Mask of Astaroth

The Mask of Astaroth, also known as the Mask, the Mask of Black, the Black Mask and the Mask of Qliphoth, is a gender-unknown Astaroth Empire follower in Rise of Qliphoth era, who wears a black crow-like mask and dressed up as some medieval plague doctor in order to hide their identity. They are the most recurring and most direct villain of LOTM: Los Reina de Corazónes, being its primary antagonist and its final boss.

The Mask is responsible for many tragedies of Future Maria as well as Future Selina Strawberry, who lost her friends and companions including Albert Apple, Baccarat Blueberry, Gregory Grape and Bubbly Begonia due to the Mask, who led Vira and her followers into the new HQ of the Order of Flourish in an attempt to destroy them.

The real identity of the Black Mask is always shrouded in mystery, and people never know if they're actually male or female as they speak in a blurry and unrecognizable voice. Many of the Alliance never really sure whether the Mask is the same person. Future Helene Hawthorn assume that there were several person, who're at least all loyal to Ara Astaroth and her Dark Empire, take on the mantle of the Black Mask in order to harrass the Alliance until its power was utterly wasted. However, Selina disagreed with it and believed that there was only one Mask of Black, and she felt she had knew the Mask before but could not tell who he or she is.

 Note: Spoilers Follow...

Later, as the story itself getting progressed, it was revealed that there were three people taking the mantle of the Black Mask, one after another, but two of them were brainwashed puppets, while the third and final Black Mask appeared in front of Maria, turned out to be the real mastermind behind all of this conspiracy. The brainwashed Future Albert Apple and the brainwashed Future Carl Robinson appeared one by one as the 1st & 2nd Black Mask, respectively, and after their defeat, the real Black Mask reveals... herself.

The real Black Mask is actually Future Beatrice Bergamot, formerly a loyal and hardworking member of the Order of Flourish but was slowly growing jealous towards Selina's perfect immortality and her relationships with Albert. She was later captured by B1-Killer Kampfdroide Unit-CM 130, with her jealousy twisted and manipulated by Ara via a hallucination of Phyllis Peach's dark spirit. Inventing the Mask of Astaroth and taking its alias, Beatrice led Vira and her army into Enchanted Forest and caused massive blow upon the Order in her attempt to kill Selina. Despite she failed in killing Selina, Beatrice eventually killed Bubbly and many others before letting Vira to kill Albert right in front of Selina, almost driving her insane.

Beatrice later revived Albert as a Black Demon and made him possessed by her soul essence. Under Beatrice's possession, Albert became the so-called "first" Black Mask (actually a copycat) and fought against Maria, until he snapped out of the brainwashing. However, before he could tell Maria about the true Mask, Albert had to fought against a doppelganger of his and died together with him. Beatrice later used Carl Robinson as the second Mask Copycat to destroy Maria's final attempt to fight back, and then after killing the revived Future Gregory Grape, who was a copycat to her crime, Beatrice revealed herself. She killed Carl and absorbed the Malice of Moloch so that she would eliminate both Selina and Maria in their final battle.

The Black Mask is an OC Character created by User:Officer Candy Apple from CIS Productions.

Complete Monster Proposal
Note: Despite there are several people who took the mantle of the Black Mask, only two of them really counts, including the original Mask of Astaroth.

3rd Mask - Pretender
''Originally being an amoral member of the Order of Flourish, who once wished to drown himself and the entire world into despair, Future Gregory Grape was driven into dark side because of his traumatic experience of losing his best friend, Dragonia Dragonfruit, and was framed for crimes. Despite having himself seemly redeemed, Gregory's dark side was still inside himself. After the fall of the Order due to the invasions of Astaroth Empire forces, Gregory was killed by the Black Mask, died believing he was abadoned by Selina Strawberry due to the Mask's incriminatiom. Later, Michael Langdon revived him and made him a top-member of Astaroth Empire's Imperial Intellegence, and that's when Gregory started to change. Losing his faith in the light, Gregory officially turned against his former friend, and he also tried to figure out who the Black Mask was. After finding that the brainwashed Albert Apple was the Black Mask, with the brainwashed Carl Robinson as his successor, Gregory decided to make himself another Black Mask. Calling himself as the 3rd Mask, Gregory persuaded Carl into becoming a partner in crime. During his pretense as the Black Mask, Gregory had claimed many lives and held the highest on-screen body counts amongst every Black Masks, and he also planned to overthrow Carl so that he himself could become the one true Black Mask once and for all, pinning all of the murder he committed on Carl and finishing him while dressing up as the Black Mask, making himself a hero, similar to Pedro Pineapple's plan in framing Alexandar Apricot. Nevertheless, Future Gregory eventually had it coming when he was captured by Future Selina. Lack of redeeming qualities and losing all of his sympathetic qualities that the original Gregory grape had, this Gregory in the Astaroth Hell Future is a mere copycat who used justice as his pretense to gain evil prosper.''
 * Main Article: Gregory Grape/Future Gregory (coming soon)

