Beauty X Beast ~ Thirty!

When Danielle finally stepped out of her bedroom—after sleeping like the dead for nearly a dozen hours—she almost ran smack-dab into the hulking form of the Beast.

“Good, you're finally awake.” Immediately, the creature turned and started floating down the hall. “Secure your father and meet me in the workshop. I was downstairs preparing the mechanisms for the heart but realized that this will be another novel creation. I'm not certain if you can double dip, but I'd rather not leave this to chance.”

“Double dip?” Danielle's eyes went wide as she realized what he was saying, slamming the door closed, only to re-emerge a few minutes later in clean clothes, freshened up and ready to go. “Thanks for waiting. Do you mean to tell me it is possible that the design counts as a new creation, and the actual construction of the heart would be the same? That we will be able to get another forty percent increase out of the final prototype? On that note, is it still considered a prototype if there isn’t going to be another one, and this will be the working model forever?”

“No, it would not be a forty percent increase.” The Beast's voice bounced back to her, causing a brief storm of bewilderment before he calmed it with a pointed clarification. “I believe your skill upgraded. It would be a fifty percent increase.”

“Celestial feces, let’s do this!” As she went to find her father, she ran into a major hurdle: she had no idea what room he’d been put in. 

Giving up immediately, she went to the kitchen, and instead asked each of the guards she met to seek out Henri and have him join her at the table. Since she’d slept the day away, breaking her fast happened at dinner time, and the kitchen served her a delectable roasted chicken with a side of green vegetables and fried hash browns. 

“Wonderful as always, kitchen. As always, you have my thanks.” One of the appendages hanging in the air waved at her softly. Although she bit her tongue to try and keep the potentially rude question inside, eventually she couldn't help herself and spoke the words. 

“I do wonder, how do you make your potato selection with each meal? Everything seems perfectly aligned, but it's almost as though the side dish is a meal off? These would’ve been a perfect pairing with the eggs, and the twice-baked potato would have gone wonderfully with the chicken. I suppose this is just me wondering if the potatoes are off, or if the chicken was supposed to come before the egg. I suppose it’s a question I'll never have answered.”

Henri chose that moment to make an appearance. “Interestingly enough, a question similar to that has been the bane of philosophers and historians alike since even before I was a child. Good morning… that is, good evening. What's going on?”

Danielle explained what the Beast had told her, not at all surprised to see the light of excitement and inspiration filling him exactly as it had her. “Why… if this works, the applications at the highest levels would be astounding! Of course, by plucking all the low-hanging fruit to level your skill to that point, the harvest will be sparse. But it is certain to be satisfying!”

As she’d known he was coming, Danielle had already requested a meal be prepared for her father, and they were soon able to join the Beast in the basement. 

“I have made every mechanism, gear, shaft, cog, dial… every last part of the final product we will need.” The hulking machine stood over the table, where literally thousands of shining bits of metal were laid out in orderly rows. Danielle gulped as she realized the massive task of assembly they had waiting for them—many of the smallest pieces would require magnification to see, tweezers to hold, and jeweler’s tools to install. 

But she was never one to back down from a challenge. Danielle strode forward, rolling her sleeves back from her wrists ever so slightly to make sure she didn't accidentally send small pieces flying by brushing against them. Picking up the largest section of casing, she flipped it to the side and looked into the space which would become the upper ventricle, then reached for the first tool. 

Though her skills didn’t specifically state she needed to do all of the work herself, she wasn't the only one unwilling to risk it. Her father handed over tools while the Beast walked her through the next steps on the blueprint, his own hands extended into an immense series of implements he used to hold and offer each next piece after the previous was installed. 

An hour in, hundreds of sections had been put together with an intense accuracy and attention to detail. The Enchantress glistened from all angles as the bright lights shined down on them, but even as sweat trickled into her eyes, not once did her attention waver. 

Though, there was one strange, standout moment.

