To someone less self-assured than Old N, it would all have appeared too easy to be right. Despite the pertinacious assaults upon his feet, the hulking warden seemed to be dazed, or preoccupied with whether he had left the kettle on the stove or what-not, making no attempt to repulse the swiping pincers targeting his lower extremities. However, the crustacean demon was quite convinced that everything was going just as it was supposed to. Admittedly, this was due not so much to any excess of confidence on his part, but rather the reflection that, had this not been the case, some contingency planning would have been in order, which sounded as though it would entail a far greater effort than it was worth. After all, it was not as though the situation was about to change dramatically-
*crunch*
Too suddenly and rapidly for Old N to be able to do anything about it, Nefas's left foot darted up, then down again, into - indeed, almost through - the assailant's right pincer. Before even his torpid body had registered the pain, the right foot followed suit, another *crunch* filling all of the demon's senses, including those where sounds had generally little to no business. He barely had the time to glimpse the feet disappearing somewhere upwards before it finally reached him how strongly it hurt to have both forelimbs crushed into chitinous paste by what seemed to be roughly five tonnes of cambion. And did it hurt. The jolt sent Old N springing to an upright position despite himself (there was, after all, a reliable method to convince him to stand up..) and blindly staggering a few steps as his entire nerve-less bulk was convulsed by pain, which, for a few seconds which passed as swiftly as decades, was all that filled him in every conceivable sense.
However, the only truly constant thing in Old N was his laziness, and it was only a matter of time before it reasserted its absolute and illimitable dominion over his mind. As it did so, it was not pleased. Not in the least. Though the immediate impact had somewhat subsided, what remained of his pincers still hurt plenty. And it was going to hurt for a long while still. And, as anyone who has ever tried to sleep with a broken limb can attest, this would not help his habits at all. Although this realisation came at the behest of Old N's slothful nature itself, so momentous was its effect that it roused him from his mire of drowsiness more readily than anything had ever done in centuries, and handed him a flaming torch of anger to cast clarity upon his way to vengeance.
Dismissing all thought of tasteless metaphors, the crab-demon spun about himself more rapidly than anyone could possibly have recalled him moving, bringing himself to face Nefas's exposed back. As he firmly planted his armoured feet upon the floor, his crushed pincers dangling limply along his sides, he began to chitter once more. But now, it was not an irritating clicking fit for a plastic wind-up chicken of poor quality. No, this was the ominous, foreboding rattling of a ferocious insectoid alien from a not-overly-creative science-fiction epic. "You. Half-human reject." he crackled, his voice bearing nary a trace of the usual grogginess, "Do you have any idea..." His hind-legs tensed, preparing for the upcoming monumental effort. "...of what you have DONE?!" With these words, Old N sprang forward, bringing his entire not inconsiderable weight to bear onto the warden's back, set to deliver what promised to be an impact that would put the Cyanean Rocks to shame.