4th Mask - Mastermind
'Warning: The following section will be a ton of massive spoilers on yet-to-be-released materials. Read at your own risk, please...'

''The creator of the Mask of Black, also the original "Mask of Astaroth", is surprisingly one of the most trusted allies of Selina Strawberry, whose name was Beatrice Bergamot, who acted as a troubled and loving person while in fact being a needlessly cruel and sadistic fallen hero who was willingly to be the minion of Astaroth Empire. Being the true main threat of LOTM: Los Reina de Corazónes that caused more Masks of Black copycats started to appear under her manipulation, Beatrice was once nice and loyal towards her friend, until the overpowering corrupting force from the Leohart's Cult influenced her, turning her fully evil after she started to succubb to her own jelousy that Albert Apple fell in love with Selina Strawberry. Beatrice also feel jealous that Selina was a perfect Croatoan Merger with her enhanced immortality, while Bertrice herself had to serve as her minion, and this became the key for Astaroth Empire to corrupt her. After being captured by Ara Astaroth, Beatrice was haunted by Phyllis Peach's ghost that was summoned by Ara. Under the manipulation of Phyllis' ghost, Beatrice absorbed the remaining power of Dark Arzonia and took Phyllis' legacy. After that, Beatrice intended to betray the Order of Flourish by letting Vira into Enchanted Forest, causing many deaths amonst Selina's fan club including their ringleader, the cheerful and warm-hearted Bubbly Begonia, who was brutally murdered by a masked Beatrice right in front of Selina. After forcing the once benevolent Enchanted Forest into a part of Astaroth Hell, Beatrice also captured Albert Apple for Vira to kill. Out of spite, Beatrice revived Albert and made him her pawn to be the seemly Mask of Black, manipulating Albert's dark side to compromise the remnants of La Nueva Familia de Arzonia while acting as her mouth to deliver her horrible tendency, while she secretly developed Albert's doppelgangers for hurting Selina only trying to amuse herself. After Albert failed to kill Selina and Maria and started to have his good side restroed, Beatrice forced Vira to send a clone of Albert to kill him and replace him. After Albert's death, Beatrice assisted Michael Langdon in forcing Carl Robinson into the next Mask of Astaroth copycat, before extracting the Malice of Moloch from Carl and fusing it into the Mask, in case if Carl was defeated, someone could use that mask and being controlled by Moloch's remaining essence. After making Michael, Black Raven and a brainwashed Carl to crush the Alliance, with only Maria and Selina survived, Beatrice revealed herself and brutalized Drizzt Do'Urden and Carl as soon as the latter snapped out from the brainwashing, killing them both. Tired from pretending herself, Beatrice revealed herself as the true Mask of Black and fused herself with the Malice of Moloch so that she would obliterate all of her enemies via Moloch's power. Opposed to the formerly kind and loving Beatrice, this Beatrice in Astaroth Future serves as a hateful and sadistic enemy to the Alliance after fully succubbed to her dark side. In a way, she could be considered as a spiritual successor of Phyllis Peach, who once betrayed the Order of Flourish and corrupted everything inside. Beatrice started the same dread that Phyllis did, and she went much, much worse.''

Masked - In General
The Mask of Astaroth, no matter who was under that mask, always appears to have a personal hatred towards both Selina Strawberry and Maria Arzonia, but they have no qualm to make the personal hatred upgraded into a massive public atrocity, claming they shall take everyone Selina and Maria loved away forever in order to make both of them suffer. They have no qualm killing innoncent people who gets in her way, even including cheerful person.

