Chapter 6: The Armorer's Test
POV: Oliver
Oliver wakes to the sound of hammering—rhythmic, purposeful, the ring of metal on metal that speaks of craft and tradition. The sound echoes through stone corridors that smell of moisture and old smoke, a underground world carved from living rock.
[MP: 30/92]
[HP: 190/210]
[SYSTEM STATUS: REGENERATING]
[WARNING: PREVIOUS OVERLOAD DAMAGE DETECTED]
The warnings scroll across his vision, but Oliver dismisses them with a thought. He's alive, Grogu is safe, and for now that's enough.
The child sits beside Oliver's makeshift bedroll, playing with a small metal ball that gleams in the torchlight. When he sees Oliver stirring, Grogu coos softly and reaches out with one tiny hand.
"Hey, little one," Oliver whispers, his voice rough from sleep and system strain. "You okay?"
Grogu responds by crawling closer and settling against Oliver's side with the trusting abandon of a child who has already decided he's safe. The gesture sends warmth spreading through Oliver's chest—not the blue fire of his system's power, but something infinitely more precious.
Family, Oliver thinks, and the word feels right in a way few things have since he woke in the desert.
"You're awake."
Din's voice emerges from the shadows at the edge of the chamber. The Mandalorian sits against the far wall, his armor dulled with dust and fatigue but his posture alert.
"How long?" Oliver asks.
"Twelve hours. We made it to the covert before you went into complete system shutdown."
Oliver nods, not trusting his voice. Twelve hours. Twelve hours during which anything could have happened to Grogu, during which his system could have failed completely and left him a mindless husk in a borrowed body.
"The Armorer wants to see us," Din continues. "Both of us."
POV: Din Djarin
The Armorer's forge burns in the heart of the covert, its flames casting dancing shadows on walls carved with the history of their people. The woman herself stands beside her anvil like a priestess before an altar, her hammer poised above a piece of glowing beskar.
She doesn't look up when Din and Oliver enter, but her awareness of their presence is palpable. Grogu floats between them in his repaired pram, wide eyes taking in the sacred space with obvious interest.
"You broke Creed to save a foundling," the Armorer says without preamble, her hammer falling in precise rhythm against the metal. "This is the Way."
Din feels some of the tension leave his shoulders. Whatever judgment was coming, it won't include exile.
The Armorer's helmet turns toward Oliver, and even through the beskar mask, her regard feels like being examined under a magnifying lens.
"But you... you are not Mandalorian. Yet you fought beside one. Why?"
Oliver struggles to find words, his linguistic curse making complex explanations nearly impossible. Finally, he settles on simplicity.
"Because it was right."
The Armorer circles him slowly, her hammer still in hand. Din has seen her perform this same ritual with potential initiates—testing their resolve, their character, their worthiness to bear the sigil of their people.
"You command beasts," she observes. "An unnatural gift."
From across the forge, Paz Vizsla's growl of agreement rumbles through his heavy armor. The big Mandalorian has never been comfortable with anything that smacks of Force-user trickery.
The Armorer raises one hand, silencing any further objection.
"Unnatural, perhaps. But effective. You saved a foundling. You fought with honor despite having no Creed to guide you." Her helmet tilts, considering. "You may stay—for now."
POV: Oliver
The Armorer returns to her work, the glow of molten beskar painting her armor in shades of gold and crimson. She shapes the metal with expert precision, each hammer blow perfectly placed, until what emerges is a new shoulder pauldron bearing a distinctive sigil.
"The mudhorn," she announces, holding up the finished piece. "Your signet is complete."
Din steps forward to receive the armor piece, but the Armorer's next words stop him short.
"You are a clan of two."
Oliver watches from the shadows as the ceremony unfolds, feeling like an intruder at a private moment. This is Mandalorian tradition, ancient and sacred, and he has no place in it.
Then Grogu wobbles over on unsteady legs and tugs at Oliver's pant leg, offering him the metal ball with a generous coo.
Something cracks open in Oliver's chest—not painful, but profound. The child doesn't see him as an outsider or a freak or a weapon wrapped in stolen flesh. To Grogu, he's simply someone who came to help when help was needed.
"The foundling claims you as well, off-worlder."
The Armorer's voice cuts through Oliver's emotional haze. She's watching the interaction between him and Grogu with obvious interest.
"What will you do when your paths diverge?"
Oliver looks down at Grogu's huge, trusting eyes and feels the weight of the question settle on his shoulders like a cloak. What will he do? He doesn't know who he is, where he came from, or what his ultimate purpose might be. But he knows one thing with crystalline certainty.