As Danielle reached for the next expanding iris disc, which would serve as a valve, she didn’t find it placed in her palm as expected. After a moment with her hand hovering in the air, she looked away from the nearly completed ventricle to find that the Beast was looking to the side. Following his gaze, she saw only a hint of motion as some automaton slipped out of the room and back up the stairs. “What was that?”

“Nothing to worry about,” the Beast growled, pressing the valve into her hand. “Let us continue.” 

Half in a trance, Danielle simply bobbed her head and returned to the arduous, exhilarating task. The night passed quickly, but around the time that the first light of dawn would be creeping over the horizon, Danielle placed the last mechanism and stepped away. “All… whew.”

She shook her head as a wave of dizziness and vertigo washed over her, “Sorry, all that's left to do now is have the Artificer do his part. Once he’s put the scripting in, I'll seal it. Is he ready?”

“I am.” The reply slipped in just a breath ahead of the pulse of red light emanating from the Beast’s eyes. 

Without stopping to chat, the Artificer began piloting the Beast’s utility items with swift and perfect gestures. Knowing what was coming next, Danielle pulled Henri away, impressing on him the importance of not looking as the words of the universe itself were inscribed. Then, she leaned against her father and instantly fell asleep. 

What felt like only moments later, she was being shaken awake by a frantic Beast. “I have only minutes left before I will be shut away for another day. Please, allow me to witness the effects of your skills.”

“Mmm? Yeah.” A very sleepy Danielle rolled to her feet, stumbling over to the two halves of the heart. It had been split as a cross-section straight down the center, and for just a moment, she admired the way the pristine internals reflected the gentle light of the system as words appeared and vanished ceaselessly. Carefully lifting both sides, she turned them and aligned them perfectly, then pressed the heart together into a single piece.

There was a sharp *hiss* as the chunks locked together, designed to never be pulled apart again for any reason. What appeared to be steam, but smelled lightly floral, escaped from each of the holes left in the machine designed to allow blood to flow through its internal structure. “What was that?”

“Disinfectant.”

“I don't know what that is, but okay.” At that moment, Danielle returned her full attention to the heart as golden and pearlescent light mixed, the gold coming from the world, the pearlescent from the scripting the Artificer had imbued the new organ with. 

Though she could only see the external changes, Danielle was still shocked to see how the artificial organ went from a near-perfect metal smoothness to slightly bulbous in areas—though still without any form of sharp edge being present. As the light sank deeper into the mechanisms, she could look on in wonder. “I can't imagine what it's going to look like in there now. If only we could pry this back open and craft a new design based on this, think of how many potential applications it would have!”

She felt the telltale tingle of gaining yet another skill level. “Ugh, now I'm level six… Comte, I only wish I could’ve had enough time to bring the skill to Perfection, to give you the best possible chance. Imagine what I could do with a sixty percent increase on top of what this design ended up as!”

“Don't be too distraught.” The Beast’s frame had gotten closer without her realizing, and his glowing red eyes were fixed on the miniscule portion of runescripting he could view. “I categorically agree with you. If I had any other chance to make this work, any other option at all, I would spend a lifetime turning this into pure Perfection. But Gasteel Company has been besieging the estate’s walls for hours already, and they will not last much longer.”

“What?” Only now did Danielle realize what the appearance of one of the guards during the critical moments of putting together the heart had meant.

“If it's any consolation to you,” Already the red light was beginning to fade away, but the Artificer pressed on, “It seems your fantastic power also increased the potency of the scripting I put in place. I was already ninety-eight percent certain this would be a perfect match. Now I would say my odds are ninety-nine percent or better. I can’t thank you e-”

Then he was gone, and the Beast was in control once more. He leaned forward and plucked the newly crafted item from Danielle’s surprised grip.

“Let's go cut his heart out and stuff this one in.”

“Brute.” Danielle sighed the word without any vitriol, knowing he was simply attempting to draw a reaction out of her. “Even so, I agree with you. The longer it’s out here, the more filthy it will become. It would be best to embed it within him as quickly as possible.”

