Baron Gartargus is one of three Variant Labs’ security officers.

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His last name is one he can say fluently without a second thought, but just about everyone else seems to trip over it, which has become an annoyance he gave up correcting with much patience a long time ago. Butch, naturally, makes it worse by calling him “BG” for short, a nickname Baron absolutely hates, which only encourages Butch to use it more.  Unlike some who only passed through it, Baron proved himself in the Zion Armada. He built rank and developed the physical presence that made him difficult to ignore. In those years, he picked up the title “The Guerilla,” a name tied to the way he handled conflict head-on, overpowering enemies through sheer physicality and a refusal to go down quietly.

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His history in the Armada is also tangled up in one of the most personal and painful chapters of his life: his relationship with Aero Z Storm. For a time, Baron was deeply involved with one of the most intimidating women on the opposition side, a relationship that was as passionate as it was dangerous. He was, as some at the lab like to joke, literally sleeping with the enemy. But what once felt real and consuming became far more complicated as Baron’s feelings and sense of self began to unravel.

 

By the time he made the decision to abandon his post, he knew it would cost him everything he had built, including Aero. Leaving, meant forfeiting the relationship along with the life attached to it, and Aero did not forgive that loss lightly. Baron half-jokingly refers to her now as the revengeful ex, though beneath his asinine sarcasm, there is still something REAL there. He knows she has vowed to kill him, and in her mind, he earned it by killing her heart first. Even so, some part of him still holds love for her, only from a distance so wide it might as well be another world.  

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Baron’s past beyond that remains blurry even to the people around him, more suggested than fully explained, but it is clear he has lived through a great deal. At Variant Labs, people accept him as he is, rough edges and all, without asking him to become someone cleaner or easier to handle.

 

He still complains & still carries old ghosts with him, but in the middle of all that he has made a place for himself. Baron is not simple, and not entirely healed, but he is part of the lab now, and in his own stubborn way, he has made do with being wanted there.