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| “ | What's the point of bringing my daughter back if I'm not going to be here to take care of her? The only way for us to stay together is to unite into one creature. | „ |
| ~ Berenice about to transform into the Flying Donkey |
| “ | Oh, Flying Donkey, Our faithful protector, Avenger of the secret world, Bring it to us, Your affection | „ |
| ~ Berenice's song, her most famous speech |
Berenice is a major antagonist in Monica's Adventures, acting as the main antagonist of the Umbra Arc.
As a former assistant to the clairvoyant Madame Creuzodete, Berenice is apparently a sweet old lady who helped the Gang investigate the legend of the Flying Donkey, sheltering them in her old home, leading them around the city and providing information about local legends such as the Children of Umbra and the Girl from the Lake.
What the Gang would discover is that in fact Berenice is a witch affiliated with The Serpent and the mother of the Lake Girl, who plans to use them to bring her daughter's spirit back from Umbra. Upon realizing that her cursed body was too old to care for her daughter, she decided to merge with her into a single being and use her new power to conquer the world for her master.
Biography[]
A Tragic Holiday[]
In the 90s, Berenice lived with her daughter in the small town of Sococó da Ema, located in the countryside of São Paulo. She was very poor, but still helped the needed kids of her town by giving them candy in tupperware pots and also letting them play in a wooden horse in her backyard. Because of this wooden horse, the townsfolk called her the Flying Donkey. While Berenice was a good and selfless woman, her dauhgter was bitter and hateful, as she believed her mother cared more about the other children than about her.
On Halloween of 1994, Berenice's daughter decided to scare the children her mother helped out of spite, so she grabbed a donkey skull, put some sticks as antlers, and chased them howling like a donkey. However, the skull blocked her vision, so she fell from a cliff and drowned in the river below. When Berenice found out about this, she locked herself in her home, asking for her daughter back at the same time as a way to take revenge on the seven children, whom she believed were guilty of her daughter's death.
The Evil from the Scriptures[]
Eventually, Berenice's pledges were listened to by an ancient evil called the Serpent. The dark voices promised that they would bring her daughter back in exchange for the souls of the seven children and a favor from Berenice in the future. Determined to see her child once again, Berenice sold her soul and initiated the ritual: she called the children one last time to eat some candy in her house, but she poisoned it with a strong sedative, putting them in a deep coma. Then, the woman dressed them in the costumes they used that Halloween night, marked them with the Rune of IOR, and put them one by one through a door that led to Umbra, some kind of purgatory or limbo where souls stayed before going to heaven or hell.
As she dropped the last children through the Red Door, Berenice failed to see a major flaw in her pact: as the ritual only accepted corrupted spirits, the light from their innocent souls blew up the house and interrupted the ritual, trapping Berenice’s daughter in a state between life and death. One of the cursed children dragged the donkey skull, a key element of the ritual, inside the Umbra, where neither Berenice nor her daughter could enter as they would be taken to hell.
Driven by the failure of the ritual, Berenice abandoned the town, her sole purpose to find a way to save her daughter. Years passed, and her search led her to Madam Creuzodete. Appearing as a mere assistant, Berenice saw an opportunity - a chance to delve into the secrets of magic and the occult, knowledge that could potentially complete the ritual. However, Madam Creuzodete, though she eventually discovered Berenice's true motives, kept the ambitious woman close to teach her magic as a force for good, not a tool for her twisted desires. Yet, Berenice remained unconvinced. Her heart ached for her daughter's return, and the pull of forbidden magic remained strong.
A Determined Mother[]
On Halloween of 2014, Berenice saw through Madam’s crystal ball that the Gang travelled to Sococó da Ema to investigate the legend of the Flying Donkey as part of a school project. She noticed that Jimmy in particular was so obsessed in finding the truth about the local ghosts that she plotted with her daughter to mark him with the Rune of IOR and trick him to bring the donkey skull out of Umbra, so they could complete the ritual.
When they arrived in Sococó da Ema, Berenice offered her old cabin in the woods to house the Gang and also drive them to town every day as a way to gain their trust. After the Gang was attacked by the Children of Umbra in their first night in town, Berenice took them to her old house and told a fake version of the legend, one where her daughter was the victim and the children were the villains.
As part of her plan, Berenice let the Bone Key, the only thing that could open the Red Door to Umbra, in Jimmy’s sight so he would venture deep in the woods as he was determined to capture the ghosts on camera. As the boy battle through the ghosts and the truth, Berenice poisoned Monica, Maggy and Smudge, the same way she poisoned the children 20 years ago, and slaved their spirits as the Guardians of the Threshold.
After the Guardians retrieved the donkey skull from Jimmy, the Girl of the Lake took it to her mother to finally complete the ritual and be resurrected. However, Berenice had other plans in her mind: as the pact she made with the Serpent was sucking the life force out of her, she wouldn’t be around long enough to take care of her daughter, so she decided to bond the girl’s soul in the skull and then fuse herself with it to become one entity. This entity would be the Flying Donkey, the Pale Horse of Death who would serve the Serpent as a herald of the end of the world.
As the Horse of Death, Berenice tried to kill the Gang, but they fled once again to Umbra and asked for the Children of Umbra to defeat the Flying Donkey. With the help of the children, Berenice and her daughter crossed the Red Door and subsequently were taken to Hell by the Lady of the Boat.
Appearance[]
In her youth, Berenice was a beautiful woman, with fair skin, black straight hair and dark eyes. After she made the pact with the Serpent, she aged very quickly in the next 20 years, becoming an elderly ugly person whom Denise even compares to an ogre.
Besides her advanced senescence, Berenice astral form featured donkey's paws, which she hides with a simple spell of glamour.
Personality[]
Initially, Berenice seems to be a sweet and selfless old lady, housing the Gang in her old cabin and driving them every day to and from town. It was revealed later that this was only a façade, as Berenice was an evil, manipulative and cunning person with two goals in her mind: bring her daughter back to life and become the Pale Horse of Death in the Serpent’s behalf.
She was so obsessed with these objectives that she saw every other person in her way as pawns to be used to reach her goals, including Madam Creuzodete, the person who took her in and taught her everything she knew about the occult. In her plan to bring her daughter back, Berenice didn’t had any moral boundaries about anything, as she poisoned the seven children she believed were guilty of her daughter’s back and delivered their souls to an evil entity known as the Serpent. Them, she did again in the present when she sedated and buried the comatose bodies of the Gang to use their spirits as her personal servants.
However, it is known that Berenice wasn’t always like that, as she was a kind and selfless woman that gave candy to the poor kids from her hometown. It was both her daughter’s death and the Serpent’s manipulation that led to Berenice becoming such an evil person.
Trivia[]
- Berenice’s license plate is APO-1602, a reference to a Bible verse from the Book of Revelations (in Portuguese, the book is called "Apocalypse"), chapter 16, verse 2: "The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image". This is probably a reference of Berenice marking Jimmy with the Rune of IOR, also known as the Serpent’s Seal.
- In the issue The Inverse Tower, is revealed that, after the Gang blown up Planet Tomb, which was actually Hell itself, the spirit of the Girl of the Lake was released and personally thanked Monica for freeing her. It is possible that Berenice’s spirit is also free and roaming the Earth.
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 Villains
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Main Villains An Adventure Through Time Vilains Pitanga Tree Girls End of the World Super Saga Other Villains | ||