Betti

Betti in "Cheats Never Prosper"

**Betti** sought to shape every world in the Parallax to her idea of perfection by eliminating people whom she deemed to be aberrants.

Her plans severely complicated the lives of her twin sister Veronica, niece Katherine and nephew Ben.

## Biography

Whereas Veronica took her responsibilities as a Guardian seriously, Betti's goal was to put an end to conflict and confusion throughout the Parallax by eliminating aberrants, whom she claimed did nothing but cause trouble, using a substance which she added to water. The process was known as blandishing. She claimed that, after being blandished, 91.3% of the population led better and more contented lives as their negative desires and impulses had been removed. However, the remaining 8.7% - namely, the aberrants - disappeared into water vapour.

Veronica was disgusted by her sister's plan and opposed it every way that she could. After a fierce battle with Betti, Veronica ended up in the Blue World. Stefan Raddic found her cut, burned and soaking wet near the portal to the Red World and took her in. They eventually married and Veronica gave birth to Katherine.

Betti employed the Welkin and Krellick to detect and eradicate Guardians, sending them all over the Parallax in search of Veronica. The ordinarily purple Welkin turned red after getting a taste of Guardian blood whereas Krellick bites were potentially deadly with even a scratch being enough to make the victim, Guardian or otherwise, extremely ill for as long as two weeks. One night, a swarm of Welkin surrounded Veronica's house in the Blue World. While trying to draw the Welkin away from Katherine, she realised that she was pregnant with Ben and that her Guardian blood combined with that of her daughter and unborn son was attracting Welkin from all over the Parallax. In order to protect Katherine from Betti, Veronica left without explanation, taking up residence in the Red World.

Without Veronica's interference, Betti was able to blandish the populations of many worlds. Nevertheless, she continued searching for her sister throughout the Parallax for 13 years without success. Betti eventually settled in the Silver World and established herself as a businesswoman. She recruited Spy Kid to observe people travelling from world to world in the hope that they could lead her to Veronica or other Guardians. One of the people whom he frequently spied was Francis Zapmeister from the Yellow World. Betti offered Francis a Gemini 7 camcorder which was capable of communicating across the different worlds. Having never met Veronica before, he did not realise the connection between them. Betti told him all that he had to do was record all of the worlds that he had visited so that she could get a taste of what it was like. When Francis travelled to the Red World, Ben didn't believe his story and accused him of stealing the Gemini 7. Hurt and offended, Francis returned the Gemini 7 to Betti, who suggested that he bring Ben back to the Silver World so she could explain the situation to him and restore their friendship.

While waiting for Ben to arrive, Betti revealed her true goal to Francis Zapmeister. He was terrified when she told him that he was an aberrant and quite a dangerous one at that. Shortly afterwards, she blandished the Francis of the Silver World after mistaking him for Francis Zapmeister, who was dressed identically when she last saw him. Francis Zapmeister observed his counterpart's blandishing and was very disturbed by it as he knew that it was meant for him. When he finally met Veronica, he assumed that she was Betti and ran away in fear. After catching up with Francis, Veronica explained to him and Ben that Betti was her twin sister.

Having learned that Betti had almost succeeding in tracking down herself, Ben and Katherine, Veronica and her children travelled to the Green World and Mundi offered them sanctuary in Otto's old hut. After searching both the Blue and Yellow Worlds for her sister, Betti travelled to the Red World and found out from Mrs. Dunkly that Veronica was located in that world. Mrs. Dunkly then directed her to the Old Country Inn, the Johnsons' house / restaurant. Jeremy told her that Veronica had left him and that they never had any children but she remained suspicious.

Protecting her children remained Veronica's highest priority so she travelled to the Silver World and revealed her presence to the Welkin in the hope that Betti would be distracted long enough for Ben and Katherine to escape detection. However, Veronica's plan was unsuccessful as the DNA taken by the Welkin indicated that the Guardian was male. Using her stave, Betti teleported her sister to her house on Circe Island in the Silver World.

Several days later, Betti disguised herself as her sister and returned to the Red World in the hope of discovering the identity and location of the male Guardian. The Francis of the Red World was astonished to see her casually strolling through Werrinup and asked her what had happened. Her answers were non-committal and Francis quickly grew suspicious. When he later visited the Johnson home, she shooed him out the door and gave him an apple. This confirmed Francis' suspicions that Betti was posing as Veronica since the real Veronica knew that he hated apples and would never offer him one. Calling Jeremy outside on the pretence that he had spotted a snake, he explained the situation to him. Fearful that Betti would learn about Ben, Jeremy told Francis to remove everything from Ben's bedroom that looked like it belonged to a boy. As it turned out, that amounted to everything in the room.