Henri had joined them at some point but had simply remained still and silent, staring at the absolute masterpiece being created by his daughter. When the others started moving, he blinked rapidly, startled out of his thoughts, and quickly followed after them. As they began moving through the thousands upon thousands of metal knights standing guard around Comte LeKrout’s stasis pod, he looked around with intense fear in his eyes. “Haven't been this close to these things in more than a decade. There’s so… so many of them.”

The Beast simply lifted into the air and swung over the orderly mass of soldiers, but Henri and Danielle needed to walk through a small path that had been cleared for them. Though they moved at what could even be considered an above average walking pace, the Enchantress felt as though she were creeping forward, the scenery around her unchanging for long minutes. By the time they arrived at the pod, she’d been filled with a sense of solemnity and purpose… whereas her father was breathing heavily and looking around with wild eyes.

“These things killed so many of my friends,” he whispered to his daughter, calming only slightly when she reached out and took his hand in hers.

Remembering what she’d been shown during her tenure at the estate, Danielle simply kept her eyes forward, ready to finally complete this task and meet the brilliant mind behind everything she’d been learning for the last… weeks? Months? It had begun to blur, between how much she enjoyed whiling the hours away in the library, and the recent sustained bouts without decent sleep quality. “I can tell you with full confidence that he didn’t know what was being done with his creations, Father.”

“Does that make it better?” Henri quietly inquired, his hesitance showing in how he was slowing them down to capture a few extra moments to speak. “No one who creates weapons thinks they won’t be used. Just because he didn't know every detail does not make him blameless.” 

The corner of Danielle's lips pulled down as she frowned and thought, trying to think of how to distill weeks of learning about her host, as well as the struggles they’d gone through together. “I don't know what to tell you, other than I believe he has changed drastically and for the better.”

Henri didn't say anything, only grunting slightly as they came to stand next to the Beast. 

“I'll take that,” the Beast reached for the heart, and Danielle gladly offered it over. Once more, a floral-scented steam erupted—this time from the Beast—coating the heart in a gentle mist. From there, his hand began reconfiguring itself, dozens of beeps and clicks echoing from the hand, which were followed by the Beast speaking a word aloud, in a sequence that made no sense whatsoever. Finally, his fingers joined together, coming together in a configuration of a key-shaped tool. 

“Password accepted.”

As the Beast inserted the key into the machine, the pod began moving with the shriek of rusty gears. Even though it groaned in protest, the lid slowly unfurled, each petal-shaped panel peeling back until it had unfurled in the shape of a mechanical rose. With a burst of stale air, a coffin-like dome of glass lifted, revealing a man just a few years older than Danielle. Curious to get a better look at the Comte, the Enchantress stepped closer and inspected him, only to freeze and blush when she noticed he was clad only in smallclothes. 

*Pop!* The deep red glow covering the man pulsed one last time, then cut out with the blinding flash of failed runescript. At the same moment, the glass lid which had lifted off the Artificer swung to the side, the machinery failing and causing it to fall, clattering onto and warping the delicate blooming panels. 

Comte LeKrout took a deep, struggling breath, and the Beast hurriedly leaned forward, a long scalpel extending from his wrist. “M’lord! You two, move back this instant. I shall begin the operation-” 

Just before the scalpel plunged into the Comte’s exposed chest, the Beast’s extended limb froze, lingering in the air like a foul odor. 

“Well, this is truly unfortunate.”

“Beast? What's the matter?” Danielle stepped forward, ready to assist if he had run into some malfunction. “If there's an issue, just close the pod, and we'll fix it. Don't leave him to suffer like this.”

“Closing the pod once it’s been opened is, unfortunately, not possible. Even without the damage the failing mechanisms caused just now, it was only long years of maintenance that had kept it functioning to this point. It will not restart, now that it has been fully powered down. It appears that the deepest instructions etched into my core by Comte LeKrout are still in effect. Even if it is to save his life, I cannot intentionally harm him.” 

The Beast let out a long, frustrated burst of steam before pulling his arm back and slowly turning to face Henri and Danielle.

“There is nothing to be done but to watch as he breathes his last.”