Baatar Jr.


 * This article is about Suyin Beifong and Baatar's son who joined the military of the Earth Empire. For his father, see Baatar.

"earth"

- Zaofu stopped being my home long ago. I'm ready to take it by force.

Baatar Jr. is Suyin Beifong and Baatar's eldest son, nephew of Lin Beifong, first grandson of Toph Beifong, and the fiancé of Kuvira. As Zaofu's engineer, he was responsible for enacting his father's designs. However, after Earth Queen Hou-Ting's murder and the Earth Kingdom's subsequent decline in stability, he left Zaofu together with Kuvira to reunite the nation, much to the disapproval of his mother.

Engineer at Zaofu
While Suyin hosted a dinner for Avatar Korra and her friends, Baatar Jr. and his father passed by the dining hall, where the latter informed the matriarch that they would have to eat in his office as they had a major breakthrough regarding the remodeling of a tram station. After the two left, Suyin proudly remarked that Baatar Jr. was an engineer who was responsible for handling all of his father's projects.

He later attended Opal's farewell dinner and subsequently accompanied the rest of the dining group to the rooftop, where they watched Opal depart for the Northern Air Temple.

Traveling across the Earth Kingdom
After the Insurrection of the Red Lotus, Baatar Jr. made plans with Kuvira behind Suyin's back to leave Zaofu and stabilize the situation in Ba Sing Se and the rest of the Earth Kingdom. Although his mother made it clear that if they were to leave, they would never be welcomed back in Zaofu, Baatar Jr. left anyway, as he took it as an opportunity to rise from underneath his parents' shadow. His departure led to a falling out with his mother, who saw it as a betrayal and who deemed Kuvira's quest an unjustified seizure of power. At some point, he entered in a romantic relationship with Kuvira, which progressed to the point that he proposed to her, which she accepted.

Annexation of the State of Yi
By 174 AG, he traveled the Earth Kingdom by train. When Bolin reported to him that two more states had agreed to join their alliance, he happily took the reports from him and relayed the message to Kuvira, stating that they had reached ninety percent of their goal. He was about to celebrate their achievement with Varrick, Zhu Li, and Bolin by drinking some tea, though when Kuvira stated that she refused to celebrate until the Earth Kingdom was reunited completely, he digressed and put his cup back down. However, the contents ended up being spilled on his clothing when their train suddenly halted due to an earthen obstruction on the tracks caused by bandits.



After Kuvira cleared their path, they continued on to the state of Yi, where Baatar Jr. found his sister Opal. He greeted her in a friendly matter, though when he asked how their mother was doing, Opal snapped at him, dismissing his question since she believed he did not care anyway. After the governor of Yi ordered Kuvira and her army to leave the state, Baatar Jr. retreated with everyone else to the border of the state, where they would wait a day for the governor to reconsider. When he did, they all returned and Baatar Jr. witnessed his fiancée claim the state in the name of a united Earth Kingdom.



Baatar Jr. arrived at Republic City together with Kuvira and the rest of the army a day before Prince Wu's coronation as the new Earth King. Upon checking in to the Republic City Four Elements, Baatar Jr. curtly greeted his mother. Upon being greeted as "Baatar Jr." in return, he haughtily corrected her by saying he went by just "Baatar". He started to gloat about his and Kuvira's accomplishments, believing that his mother felt regret about passing up on the opportunity to be a part of the movement. Displeased that his mother denounced their accomplishments as something good, he merrily announced that Kuvira would be an official member of the Beifong family through a marriage with him, urging his mother to get over her grudge with his fiancée. When Suyin did not react and merely said she was glad Kuvira was stepping down after Wu's coronation, Baatar Jr. briskly wondered if she preferred to be ruled by Wu, referring to him as a "royal idiot".

The following day, Baatar Jr. attended Wu's coronation and applauded and cheered when Kuvira publicly denounced Wu's authority and claimed power for herself, renaming the Earth Kingdom the "Earth Empire". When his mother later came to speak with Kuvira, Baatar Jr. retreated with Bolin to the adjacent room to give the ladies some privacy.

Conquering Zaofu


En route to Zaofu, Baatar Jr. smoothened out his uniform before joining Kuvira to look out of the window to the passing landscape, contently noting that by the same time the following day, his mother would have signed the treaty that surrendered Zaofu to their control and the Earth Empire would entirely be united. He was cautioned by his fiancée, however, to not get ahead of himself, as securing the metal city would not be as easy as he made it seem. Upon hearing Kuvira refer to the city as his hometown, Baatar Jr. darkly denounced it as his home and declared to be ready to take it by force. However, he was once more reeled in by Kuvira, who stressed the importance of handling the situation with diplomacy, considering the eyes of the world were upon them, a task for which she wanted to use Bolin even though Baatar Jr. had his doubts in regards to the reliability of the earthbender.

