As Legume's dinky and bumpy, but nevertheless working spaceship made its way across the empty outer space of the Galaxy, clusters of stars speeding past the windows in the control room one after the other and reflecting themselves on the Saiyan's face vefore vanishing behind the vessel's trail, a new thought popped in the accidental future traveller's mind.

You know... with most of the infrastructure in this Galaxy of the past being concentrated on the planets' surfaces, passing spaceship traffic being almost miniscule and few, if any artificial structures in the way, the entire Galaxy felt... empty. You could travel for days, maybe weeks, and not notice a single living being, or even a power level signature. Everyone was just so sedentary, do you get it? And yet, at the same time, you could almost imagine this Galaxy as being a lot more natural than the one from which Legume came from. All of the stars surrounding his spaceship were open, none of them were built up with solar panel Dyson spheres, and none of the planets were turned into open mineral mines, thousands of spaceships and mining drones buzzing around them and extracting entire hemispheres worth of material in a few months.

It was almost refreshing, could you imagine that? Like being thrusted into a Galaxy of cavemen and being forced to survive off scraps and raw meat.

Thankfully, Legume's thought about being able to travel for weeks without meeting anyone did not prove to be correct in this specific instance, as suddenly the control panels in front of the Saiyan beeped to life, informing about a distress call coming from a nearby freighter - a brief one, seemingly because whoever was making that call got their life cut short before they could send anything meaningful.

"What the?!.." Legume muttered, closing his eyes and focusing on his ki senses. Quickly, he located a concentration of large and small power levels a few million kilometers away from here.

And the number of those small power levels was rapidly dimming.

Well.

If that's not the call-sign of a yet anothe crew of space pirates taking advantage of the chaotic nature of the Galaxy for their own gain, then Legume had no idea what would be.

Perhaps it's ironic that in the last Galactic election he witnessed before being sucked in here, the main talking point was the rise of crime between the federation's systems... Oh, you sweet summer children, you have no idea what Legume has gotten the chance to see in the past...

"Okay, just... don't fly off to the next quadrant while I'm away, okay?" Legume muttered to the spaceship as he placed his right index and middle finger on his forehead. Truth be told, he still had little idea how these ancient spaceships are supposed to operate. They don't work on muons, that's for sure... Moments later, the Saiyan suddenly vanished, and as soon as he reappeared on bright white tiles elsewhere, he was immediately showered by open fire from several turrets installed across the corridor of the spaceship.

Grunting a little, Legume responded by releasing several wide swings with Vanity, which sent a powerful airburst across the corridor and popped the machines firing upon him. Okay... Now that that's settled, what do we have here?

There were several uniformed corpses at Legume's feet, all of them seemingly from the same faction, so this was less of a battle and more of a massacre. The ship's internal defenses open fire on any intruders. There didn't seem to be any other spaceships attached to the freighter. And there's only a single power level present on the spaceship, a fairly noticeable one, in what seemed to be the control room of the vessel.

Okay, we'll solve this mystery as we go. Legume thought to himself as he began running across the corridors of the freighter, encountering more and more turrets with each sharp turn or staircase he made, and responding to all of them the same way - with a wide sword swing to blow the bastards away.

(682 words)

As Legume made his way across the ship's corridors, navigating by checking which of the corridors he's going through haven't had their defensive installations destroyed yet, he figured that sooner or later, whoever was the bearer of the power level in the ship's bridge should be aware of his presence by now. These suspicions proved correct, as when the Saiyan warrior finally made his way to the top floor of the spaceship, he noticed that the turrets there stopped firing upon him.

They couldn't have ran out of bullets or something, right? A voice which soon called out to him, echoing across the blank white corridors, confirmed exactly that:

"Dear intruder, I shut down the automated defenses and opened the door to the bridge. If you want to talk or stop me, please come and see me there. I would prefer it if there was no further need to destroy the ship I worked so hard to take."

As if to signify the man's point, one of the doors in the distance suddenly opened, and Legume began to make his way towards it.

Worked so hard to take?

Clearly, this meant that this spaceship was not originally his, and seeing as Legume had made his way past dozens of uniformed corpses before, the man speaking was most likely also the person responsible for all of the deaths he had come across on the way - which was already starting to get the Saiyan's body boiling a little.