"I guess I'll cross that bridge when it tries to kill me."
The Armorer's helmet tilts in what might be approval. "Indeed."
POV: The Armorer
Through the sacred flames of her forge, the Armorer studies the strange off-worlder who has disrupted the careful order of her world. She has seen many warriors in her years as keeper of the Way—some driven by honor, others by greed, most by some combination of the two.
But Oliver is different. There's something broken in him, something that doesn't quite fit together properly. Yet when he looks at the foundling, that brokenness resolves into something like wholeness.
He will face trials, she thinks, watching Oliver share his ration bar with Grogu. Dark things from his past will come hunting. But the child has chosen him, and that choice carries weight in the Force.
The Armorer has no gift for prophecy, but she knows the signs. Change is coming to the galaxy, and this strange man with his impossible gifts will be at the center of it.
Whether that change brings salvation or destruction remains to be seen.
POV: Oliver
The attack comes without warning.
Oliver is helping Grogu with his dinner—attempting to prevent the child from flinging mashed nutrition paste at the walls—when alarms begin echoing through the covert's stone corridors.
Guild bounty hunters, according to the shouts of the Mandalorian warriors racing to their defensive positions. Somehow, someone has tracked them to this hidden sanctuary.
Oliver's danger sense screams warnings as he scoops Grogu up and looks for cover. Through the chaos of preparing defenders, he catches a glimpse of something that makes his blood run cold.
A figure in an environmental suit stands at the edge of the cavern entrance, not participating in the battle but watching. Watching him specifically.
[DANGER SENSE: UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED]
[THREAT LEVEL: UNCLEAR]
[BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS: OBSERVER, NOT COMBATANT]
Oliver tries to get a better look, reaching out to a voorpak that lives in the covert's upper reaches.
[SENSORY SHARING ACTIVATED]
[MP: 20/92]
Through the creature's enhanced vision, he sees the figure more clearly. Humanoid, average height, completely concealed by the suit's environmental seals. But there's something in the way they stand, the tilt of their helmet, that suggests intense focus.
They're not here for the Guild bounty. They're here for me.
Oliver tries to direct the voorpak closer, but the figure seems to sense the scrutiny. They fade back into the shadows with practiced ease, disappearing as if they'd never been there at all.
The battle ends quickly—Guild hunters are tough, but they're not prepared for Mandalorian warriors fighting on their home ground. When the smoke clears and the bodies are counted, Oliver finds something the retreating hunters left behind.
A holoprojector, still active, displaying a bounty puck. The face staring back at him from the flickering hologram is his own—or rather, Voss's. The same weathered features, the same gray eyes, but with an expression of cold calculation that Oliver hopes he's never worn.
WANTED BY THE SYNDICATE DR. ELIAS VOSS REWARD: 50,000 CREDITS CHARGES: THEFT OF PROPRIETARY ASSETS STATUS: TERMINATE ON SIGHT
Din appears at Oliver's shoulder, studying the hologram with professional interest.
"You want to explain that?"
Oliver stares at the bounty puck, feeling the weight of Voss's sins settling on his borrowed shoulders like a shroud. Somewhere out there, an organization called the Syndicate wants him dead for crimes he doesn't remember committing with hands that don't feel like his own.
"I wish I could," Oliver says finally. "But I don't think I'd like the answers."
[QUEST UPDATE: THE SYNDICATE HUNTS]
[NEW THREAT IDENTIFIED]
[PRIORITY: HIGH]
[WARNING: UNKNOWN OBSERVER TRACKING PARTY]
That night, Oliver sits in his assigned alcove with his datapad, watching as another encrypted file slowly unlocks itself. When the decryption finishes, the message it reveals makes his stomach clench with nausea.
"Subject Voss - Neural Interface Prototype. Status: Rejected. Reason: Subject retained too much autonomy. Unable to weaponize effectively."
Oliver closes his eyes, but the words burn behind his eyelids. He was meant to be a weapon. Whatever consciousness inhabits this borrowed body, whatever person he might have been before, he was chosen specifically to be molded into something monstrous.
The body remembers, even if he doesn't. And somewhere in the galaxy, the people who made that choice are coming to collect their investment.
Grogu makes a soft sound from his makeshift nest nearby, and Oliver opens his eyes to find the child watching him with those ancient, understanding eyes.
"I don't know what I am, little one," Oliver whispers. "But I promise you this—whatever they made me to be, I'll be something else instead."
[CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: IDENTITY CRISIS DEEPENING]
[MORAL CHOICE PENDING]
[THE PAST WILL NOT STAY BURIED]
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