By convincing her to pick fresh mushrooms for a risotto, Jeremy kept Betti distracted long enough for Francis, Una and Melinda to clear everything out of Ben's room. He claimed that the noises were caused by a possum infestation. Ben's room was converted into a sewing room and Melinda claimed that Veronica had promised to give her lessons. It was then that Katherine confronted Betti and goaded her into revealing her true identity by making her angry, which caused her eyes to glow purple. When Mrs. Dawes came to the door selling eggs, Betti seized on the opportunity. She asked if Mrs. Dawes had seen her son recently. However, to everyone's surprise, Mrs. Dawes told her that Veronica had never had children, which she had never been able to accept. Her plan having failed, Betti returned to the Silver World.

Betti eventually discovered that Veronica had been using her stave to send coded messages and decided to set a trap. She hid her stave under her hat and told her sister of her plan to send the Krellicks to the Silver World as a prelude to blandishing it. Ben and Mundi heard Betti's plan over the stave and informed Katherine. Equipped with Super Soakers, Ben, Katherine, Francis Zapmeister, Una, Melinda, Mundi, Jeremy, Stefan and Due were able to defeat the Krellicks with the help of the Mr. Short of the Silver World. A senior municipial employee who worked in Werrinup's park, he turned on the sprinklers in the park at Ben's request and the water killed all the Krellicks. After a swarm of Welkin appeared and took a sample of Ben's blood, Katherine realised that it was a trap to lure the male Guardian to the Silver World so that Betti could finish him off. The mother Welkin, which was more than 50 times the size of her children, then appeared and tried to eat Ben. Katherine told him to take off his clothes and fed them and the stave to the mother Welkin. As his clothes contained his DNA, Betti was fooled into thinking that Ben was dead. Although the Parallax gang won the battle against the Krellicks, Betti won the war as she enacted her plan to infect the Silver World Werrinup's entire water supply with the blandishing substance. Aberrants, including Mr. Short, began disappearing.

After locating Otto in the Brown World, Ben and Katherine once again spied on Betti using the stave. When they heard Betti threaten to kill Veronica now that she had located the last male Guardian, Katherine revealed her existence to her aunt. Ben and Otto were astonished by her actions but she explained that Betti now had another reason to keep Veronica alive, giving them much needed time to find her.

Betti and Katherine, who refused to reveal her name, began to communicate over the stave fairly regularly. Katherine was able to surreptiously communicate to Veronica that Ben was still alive by claiming that he had been just as cool-headed, sensible and logical as always right to the very end. Betti was none the wiser. On one occasion, Betti explained the so-called advantages of blandishing to Katherine. She claimed that it created perfect worlds with no anger, fear, hunger or jealousy. Melinda worried that Katherine, who had always liked the very orderly nature of their Werrinup, was being swayed by Betti's argument and pointed out that the blandished worlds were devoid of individuality, passion and differences of opinion. Katherine gathered herself and told Melinda that she had been merely following the argument to its logical conclusion.

Having grown bored of Veronica's company, Betti travelled to the Orange World as she needed time to think. While there, she met Stefan and Tiffany, much to her surprise. Stefan and Jeremy had come to the Orange World as they incorrectly believed that it was the location of the Reading Room, the fount of knowledge for the entire Parallax. Tiffany had simply tagged along. Calling himself "Steve," Stefan claimed that he had gotten lost. However, Tiffany mistook Betti for Veronica and referred to her as Ben Johnson's mother. Katherine then arrived to rescue Stefan and Betti correctly concluded that she was Veronica's daughter. She learned Katherine's name from an indiscreet Tiffany. When Betti threatened them, however, Tiffany proved unexpectedly useful. She threw sand in Betti's face, giving herself, Katherine and Stefan the opportunity to escape. Even so, Betti was pleased by this development as she had learned some valuable information about Veronica's children.

Several days later, Betti approached the Martin of the Blue World. She sought information about Katherine in exchange for a guided tour through the Parallax. Before telling her anything, he wanted cash in advance and demanded to be shown other worlds first. Martin was unimpressed by the Yellow and Orange Worlds but saw an opportunity for profit in the Silver World. Having realised that he could sell the mobile phones, cameras and camcorders dumped outside of the Silver World Werrinup for a huge profit in his own, he told Betti where Katherine lived.

Betti contacted her niece over the stave and suggested that the two of them meet at a place of Katherine's choosing. Katherine agreed to meet her in the Silver World. Betti admitted that she was disappointed with the choice of venue as she still considered it a work in progess. She convinced Katherine to let her take her to a so-called perfect world where the blandishing process had been completed. Using the portal in the Spiral Corporation building, they travelled to the Purple World. Although it was a beautiful garden filled with blissfully contented people, Katherine was unimpressed. She argued that blandishing had robbed the Purple World of its individuality and variety, making it bland and lifeless. Katherine even joked that it made the library in her own very controlled Blue World look like a rave. Betti claimed that blandishing created better worlds by ensuring that everyone fit in, thereby eliminating strife and dissent, but Katherine was still not convinced. Once again disappointed, Betti offered her niece the opportunity to join her and blandish the entire Parallax together. She gave Katherine 24 hours to make her decision. After this incident, Betti moved Veronica from the Circe Island of the Silver World to the Purple World.