Immediately as Legume stepped into the control room and the perpetrator of the crime showed his face, the Saiyan witnessed that it was one of his own. A fellow Saiyan, slightly shorter than him, but intimidating nonetheless, with a cigarette at hand and speaking about how his name is Dain and that he is the current operator of the ship. Right, a Saiyan, those existed in the distant past, too... although they fulfilled a far different role in Galactic society than the one they did in Legume's time, a much less pleasant one.

Well, if introducing themselves is the name of the game here, then let's play.

"My name is Legume." he spoke, removing Vanity from his shoulder and letting the ten foot long greatsword rest on the ground instead, the tip of the massive weapon smacking the floor with a loud thud. Acting as judge, jury and executioner at once was a role Legume had little experience in playing, he was much more comfortable with his more moderate role in the Galactic military, but if he's going to be fixing this society of the past, then he's not going to be escaping any of that.

"I'm going to start by asking you a question - what motivation drove you to all of this, Dain? It will have to be really damn righteous to justify slaughtering the crew of an entire spaceship."

Dain was correct, there was little room for maneuver and using the full extent of Legume's power is probably going to break this spaceship entirely. But the Saiyan figured that there was a chance to resolve this without firing a shot.

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Dain knew how to make his way with words, but his profession was far from honorable. A bounty hunter? That wasn't even a real profession in Legume's time, only something occasionally mentioned in history books. If a some sort of priority was placed on a person or an organization, then that matter would be handled by the police or, in the worst cases, the military, not individuals acting with extrajudicial powers. Granted, he was currently an individual acting with extrajudicial powers as well... but that's different, okay?

Either way, Legume knew very well that you can seldom trust the words and promises of a man who is only in it for the money. If he had any at his hands, he might have considered paying Dain off to have him vacate the spaceship and not take on something similar again... but that's clearly not happening. Not that Dain would have likely accepted such a prospect - one could imagine that theft and murder are important sources of income for these types, and he didn't even consider himself doing a bad thing in this situation.

After all, at the very least the Saiyan bounty hunter stated one true fact - as this Galaxy is so fragmented and divided between so many separate factions each with their own morality and goals, there is no universal code of laws to abide by and nothing to inform the people what is right or wrong. From one person's perspective, what Dain did here might be righteous and from an another person's perspective, it would be not. Not that murder is ever justified except in extreme circumstances like war. And Dain was clearly not waging a war here. He was enriching himself.

When the Saiyan bounty hunter stood up from his seat and began walking forward, offering to take this freighter to save thousands of lives, Legume raised his hand and spoke:

"Halt."

Alright, let's put my best policeman impression.

Whether or not Dain followed the order, Legume would continue:

"I'm not going to trust a man who's only in it for the money to save innocent people. Especially not one who barely seems to feel anything when he's ended dozens of lives right before this conversation."

There were a few options available with dealing the situation, but few of them would lead to a peaceful outcome. The one which the Saiyan warrior chose was:

"Sir, I demand you to vacate this spaceship immediately."

(412 words, total 1618 words)

Dain's response was dual - first, he offered Legume to introduce himself more fully, to make sure that he is not simply an another pirate or bounty hunter aiming to steal his prize from him, and second, he offered Legume a flask of whiskey to slightly diffuse the tension which has pent up between the two. Irish whiskey, apparently. The Saiyan didn't know what the word "Irish" was supposed to mean, but sure, he's not going to say no to a glass. But if Dain was thinking of getting his adversary drunk and thus sleazing out that way, then he better prepare himself to be a little disappointed, because drinking, despite officially being illegal, was far from uncommon among soldiers of the Galactic Army and Legume had plenty of experience in staying up glass after glass...

And hey, if he's going to be trying to fix this society he's been thrust into, then it would actually be quite beneficial to show a soft side every once in a while. Reform by example. Even if acceptin Dain's offer could also be considered a sign of weakness.

"...Sure, I can go for a glass." Legume muttered, stretching his hand forward and letting the filled flask float to his grip, and took a sip. "There isn't much I can say or identify about myself, because I've only been in this Galaxy for... a few weeks, at most? But regarding the authority I represent... the only authority I follow is the rule of law."

Legume finished his flask and lightly threw it back towards Dain, then continued:

"Once you vacate this spaceship, it will be returned to its original owner and the authorities informed about your actions, so a normal court process may begin and necessary actions taken against you. That's how the law works."

