing.

... Speaking of traps, this might have to do with why Danny was agreeable to having the wedding at this particular location... after having gone to do an "inspection" of it for himself first. Thus, Danny manages to slide into a space between the spikes that's thankfully left one of his traps unharmed as he jerks his foot down with enough force to activate a switch. Now this time, there are sharp man-made spikes that comes up from the ground to try to once again catch Grimm in the spot where he's moved now.

Though, he won't be surprised if Grimm manages to avoid this one too, as it's mostly a chance to distract Grimm into either dropping the spikes he had made, or give Danny enough time to get something else ready...]

[One issue with trying to get Grimm with spikes on the ground is that he can fly. Of course, he needs to retract his wings to do that properly, which means letting the spikes fall.

About a foot in the air, he sends another few bursts of flame in Danny's direction, these one staggered to make them harder to predict and dodge.]

[The spikes getting dropped means that Danny can now move to a different spot to potentially set off another trap... the problem though is that he will have to dodge these next few bursts of flame as well trying to get there.

But it seems he has an idea as, instead of immediately making to dodge, a new object slips out of his coat... one that looks like a grenade that he uses his teeth and tongue to pull the pin of since he is now lacking fingers, before spitting the pin off to the side.

Thankfully, however, it's not an actual grenade as much as it is a smoke bomb in an attempt to give him cover and to obscure his presence momentarily. It does mean taking some burns in the process from Grimm's flames, but it's a risk it seems he's willing to make so that he can set off the next trap in the room: instead of scalpels and knives being thrown, there are now arrows that come shooting out of at least two different directions from the smoke, a bit haphazard but definitely at least one or two will end up hitting Grimm if he doesn't move.]

[Grimm has some natural resistance to smoke as an irritant - he uses it often enough himself, after all - but it still provides cover, enough that one of the arrows successfully sticks into Grimm's carapace. But an exoskeleton does what it is supposed to do, and it doesn't pierce through entirely.

As for Grimm - it doesn't matter if he can't see precisely where Danny is if he covers the entire room in waves of fireballs. Danny's too tall to jump out of the way of one without hitting one higher up, so he's bound to take some hits.]

[Yyyyep, he's gonna be feeling some of those.

... Some, not all, as once the smoke clears... wait a second, where did Danny go? He's mysteriously missing and the only clue of where he might have vanished to is, if Grimm catches sight of it in time, something on the floor sliding like a puzzle piece back into it's proper spot.

Actually, a second clue comes in the form of another piece sliding back open from a different spot in the floor: namely, right behind Grimm as Danny actually leaps out of his hiding space in the floor to try to tackle Grimm from behind in lieu of trying to use another projectile this time.]

[Good news! The tackle absolutely connects, better than his projectiles have!

Bad news! Grimm uses the momentum to more or less flip Danny over his head. He's intending to pin him to the floor with a tentacle around his throat - it's not a move he usually uses, but he can't claw like he usually would either.]

[Danny kind of doesn't have a choice but to allow that because attempting to twist out of someone's grip too much in response can cause a person to fall the wrong way. Or, well, injure themselves worse than allowing the initial type of fall.

... The other reason is that it's honestly kind of just that it's attractive, having Grimm pin him to the floor by the throat and that sure is a thought that he'll want to revisit later when they are not doing this in front of all their wedding guests? Doesn't stop him from managing to say as much while he still has enough oxygen to do so.]

Hah--not bad, though maybe we should save some of this for tonight, hmm?

[So with maybe some amount of reluctance, he instead has to use both tentacles to lash out to try to grab Grimm by his own throat to try to shove him off or choke him enough to force him to loosen his own grip on Danny's throat here.]

[Hopefully their wedding guests have some popcorn to watch this fight.

The thing about tentacles is that Grimm has the same number of tentacles as he normally has arms, which means that he has four to work with. Which means he can grab onto the tendrils holding him and try to wrench them off him while not letting up the pressure on Danny's throat.]

[Now they all know why popcorn was offered right next to the wedding cake...

Danny grits his teeth, not particularly happy to realize that he may have miscalculated about the fact that Grimm has more tentacles to work with than he does. So, plan B then.

He brings his foot up to try to kick Grimm as hard as he can. Thankfully, not aimed for the other's face (that's just terrible to try to damage that feature of his husband even to try to win a fight) but for his chest or whatever else he can reach here instead. Trying to jar him enough so that he can free at least one of the tentacles he had been previously using to try to strangle Grimm to get one of his knives instead, to try to slash and stab at the tentacle pinning him down by the throat.]

[Grimm takes a kick to the chest, and it does hurt, but not enough to dislodge him. (His stagger count is fourteen. Danny has definitely not hit him fourteen times yet.)

He tightens his grip on Danny's neck, starting to cut off his airflow.]

[... Okay, then. Plan C.

Danny's arms go slack, no longer having any kind of grip with his tentacles, legs dropping back down to the floor when kicking no longer works.

It's hard to tell what his next move might be by suddenly allowing himself to go rather limp instead of struggling some more, but it doesn't seem like he's faking the part about not being able to breathe properly judging by the wheezing noise he's making.

Is Grimm the type of person who might lean in closer to get a better look here?]

[Not lean in, no, but he will loosen his grip on Danny's neck a fraction. He'd rather not actually kill his new husband - it would make the wedding night rather unfortunate.]

[Well, not leaning in close saves Grimm from potentially getting a headbutt directly to the face at least, but once Danny's got a moment to properly suck in a breath again, he tries a different tactic that involves trying to pushing himself upright just enough to get his mouth close to the tentacle and bite it as hard as he can to try to get it to let go from what he can reach of it.

Hard enough that most normal humans would probably start bleeding because of his teeth here, but Grimm's likely tougher than that, so Danny probably knows that this wouldn't work either, but is curious enough to try it for himself.]

[Grimm's tentacles are a good deal less protected than the rest of his body. He winces and unwillingly releases Danny's neck.

Claws would've been more useful. Stupid Iris.]

[Danny uses this opportunity to break free of Grimm's hold, scrambling back and up onto his feet a good distance here. However, he doesn't go to immediately attack Grimm as a result, instead taking this as a moment to catch his breath and rub at his neck here where he had been getting strangled before.]

I'm gonna--ha, have to remember to try that again later under better circumstances...

[... The getting strangled part, or the part about being able to be more successful next time about fighting back when he has normal hands again? He doesn't clarify, instead watching carefully this time to see what move Grimm makes before making any of his own.]

Oh, do you enjoy that sort of thing, my love?

[A casual question as he sends another few plumes of fire in Danny's direction.]

And if I said I did?

[He asks, as he concentrates on dodging here...]

Then I look forward to seeing your beautiful face turn blue beneath me.

[It's definitely easy to dodge more fire blasts while he's talking like that, right?]

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