In addition to the Martin of the Blue World, she recruited his counterparts from the Green, Red and Silver Worlds, organising them into a spy network across the Parallax. The Martin of the Silver World was able to tell her that Ben had still been alive after the Krellick attack on his Werrinup as his mother had seen him several days later. Betti took the Silver World Martin and his mother out for a meal in the hope that she would have more up to date information about Ben's location. When it turned out that she didn't, Betti told this Martin that his services were no longer required.

After the Martins of Red and Blue World counterparts found Betti's stave and accidentally activated it, they laid the blame on their Green World counterpart. Betti warned him that he was not indispensable and threatened to eliminate him if they were any more such incidents. He was extremely frightened and decided to have nothing more to do with either Betti or the other Martins. However, using the threat of blandishing, his Blue World counterpart intimidated him into revealing that Ben and Katherine were in Otto's old hut in the Green World. The Martin of the Blue World passed this information on to Betti and wanted a stave in exchange. Betti refused to give him one, warning him that he was displaying aberrant behaviour and that she may have to blandish him if it continued. However, Ben and Katherine were warned that she was coming by the Green World Martin and were able to escape to the Red World.

Some time later, Betti set another trap for Ben and Katherine in the Purple World. While she guarded one of its portal, she had the Blue World Martin guard the other in the hope of catching her niece and nephew when they came through. She explained to Martin that she needed someone who was cold and ruthless, qualities which were lacking in the remaining inhabitants of the completely blandished Purple World. However, Betti did not realise that Ben and Katherine had located the Reading Room, giving them a decided advantage in the fight. Francis volunteered to enter the Parallax and bring Veronica home. As the two portals were under guard, it initially appeared that they would not be able to escape to the Red World. However, Ben and Katherine had learned from Henry Dawes that there was a one-way only side door to the Purple World, something of which Betti was ignorant, and managed to enter surreptiously. Furthermore, Otto and Spy Kid (who had switched sides) were present, albeit in disguise as clowns. Otto had come to realise that an already blandished world was the perfect hiding place from Betti.

Wearing clown costumes, Ben, Katherine, Veronica, Francis, Otto and Spy Kid managed to distract Martin and get his stave, allowing them to enter the portal to the Red World. The furious Betti released a fireball and destroyed the Johnson house, injuring her sister in the process. Betti then invited Katherine to meet her in the Orange World in the hope of persuading her niece to join her crusade to blandish the Parallax. This gave Ben the idea of hiding the portals in the Orange World in order to trap Betti there forever. First, he and Francis removed the stones marking one portal. While Ben and Katherine distracted Betti by getting her to chase them, Francis, Melinda, Una, Due and Otto moved her tent, which she had erected over the other portal. When Ben and Katherine used an orb to escape to the Reading Room, Betti realised that she had been tricked and frantically searched for the portals. Ben was delighted that his plan had succeeded but Katherine remembered that they had left the Blue World Martin behind and insisted that they return for him. Although he was reluctant, Ben acquiesced to his sister's wishes.

After returning to the Orange World, Ben and Katherine were captured by Betti, who had found the former's stave after he accidentally dropped it. Betti had learned that her niece and nephew had managed to access the Reading Room and tried to compel them to take her there. She could not risk blandishing either of them as it required 100% Guardian blood to travel to the Reading Room and they only had 50% each. Betti then took a drink of water and, to her astonishment, was blandished. As Katherine later explained to the rest of the Parallax gang, Betti had mistakenly believed that Martin was still in the Orange World at the time. With Ben and Katherine being the only other people there, it was Betti who was the aberrant.

Veronica and Otto were able to use the Reading Room to restore everyone that Betti had blandished throughout the Parallax, including the Francis of the Silver World and his father. However, this also resulted in Betti herself being restored.

## Appearances

* "The World According to Betti"
* "Decoy"
* "Too Many Chiefs"
* "Ex-Ben"
* "Dad Meets Dad"
* "The Krellick War"
* "The Reluctant Guardian"
* "Seek and You Shall Find"
* "Sand Witch"
* "My Favourite Martin"
* "Cheats Never Prosper"
* "Martinmania"
* "The Reading Room"
* "Clownin' Around"
* "It Ain't Over"

## Behind the Scenes

Like Veronica, Betti was played by Caroline Brazier.