Well the obvious thing to do is JUMP OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY.

(This, rather unfortunately, gets another person blown up. There are still some unexploded mines.)

Zash has no time to have emotions about this (—he's worked so hard to keep these people safe, this is his fault—), he needs to give chase.

The advantage he has on the metal wheel controlled by the maniac is being able to do sharp turns. The disadvantages are it being much faster and much more willing to cause copious amounts of property damage by just swerving into a wall.

Also by throwing small localised grenades at Zash.

Which he can shoot out of the air but which still slow him down.

The bomber's destination is obvious, and unfortunately for Zash, the bomber gains and gains and gains on him and just... loses him. Even though his destination is obvious, he is still much faster.

(→)

Yvette is, rather conveniently, out of the way of the large spiraling stairs and sort of huddled next to the console in an unhappy and anxious heap. She definitely heard explosions, she really hopes that… no, realistically speaking, they’re probably dead, she hopes that if people died they died quickly and without too much pain.

Unfortunately for Yvette, she is a sitting duck at the highest point of an enclosed space and there is nothing she can do when, out of the blue, a fucking enormous spiked metal wheel breaks through the doors to the building she's in, climbs all the way up the wall to where she is, and then spits out a grinning maniac. "You're all here! My lucky day!" he croons. His wheel has opened up into two halves, sort of like a sharp-toothed sandwich, and he's inside it in a(n also spiked) metal cage from where he can control the apparatus. "Now will you come quietly or will I have fun?~"

Wait he’s also here for her???? Not just the plant????

Fuck.

“Um. Quietly???” she says, a bit bewildered, but also. With no idea how to handle a giant spikes death wheel and a psycho.

He slumps a bit on his seat and sighs longsufferingly. "Boring. But come along, then." He directs his contraption to the plant and, in a deft manoeuver that belies the seeming clunkiness of the machine, he turns one of the wheels temporarily into a claw in order to pull the glass tube containing the (non-red) plant free from where it is. Then he attaches the bottom of the glass tube to the other half of the spiked wheel, making an even wider wheel out of the wheel-plant-wheel sandwich, while the metal cage he's in is still connected to it but hanging away from it. The cage opens up to allow Yvette to step into it and sit next to him. "We'll be so cosy together, little engineer~"

“Wait, no, you’re just leaving the other one, what the fuck, no I’ve almost fixed it removing its fellow right now will disrupt its —“

She dives towards the console to abort the process so the poor red plant doesn’t suddenly get dumped with all of the workload of what should have been for two plants.

Nahhhh she's not gonna do that. The machine once again is way more agile than it looks like it should be and the metal cage slash cockpit of it juts out forward fast enough for the bomber to be able to grab Yvette by the scruff of the neck of her shirt before she can do that. "Tut tut! Don't you know it's more fun if everything goes more wrong?"

She yelps, and is yanked, and pulled away before she can do anything at all. No, no no no.

“But it’s going to die if it’s left like this, put me down plants work better in groups than they do solo if you want them so badly!!!”

"You got it wrong, little engineer!" He says, and instead pulls her into the cockpit with unreasonable strength. "I'm not killing people to steal the plant! I'm stealing the plant to kill the people!" The cage closes around the two of them and he starts driving back off, once again cackling maniacally.

“You absolute callous short sighted son of a bitch—!”

Can she fuck up his ability to steer this thing, that seems like a thing she can probably do. Just grab his precious little controls and make the whole fucking thing swerve—

She totally can! But it seems he was expecting this, because he doesn't stop laughing, and even as he struggles with the controls with her they cause considerable amounts of property damage. He's still stronger than her, though, so he can mostly succeed at aiming towards the exit.

Fuck fuck fuck why didn’t she fall to peer pressure and get a gun already it’d be super fucking handy right now —

— Fortunately, someone else was waiting for an opening, and this sure looks like one.

He leaps, grabs ahold of the cockpit, shoots with his revolver towards the console itself, and then they all go flying.

...this was not what he'd planned for. They do go flying, down the metal stairs outside all the way to the ground by the town's gate, his machine swerving crazily without his ability to control it anymore. When it finally comes to rest they're all thrown clean off the cockpit and onto the dirt.

Vernon is pretty sure his back is going to be killing him tomorrow, but better to be sore than dead.

He loses his gun somewhere in the tumble, but that’s fine. He wasn’t planning to use it on this guy anyway.

The scrawny psycho might be stronger than Yvette, but is he stronger than a grown man ambushing him in a bear hug and dragging the both of them out into the sun?

Maybe eventually but not right now, not immediately, not so well he can immediately fight free when Vernon has the advantage of him like that. "Let go! Let go! Let go!"

He does not let go.

“Nah. Do your bombs have an off switch? Let’s find out together.”

The crystal on his back starts slowly turning red.

"Let go let go let go!!! You're gonna kill both of us!!!!!!"

“That’s the plan.”

"Let go let go let go let go!!!" The bomb on Vernon's back starts making a high-pitched noise— "On my back! The button on my back! Press it quickly!!!!"

Yep, this button on his back right here? Gets pressed.

And then, shortly after the bomb’s spider limbs are retracted and the bomb turns back to blue…

… there is a gunshot.