When a shock rattled their train, Baatar Jr. and Kuvira swiftly made their way down to the last cart where Varrick was conducting his experiments on spirit vines. As the inventor shut down his project, wary of the destructive possibilities of the spirit energy, Baatar Jr. wondered why the engineer suddenly cared about the consequences. After Kuvira threatened to kill Varrick if he did not resume his testing, Baatar Jr. left with her back to their own cart, where they summoned Bolin to have a meeting with them. Baatar Jr. sat relaxed on the couch while his fiancée explained Bolin's task to him.



Arriving at Zaofu, Baatar Jr. led Kuvira and Bolin to the room where the rest of the Beifong family was awaiting them. With a grand gesture, he swung open the double doors, though the two parties merely greeted each other with tension. When his parents tried to reason with him, stating that he belonged in the metal city, Baatar Jr. angrily asked them why, as he perceived his time there to have been spent in the shadow of his father. He stood by as Kuvira gave his family a twenty-four hour ultimatum to surrender the city, before returning with his fiancée to their camp.

In Kuvira's personal tent, Baatar Jr. told Bolin that sending off dissenters to a reeducation camp was merely one of the hard truths of the army, a necessity for a united Earth Empire. Baatar Jr. later escorted Avatar Korra to see Kuvira, before making his way toward Varrick's quarters, asking the guards in front of the door if they had seen Bolin. Learning that the lavabender had been by though was sent away, Baatar Jr. grew suspicious and ordered the guards to open the door. Finding the cart to be deserted with the ceiling hatch open, the engineer deduced that Bolin and Varrick had deserted, prompting him to give chase.



Each piloting a mecha tank, Baatar Jr. and two corporals tracked the three deserters, who had each taken a mecha tank as well, down in the nearby forest. Catching them by surprise, Baatar Jr. struck Bolin's mecha tank with an electricity bolt, before charging straight for Varrick. His assault was thwarted by Zhu Li, however, which enabled Bolin to recover and tackle him to the ground. In the ensuing struggle, Baatar Jr. managed to get the upper hand and delivered a strong blow to the center of Bolin's tank, knocking it on its back. Building up momentum by jumping in the air, he charged another electricity bolt and completely destroyed Bolin's tank with it. The earthbender managed to escape, causing Baatar Jr. to continue his assault with his flamethrower. He was forced to run, however, when Bolin broke his attack by launching a large boulder at him and toppled a tree in his direction. Baatar Jr. managed to avoid damage and found Varrick scrambling through the forest. Capturing the inventor, Baatar Jr. threatened to kill him in order to force Bolin and Zhu Li to surrender.

The fugitives apprehended, Baatar Jr. escorted the threesome to face Kuvira, where he stood by as Kuvira sent Bolin off to a dissenters' camp, locked Varrick away under military supervision to continue his spirit vine experiments, and pardoned Zhu Li as she pledged her loyalty to the army commander.



The following morning, Baatar Jr. was on the train that escorted Bolin and Varrick away from Zaofu on Kuvira's orders. He made his way to the prisoner holding cart to take the inventor to his new laboratory in order to continue weaponizing the spirit vine energy. As Varrick reminisced about always being greeted in the morning by his assistant with a hot cup of tea, Baatar Jr. dismissed the wish as something to be fulfilled when he started working. He was not amused when the eccentric inventor wanted to stall by pointing out that he usually only worked in the afternoon from 3:45 until 4pm and order one of the guards to roughly manhandle Varrick to force him to cooperate, as Baatar Jr. wanted to learn how the spirit vine device worked. When Bolin woke up due to the commotion, Baatar Jr. ordered him to go back to sleep as they only needed Varrick and added that Bolin would need his energy upon arriving at the reeducation camp. He made it clear to Varrick that he was expected to work, as he would be supervising the work and one of the guards would assist. When Varrick spooked the guards by retelling how the experiment created an uncontrollable blast of energy last time they tried it, Baatar Jr. wearily agreed that Bolin would assist.



As Varrick was tinkering at the machine containing the stasis capsule with a spirit vine sample in it, Baatar Jr. ordered the inventor to walk him through every step of the project. He told Bolin to be quiet when the earthbender excitedly noted to convert the weapon into a source of clean energy per Varrick's original plans for the device. He continued to chastise Varrick for wanting to limit his invention to clean energy, believing it was their responsibility as scientists to push the boundaries of the possible once a discovery was made. When Varrick jabbed at him that he would not know anything about scientific discoveries as he could not even "discover a wolfbat if it was building a nest in [his] butt", Baatar Jr. called the inventor "pathetic" and corrected him on the fact that wolfbats did not build nests. As Varrick continued to point out that Baatar Jr. would never know how it felt to "give birth to genius only to have it kidnapped and raised by fools", the second-in-command irritatingly asked if he was done with his rambling, threatening to order the guards to roughly force him to continue his work.



