He faltered, and he fell.
Kneeling on the ground, in the dirt, as rounds whizzed past him, he struggled to breath. Everything that he ever knew; all the training, all of the lies shoved into the back of his mind to make him into the faceless soldier that he was today, it was all worthless now. Now, that he was going to die.
This wasn't even the life that he had chosen for himself. It was the life that he was given.
A number. That's all he had ever been, all this time, just a number.
Now, he was nothing.
He looked up. His blaster was gone, lost to the battleground that consumed him. Blood was pouring out of his white armor, and he struggled to staunch the flow with a hand held over the wound. It still burned, the laser round that hit him smoked, and he coughed inside of his helm. The tactical feed before his eyes was tinged red as liquids spilled out onto them.
He would be dead soon. He looked at his vital signs and cringed. There would be no coming back from this. When his eyes closed, they would not open again.
If he was going to die, he thought to himself, then he was going to die doing the only thing that he had ever known. Fighting.
He stood.
His legs shook, and every instinct in him wanted nothing more than to lie down, to let death come, and to surrender. But he wouldn't.
He was a stormtrooper.
He didn't know if he believed in the ways of the Empire. He didn't know if he would truly follow Lord Vader to the very end, but that didn't mater. The sith wasn't upon this field, and it wasn't for Vader that he was dying for.
It was himself.
He reached up one hand, the thought passing through his mind to remove his helm and breath in fresh air in his final moments, but he stopped himself. The face of a stormtrooper wasn't a middle aged man with black hair, stubble, and scars jotted across his face. It was the white mask that he had donned now. That was what struck fear into the galaxy, and let its citizens know that he was a soldier, and that he would fight.
He left it on.
Ahead, he saw more through the mist that surrounded him. They were Rebels, clad in green and tan uniforms that looked hastily put together. He reached down to his side and pulled out his blaster pistol. It looked like a piece of junk, honestly, and was barely any bigger than his hand, but it was all he had, and he would use it.
He raised his side arm, and he fired.
Red illuminated the world around him, and a laser blast ignited from his weapon. It soared into a figure ahead of him, and the Rebel crumpled, crying out in pain as he dropped his rifle and clutched his stomach. The hit was charred black, and smoke rose from it, but before long blood would be pooling around the body, falling from the Rebel just as freshly as it fell from him now.
He started to run forwards, pistol raised before him, and several other stormtroopers fell in alongside him. They made no attempt to speak to him, to ask if he was alright or to offer any kind words. They simply moved and fought in silence with no regard for the other.
One carried a banner in both hands, the standard blood red with the black insignia of the Empire upon it. The others all clutched standard issue E-11 blasters in two hands, black holsters slapping against their thigh plates as they ran. They shot off rounds into the mist around them as they moved, and screaming resounded.
He didn't know where they were going, or why they were here. He couldn't remember. The pain that ran through him, the life that he held onto with shaking hands was robbed of patches of his memory, not that it mattered.
Of course, it wouldn't matter.
He didn't even have a real name, after all. Only an identification so that he could be addressed by commanders.
He was nothing to the vast galaxy around him. He was nothing to the Empire that he so willingly fought for, and he was nothing on this battlefield. Just a wounded soldier holding onto his side arm.
He spotted another Rebel, and instinctively brought his pistol level with the figure, and fired without hesitation. The woman he'd shot cried in pain and flung her arms back, jolting in shock, and the rifle she had held flew away into the grey air around her. She fell back to the ground with a black smoking hole in her throat.
As the ran, the stormtroopers, one of them was suddenly taken off of his feet. He was lifted up into the air, and shot back to where the group had come from. They all halted, and formed a circle around the banner bearer. They scanned the mists for what might be assaulting them, and that's when he recalled what it was that they were doing here.
They had come for a Jedi outcast who lived upon this world. One that had survived the Clone Wars.
He heard the buzz of a lightsaber being ignited, and from within the cloak of the mist, saw two blades of pure white light extend outwards. Then, they were gone.
A trooper next to him cried out, and fell to the ground. In moments, she was among them. The trooper that had been struck hit the dirt ground, his head falling from his shoulders, and his blaster slipping from his dead grip.
As the Jedi moved in among them, he brought around his side arm, ready to fire, but when he saw her he didn't want to fire. He didn't want to kill her. She looked like an angel.
It was a Twi'lek, and not like one he'd ever seen before. Her skin was as white as the lightsaber staff that she held, two blades extending from either end of it. Black stripes ran down the twin tails on the back of her head, and she wore crystal blue robes wrapped tightly around her.
She twirled the staff in her hands, and another trooper was struck. His arms were severed from the rest of him, and he stumbled backwards. She turned, swinging the saber above her head and then brought it down, stabbing down into the chest of another trooper.