The Mask seemed to take optimistism and happiness as a vulgar thing, since they forced the always happy Bubbly to cry via all sorts of brutal torture. Bitterly teasing Bubbly as a fanatic fan of Selina who wasted her life devoted on her, the Mask later forced Bubbly to weep blood before they killed her brutally in cold blood, right in front of Selina.

The Black Mask even has an awful fetish on tears, like Melancholia, but went much worse since the Mask prefer blood tears and often drink martini added with children's blood tears. The Black Mask's awful crime quickly caused disgust in both Maria and even Black Raven, but the Black Mask never cared about it, claming it was their own work to "squeeze moisure" out of children's crying face.

According to Selina Strawberry when she told Katarina Couteau and The Rogues about the Black Mask, she said that the Black Mask is the mastermind behind many orphans' transformation into the Black Demon in order to break Maria's own moral code in never harming children. They also showed some sort of estacy when they saw Maria killing Black Demon children, as if they enjoyed every single minute that Maria had her moral code broken and turning into a blood-thristy murderer who believes in the Absolute Justice.

Despite mostly acting as an uncaring and cruel brute, the Black Mask also has their own intellegence. Their most cunning side appears when they use Maria's unstable nature as a proof to call Maria as a villain and the Alliance as a plague, supporting Michael Langdon's malevolent purge towards the Alliance and other rebels against the Astaroth Empire. The Black Mask is utterly loyal towards Ara Astaroth and they work with her with purpose, most likely to seek vengence upon Maria and Selina (as B1-Killer Kampfdroide Unit-CM 130 deduced). Even so, no one knew how and why the Mask wanted to seek vengence upon Maria or Selina, despite many suspected that the Mask knew both of them before...

Masked

 * "Tonight, we shall show the omniverse what it means to fear!"
 * "Tell me. What scares you the most? Which mask are you wearing?"
 * "Good evening. May I tell you who you really are? You're a hypocrite wearing a skin mask of human to hide the beast in your heart. Allow me to take it down for you, pal..."
 * "Hello, Gregory. Who told you... that you could wear my mask?"

​Unmasked - 4th Mask Only

 * "Just tell them, pal, that Strawberry declares war."
 * "A lesson needs to be taught. They won't look the other way -- not again."
 * "Your parents are corrupt, Selina, and so are you. Can't you understand that I'm trying to do good things with the help of Astaroth King?"
 * "I know why I wear mask. It's who I am, who I'm always seek to be. What about you, Arzonia? Do you ever wore a mask to hide? Or do you ever wear a mask to become who you really are!? Are you showing your face... or your mask?"
 * - Selina: What're you doing, Beatrice? Stop this already, please! We were once friends!
 * ​- Mask: ...................... Once.
 * "You shouldn't be here, Arzonia. You shouldn't be defending her. You think Selina Sarandon is better than her father!? She hides behind her status and wealth! She's a coward."
 * "Omniverse! Listen to me. Freedom is yours! The only one standing in your way... is Arzonia."
 * "You belong in this place, Maria. Lost, forgotten, buried. This Omniverse will not mourn you. The sins of the Arzonia bloodline end here."

Unmasked

 * "Selina, I had a bad dream... that I killed you in jealousy out of no reason... Is that true? Because I'm afraid that I dreamed no mere imagination, but a scene of future..." - Mainstream Beatrice Bergamot
 * "Even since she became an ally of Astaroth Empire, that Beatrice died... and reborn as a creature who learned only two things - hate and anger." - Future Helene Hawthorn
 * "She's arguably just another version of Vira, but is a cold-blooded and merciless manipulator." - Black Raven
 * "She's no longer Beatrice! She's now turning into someone like Phyllis herself!" - Future Kristen Kiwifruit

Trivia

 * The mastermind behind the Mask of Astaroth is considered to be the main villain of LOTM: Los Reina de Corazónes since she and the Alliance has the most direct conflict than any other villains in the story, and she is the most recurring villain in the story as well.
 * The Mask of Astaroth crew (also known as the Black Mask crew) is inspired by the Red Devil and Green Meanie from the cancelled FOX TV series, Scream Queens, where the serial killers in the each story conspired together as a serial killing ring and took the same mantle, with one of them as the mastermind behind their crime (Hester Ulrich as the ringleader of Red Devil, and Ingrid Hoffel as the ringleader of Green Meanie).