Inta emerged from the room and Entoma pushed herself off of the wall against which she'd been leaning. He caught sight of her face before she could change anything and saw for himself that she wore a mask of pain. "I'm sorry my blood couldn't do much for you…" He said as he held out his hand to her again.
"You did enough, blood or no blood." Entoma said and took his helping hand in her own, "But how do we get back, can you… do that thing again?"
Inta swallowed the lump in his throat, she'd tried to hide it, but the desperation in her voice was detectable to him, even if nobody else in the world would have felt it. Nor did he blame her, the notion of remaining with those injuries for so long a trip back to the Chasm, even if he didn't let her take a step and just carried her the whole way? Especially exposed to the grit of the sand and the heat, the way it would tear at her inner muscles even through the bug armor she wore… all over again he heard the sound of her shell peeling away from her muscles, smelled her fear and pain as if she were one of his victims, and guilt rampaged through his body like a raging bull that he'd let it happen to her at all.
His body exploded in a singular moment of transformation, and Inta became the tide of red again, sweeping her up, wrapping her in a cocoon of blood, along with the ant Queen and her little armful of pupae, Inta swept down the hall and up the forty-one steps then out into the open ground. He shot into the air and flowed like a red cloud caught in hurricane winds and raced toward the chasm that made up the Arachnaen Kingdom.
The Ant Queen struggled within at first. "This is what? Understand, help me to know." Her curious pleas seemed to be without panic, but they were nonetheless urgent until she found herself beside Entoma, who lay with her body stretched out, cushioned by the flowing red caress around her body.
"This is Inta's love and devotion. This is his protection. This is his life." Entoma explained in short sentences as the world around them became either tinted red or opaque and invisible to them both.
The sloshing and splashing flow never seemed to cast droplets away from the body of red fluid, rather it expanded and contracted, swimming squidlike through the air propelling itself forward and racing over desert sands above cacti and dunes and securing the passengers within against even the slightest discomfort.
Far, far away, Inta's own consciousness was more instinctual than rational, and it thrust out and snatched up small creatures, draining them and dropping husks into the sand to add to the total flow available to him, valuing the ounces of blood more than their very lives.
And so it went, shading the pair within from the hammer of the sun that pounded on the blood body like a hammer against a finely forged shield, and it could not get through to so much as strain the eyes of his 'passengers'.
Ahead, the alarm went up, cries and panic, spiderpeople and scorpionpeople of martial inclinations began to scatter into positions of double rows, scorpionmen in front lines, spiderpeople at the back lines, ready to face the mysterious blood tide that flew like a bird through the air.
Down below, the nonmartially inclined rushed into the caverns cut into canyon walls and sealed themselves away, while larger ants, their military's version of cavalry, rushed out and began to rush vertically along the canyon walls to provide three hundred and sixty degree avenues of attack against the interloper.
Inta had enough sense to ignore it all as a threat, the webs shot out of spider bodies, scorpionmen crossed their arms in front of themselves, ready to soak up any damage the blood could do, and as he came closer and avoided the long white ropes of webbing that attempted to snatch him from the sky and force him to the ground, the ants began to spit their formic acid from their abdomens, thousands upon thousands of streams of white flew through the air, and Inta hardened his blood core, creating a shell around the wounded Entoma and their charge, but he could not avoid every stream no matter how fast he moved.
The white rain of web and acid continued, and splashed into his liquid outer portion, however he cycled the blood with such swiftness that it only hissed or sailed through and secured nothing, the cycle carrying both away from the solid and protected central place until he could expel either web or foreign acid to drop uselessly to the ground far, far below.
"They're to be our allies, remember!" Entoma shouted from within when she felt the rising tide of anger around her.
It proved enough to keep Inta from striking back in earnest, and instead he only cycled the rotation of blood faster, using the force and momentum of his own red tide to deflect what he could and cycle out what he couldn't deflect as he raced toward the capitol building.
Cries of alarm and horror rose like a storm from below, their wild gestures becoming ever more exaggerated and the desperate shooting of their bodies weapons only more elaborate. 'When I land, the scorpions will charge.' He knew beyond doubt, even if his urgent mind was driven more by the instinct to protect his Entoma than anything else, he recognized the danger of what he had to do.
Entoma, clearly, did as well, seeing glimpses through the red tinted places, the arachnids of the great gorge were beyond frantic, those Inta passed over were chasing after him in less a military formation and more like a wild mob where the strongest and fastest made it to the fore and the rest fell behind and could only dream of catching up.
"I have to tell them to stop!" Entoma shouted from within. "They'll strike you as soon as you land, they could hurt the Queen! Let me get out first!" She shouted, and his swirling self did not respond.
"You have to trust me! It's my time, you can't transform fast enough and they'll strike all at once as soon as you've hit the ground, drop me!" She commanded.
The capital building was close, the guards within were all rushing out to face the Red.
"Let me protect us both! Let me succeed!" It wasn't a plea or a request, it was a command, and Inta responded at last, not with word or thought, but with action, the flow opened up and became almost like a slide down which Entoma went like a waterfall.
She hit the ground hard and cried out, holding her injured arms extended at her sides, "Stop! We have the Queen! Stop! Stop! Stop!" She cried out to the oncoming hoard of clacking claws, mandibles, and the imminent threat of webs and acid both. 'Please let this work!' Entoma thought, and shouted again as loud as she could, her mouth open as wide as it was able as the pain became too much, and she began to topple, she called out one last time…
"We have the Queen! Stop!"