While Varrick continued adjusting his invention, Baatar Jr. closely studied the machine, understanding how the current interacted with the vine and how there was a directional tube, though he failed to grasp the meaning of a device at the base of the machine, as it looked like it would direct the energy to back where it came from. Although he asked about the specifics of the piece of equipment Varrick was working on near the power source, he never received an answer. He skeptically eyed the inventor as he tried to get his machine to work by tapping and kicking it. When it finally sprung to life, bathing in a purple light, Baatar Jr. inquired after the source of an incisive ticking that filled the wagon. Learning it was a timer, he irritatingly asked for more details and was shocked to learn that it was for a bomb that would go off five minutes later. As Varrick explained that it would destroy all his research and everyone in its vicinity, Baatar Jr. grew furious and stated the inventor to be bluffing. He pointed out that he would not let Varrick blow everything up as he was working for Kuvira, a job that no one was allowed to quit. Snapping his fingers, he ordered the guards to apprehend the inventor, though changed his mind when Varrick revealed to have a remote with which he could set the bomb off immediately. Forced to leave Bolin and Varrick on their half of the train, Baatar Jr. commented that Varrick was "insane", only to receive the quick answer that they had known that from the moment they hired him. He kept an eye on the disconnected wagons via a telescope and was completely baffled to witness it explode, having been under the impression that Varrick had only been bluffing. Commenting that the inventor was crazier than a "sewer pipe elephant rat", he ordered the rest of his crew to set course back to Zaofu.



Baatar Jr. arrived at the metal city in time to attend his fiancée's victory speech to the Metal Clan. He grew angry when he noticed that his father and eldest brother defied Kuvira's rule by refusing to bow to her. He stalked over to his family and yelled at his father to kneel before Kuvira, stating her to be his rightful leader. When they refused, he ordered them to be taken away, before leading the rest of the Metal Clan in a cheer to hail the Great Uniter.

Afterward, Baatar Jr. followed Kuvira to his family's personal garden and reported to her that he was certain that Varrick and Bolin had perished in the explosion, along with the spirit vine research, though reassured his fiancée that he could replicate the technology with the help of an assistant. He also received the order to begin dismantling the domes protecting Zaofu.

Readying the spirit energy weapon
Baatar Jr. traveled along with Kuvira and the air fleet toward the Foggy Swamp. Making his way to the banyan-grove tree, he examined the surrounding roots with a probe, concluding that they were infused with spirit energy more powerful than in the samples taken from Republic City.

Baatar Jr. used the spirit vines he and Kuvira harvested to continue Varrick's experiments in creating a spirit weapon. The culmination of his work led Baatar to create a giant cannon powered by spirit vines. When the cannon was finally perfected, Baatar was going to test it by destroying a small abandoned town just outside of Zaofu in front of Kuvira and her troops. However, the test failed as it was discovered Zhu Li had intentionally sabotaged the weapon. As punishment for her betrayal, Kuvira ordered her troops to place Zhu Li in the target town so "she can see how the weapon works up close and personal." However, moments before the cannon was about to fire, Baatar saw Opal in the town trying to save Zhu Li and ordered the test be stopped, but it was too late as the cannon had already fired. Fortunately, Toph used a rock wave to throw the cannon out of alignment a moment before it fired thus the cannon missed the town and instead blew a hole straight through the mountain behind the town.

Personality


As an engineer in Zaofu, Baatar Jr. worked closely with his father. Over time, however, he grew tired of living in his parents' shadows, which led him to join Kuvira on her campaign to restore order in the war-torn Earth Kingdom, leaving Zaofu against his mother's wishes. In the years following, he progressively distanced himself from any part of his former life, denouncing Zaofu as his home and dropping the "Junior" from his name; according to his mother, he turned his back to all his parents had tried to teach him.

As Kuvira's second-in-command, he became ruthless, finding the goal to justify the morally questionable tactics Kuvira's army employed, to the point where he had no qualms threatening the lives of defenseless individuals, as evidenced by his threats against Varrick in order to force Bolin and Zhu Li to surrender or his willingness to employ a weapon of mass destruction. Despite his resentment toward his family, he still cared for them, as demonstrated when he ordered to stop the firing of the spirit weapon upon seeing Opal in the target town.

Abilities
Baatar has shown to be an brutal and efficient military commander, barking harsh orders and leading troops to hunt down Bolin, Varrick and Zhu Li. As a fighter, he has demonstrated aggressive combat skills against Bolin inside of a mecha tank. He was capable of rappelling earth based attacks and launching quick counter strikes, forcing Bolin out of his tank.

Baatar is a skilled engineer, having assisted his father in building many technologies in Zaofu. He was also confident enough to attempt replication of Varrick's work on the spirit vines, culminating in the construction of a cannon powered by spirit vine energy.

Appearances
{{Scroll|

Book Four: Balance (平衡)
}}

Trivia

 * Baatar Jr. is the first known person to be named directly after a parent.
 * Baatar Jr. is the first known antagonist of The Legend of Korra to be biologically related to a member of the original Team Avatar.