He was shaking, he realized. Shaking, and afraid. He was not familiar with the emotion. While looking at the Jedi, however, he couldn't help also feeling enticed.
He stood with the pistol pointed at her, but he didn't fire. Blood still fell from him, dripping down from the wound burned into his stomach. His free hand had fallen to his side, no longer attempting to keep back the flow of red. He couldn't feel it anymore, the wound that marked him as a dead man, and he didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.
He didn't care.
The Jedi looked at him, sparkling blue eyes considering him for the slightest of moments before she turned to the other stormtroopers. The Twi'lek deflected a laser blast with one end of her saber staff, while she used the other blade to skewer a trooper in front of her. She pulled it back out of the imperial's chest, and he fell to his knees, looking down at his wounds. The Twi'lek spun the staff, felling the last trooper behind her.
The only two left wearing the white of the Empire where himself, and the banner bearer.
The banner bearer swung the standard as though the pole were a spear, trying vainly to disarm the Jedi. She sliced through the pole, and as the red flag fell, fluttering in the wind, the soldier screamed out as one of his arms fell with it. Regardless of the wound, he still raised in his other hand an E-11 he had retrieved from one of his fallen comrades. He brought it about to fire.
He never got the chance.
The banner bearer fell to the ground, head leaving shoulders and steam rising from the open cut, and then it was just him and her. She already had her back to the trooper she had killed, and looked at him holding her saber ready, but she didn't cut into him as he had expected. Instead, the two blades of the lightsaber retracted into themselves, the constant burr fading away.
He still had the pistol half raised, and she smiled kindly at him.
"What is wrong?"
He didn't know what to say. He didn't know whether she actually cared or not. His commanding officers had never cared what was wrong with him. They never asked how he felt, what he thought, or what concerned him.
It didn't matter. Not then, and not now.
"Nothing," he said, his voice weak and the words struggling to escape his dying throat. "Only following orders."
"You're going to die," she said, extending a hand out, worry in her eyes. "I can help..." But at her movement, he raised his blaster higher, bringing it level with her face.
"Not any closer, witch," he began, but didn't finish. He just then took in the features of her face. She was stunningly beautiful, her features elegant as though they were out of a painting. The Twi'leks were always considered stunning in appearance, but this Jedi was more than that. She was the most amazing thing that he had ever seen. As he struggled to form any other words, she giggled to herself.
"Lower your weapon," she said, and it sounded like it was a command. "I can't help you if you won't lower it."
"You don't give me orders," he spat, angered. "I am going to shoot if you get any closer. You can't stop it."
She cocked her head as though confused, and then waved her hand in front of his face.
"You will lower the blaster."
He felt a wave pass throughout his mind, and for just a split moment, he wanted to obey. He wanted to follow her order as though it wasn't an order at all, but instead as though it were his own thought, his own want and desire. For a moment, he felt like it was his own intention, but then the feeling passed.
"No," he said sternly, and he saw that the Jedi knew he wouldn't change his mind or be persuaded.
"You are very strong. Your mind isn't weak like so many of your kind. You aren't just another faceless soldier of the Empire. You are strong."
The Jedi spoke, each word sounding like a song in his ears, and he felt his face reddening without his meaning to. He didn't know what to think of a comment such as that. Never before had he ever heard something of that nature being said about himself. There was no answer in his head to serve as a way of reaction.
As he held the blaster, he fell to his knees, the strength in his legs fading away into nothing. He could feel the fingers holding the gun weaken slowly, and knew that soon they too would give out.
"What is your name?" The Jedi asked.
"Nothing," he muttered underneath a struggling breath. "It doesn't matter."
She bent down to look at him more closely, even though she couldn't possibly see his features through the helmet that he still wore.
"There is face underneath that, and it has a name. What is it?"
"Why...?" He barely managed to ask.
"Because I care," she replied simply, and he believed her.
"XV-4392. That's my name."
The expression on her face became thoughtful for a moment, before she smiled reassuringly.
"Xavier. That's your name."
He didn't reply with anything, only continued trying to keep his grip on the blaster tight. As it was shakily held before the Jedi's face, however, he felt the strength leaving him. Without wanting to, the pistol fell from his hand, and clattered away on the ground, disappearing in the mist.
The hand fell to his side, and as it did, he in turn fell to the ground. The last thing he saw before his world became darkness was the smiling image of the Twi'lek that he had been sent here to kill.
"Xavier..." He tasted the name he had been given on his dead lips.
It didn't matter who he was, he thought as he slipped away. It didn't matter what he thought. He was a soldier of the Galactic Empire, and all that mattered was that he fought and died for that cause.
It didn't matter who he was. It... Didn't... Matter...
His consciousness slipped away, and he smiled to himself in his last moment. When the Jedi looked away from the corpse, she looked away not from a nameless soldier, but from Xavier.
A stormtrooper.