With the Woodsman defeated, and with Wirt holding both the axe and the lantern, the Beast set it's eyes on him.
"Give me my Lantern." The Beast commanded.
"What? No way! We need this thing!" Beatrice said immediately.
"Yeah! I'm keeping this, I have to get Greg home." Wirt said, not wanting his brother to be in the Unknown any longer.
"Your brother is too weak to go will soon become a part of my forest." The Beast explained connivingly.
"I won't let that happen!" Wirt yelled at the Beast, as Beatrice tried to take the Edelwood branches off of Greg. The Beast saw Wirt's willingness to protect Greg and used it to manipulate Wirt.
"Well then. Perhaps we better make a deal." The Beast said in a deceitful, but way that made it sound like the only other option.
"Deal?" Wirt asked, wanting to save his brother more than anything. At the word deal, the Woodsman groaned as he remembered the Beasts similar offer to him.
"I could put his spirit in the Lantern. As long as the flame stays lit, he will live on inside." The Beast paused as Wirt weighed his options. "Take on the task of Lantern Bearer?" Wirt was gesitant. "Or watch your brother perish?" The Beast added to make Wirt seem as if his options were even more limited. "Come here." The Beast commanded.
Wirt surveyed the situation and decided that the Beast was right, Greg was too weak to go home, he couldn't fight the Beast, he did not want Beatrice to get hurt, and the Woodsman was laying defeated across the snow. Wirt sighed as he made up his mind.
"Ok." He said in defeat, much to the Beast's satisfaction and Beatrice's surprise, and made his way to the Beast.
"Wirt!" She called his name in an attempt to snap him out of it.
"Wait! Beast!" The Woodsman yelled, and everyone stopped what they were doing to turn to see him on the ground. "The boy is not ideal, he has barely matured, you need someone who knows these woods and is seasoned with strength, not someone whose arms are thin as an Edelwood's branch." The Woodsman said in his tired, raspy voice, in an attempt to keep the boy from accepting the temptation of the Beast. "I can still take on that task." He offered.
Everyone was silent at what the Woodsman said. The Beast contemplated his words. True, Wirt did not look capable of the task, but the Beast got an idea.
"You are right, Woodsman." The Beast said. "The boy is inadequate, but so are you." He said, to the horror of the Woodsman. "You are old and struggling Woodsman, but the boy is young and will learn, eventually." The Beast made it's way towards Wirt, causing him to feel nervous. "I can change you Wirt. I can turn you into an extension of my forest and by default, me." The Beast said in a way that made it sound like an opportunity, rather than a damnation.
"What do you mean?" Wirt asked, afraid of the answer.
"I mean, that even if you went back to your side of the Garden Wall, you would still be a nobody." The Beast explained as he had full knowledge of how everyone ended up in the Unknown. "Are you sure you want to go back to that house? With a mother who gave you no choice in the abandonment of your father? Or a school with no friends? Or to even a girl that doesn't return your feelings?" The Beast asked Wirt as he kept bringing up more and more of the things he hated back at home. Wirt kept trying to convince himself that the Beast was wrong, but everything it kept mentioning was right, as well as the memories. This made him angry. "I can change you." The Beast put out it's hand for Wirt to take. "Shake my hand, don't be such a Worry Wirt." The Beast said as the final nail in the coffin that angered Wirt as he recalled all the times he was called that throughout his life. And with that anger he took a hold of the Beast's hand and grasped it firmly and shook.
"No..." Beatrice said as she saw her friend make a huge mistake.
"Deal!" Wirt yelled. As Wirt felt the Beast's hand, he was disgusted at what he felt underneath his palms, it felt like a smooth, but wrinkly woody surface, with empty orifaces.
"Excellent Wirt." The Beast said but refused to let go. "I must warn you that this will hurt!" The Beast said as a sort of autumn colored energy began to envelope around Wirt's body.
"Augh!" Wirt screamed in agony as he felt every part of his body twist. Every bone, every muscle, every nerve was shifting in place.
"The Woodsman was right you know." The Beast spoke. "You are too weak to keep the lantern lit all by yourself. So I am changing you." The Beast's grip on Wirt's hand became tighter. "Your skin shall become as rough as bark, your blood shall become oil, your bones will be as strong as wood, and your eyes will be as white as the moon." The Beast said as Wirt's pores, ears, eyes and mouth began to excrete blood. The blood ran down his body as he screamed in pain. Wirt could feel the sides his skull grow horns and pierce through his skin, he cried in more pain as wooden antlers began to form from those horns.
Beatrice was crying as she saw her friend in torture. However, as the energy circled around him, a pair of scissors fell out of his coat. Beatrice gasped.
"The scissors!" She said as she got an idea. "You're going to be fine Greg." She told the unconscious boy as she swooped by Wirts legs and with her feet, took ahold of the scissors and flew into the forest.
As all the blood from Wirt exited his body, it began to turn into a darker, thicker liquid, before going back inside of him through the places where it came out of. As soon as the process was done, Wirt looked like a rough wooden mannequin. He still retained part of his facial features, only he was as shrouded in darkness as the Beast, both only having white, unblinking eyes in their dark silhouettes.
Satisfied, the Beast let go of his hand.
"There, the process is complete. Everything you do and say, I will see and hear, you are now a part of me and the forest. You cannot die so long as you are connected to me." The Beast explained as it picked up the lantern. "Since it is your brother and to motivate you to keep the lantern lit, the flame will be on his teapot instead, so as you remember who it is you are keeping alive." It said as it transferred the flame of the lantern into the teapot where Greg used to be. Wirt saw this and became worried, because it was the same flame from the Woodsman's lanetern and not a different one.
"Where is he?" Wirt asked. "Where's Greg?!" Wirt demanded to know as he approached the Beast, regardless of the pain he had throughout his body. As soon as he got close, the Beast moved its hand in a downward gesture as if commanding Wirt. Wirt was pressed hard against the ground by some invisible force.
"You belong to me now." The Beast informed. "I can make you do anything I want, you are lucky enough that I even allow you be conscious." It said as it brought the Teapot, now with a flame inside, to Wirt. "Now, Gregory is in this special lantern for you to keep lit. You can use your own oil-blood to refill it if neceasary, or you can grind up the souls of those who lose hope in my forest. Either way, keep the Lantern lit." The Beast said with great conviction as it kept the Woodsmans previous lantern and disappeared into the darkness of the Unknown. After the Beast left, the area became bright again, not in the sense that the sun was up, just that there was an absence of darkness.
The Woodsman stood up, took a look at.
"I tried to warn you boy. I tried." He said and ran.
Silence. Wirt was alone and on the ground.
He looked at the Teapot with the flame. His empty, and lifeless looking eyes began to tear up with oil.
"It's all my fault Greg." He sobbed. "It's all my fault."