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"That's..." Legume muttered, raising an eyebrow at Dain's statement that the Saiyan would sturuggle to decide on which authority to drag the bounty hunter to, as the Galaxy was populated by myriads of different systems of laws, several of which inhabited this solar system alone. "That's... not how laws work. If this ship belonged to someone, then it's in accordance to their laws that you would be tried under, not anyone else's, even if the crime took place in a third nation."

At least, that's how Legume presumed laws are supposed to work. The Galactic Military had courses on basic law which the Saiyan attended, but, as you might imagine, it was a very basic and shallow course. They didn't delve into complications such as these - not the last because it would be completely unnecessary, as there was no other authority in the entire Galaxy to contend. God, and he's only making himself look bad by making these presumtions in front of this Saiyan from the past... Especially since Dain continued by mentioning that the nation he is working for as a bounty hunter had declared martial law and sanctioned the hijacking of any enemy ships which they might come across.

But this is where Legume suddenly caught an opportunity. Because, if we're talking about the conduct of war, then there actually were universal regulations to abide...

"Okay. But what about the conventions on the humane conduct of war?" the Saiyan suddennly spoke, his eyes beaming towards Dain, while a slight smirk formed on his face. "Those are something even mercenaries and bounty hunters like you, Mr. Dain, have to abide. And if you were to read those conventions, you would notice that among all of the tenets, there's one which requires combatants to not take up on unnecessary murder of civilians and defenseless opponents. Which is exactly what you failed to do here. None of the staff of the freighter you hijacked were a threat to you, and yet, instead of merely taking them hostage or taking them as prisoners of war, you slaughtered them all needlessly. What is your defense on that?"

(360 words, total 2289 words)

Dain's first answer, stating that the conventions on the humane conduct of war were nothing but an unachievable dream thought up by the rich, confused Legume to no end, and the sword wielding Saiyan, raising an eyebrow, replied:

"What do you mean?"

Serious, what does he mean by that? That the nations and armies of the past did not bother with the regulations of war and instead fought in a free for all? That would make this Galaxy even more of a dystopia. What, are you telling me that the soldiers and officers serving during these times had no qualms with murdering civilians, executing prisoners of war and conducting mass atrocities with nobody bothering to persecute them for any of that? It would be the worst possible offense in the Galaxy where Legume served as a soldier! Something which would see you instantly dragged to a war crimes tribunal, for sure. And Dain didn't hold these regulations in any regard, apparently.

Terrifying.

Dain seemed to have given up on the discussion, however. Both of them could tell that Legume's morals were unyielding and he was not going to be swayed by any of the bounty hunter's arguments, so after an attempt to challenge the sword wielding Saiyan by stating that all of the people he murdered on the ship would not have fared much better if they were taken prisoner and sent to the faction which hired the mercenary, Dain went completely in the opposite direction. Starting to bargain with Legume, requesting what he could possibly do to not fall behind bars. It was such a juxtaposition with the Saiyan's usual act that it genuinely made Legume let out a laugh.

"That'd be convenient, wouldn't it? You commit a crime, but instead of suffering the consequences of such an act, you get out of it scot free." the sword wielding Saiyan replied, still snickering a little. "You could have considered those consequences when taking on the job or when you made the decision to murder defenseless people, but no, you're only worried when it's too late and you have been caught red handed."

This whole chain of events has honestly been kind of odd. Legume expected a lot more resistance when he first teleported into a ship. Not a debate on the right of law in this chaotic galaxy.

"I'm surprised that you haven't tried to resist, actually." Legume's words echoed his thoughts. "Don't the Saiyans during your time have a some sort of code of honor and a lust for battle? Giving up feels like a violation of that to me."

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Legume tilted his head a little when Dain mentioned a scenario where all the rules and regulations of war would be for naught, and began speaking:

"Of course I can tell that such a situation would be complicated, and that's where the psyche of the living being comes to play. You can't be truly good or evil, or right or wrong, in that scenario... but I believe that's where the needless in 'needless slaughter of opponents unable to fight back' comes into play, and-"

During Legume's long tirade, Dain had apparently been doing something - walking towards him, having apparently decided on a plan of operations, and before the armed Saiyan could protest or step back, the bounty hunter suddenly tapped on his shoulder, the environment around them instantly turning completely different. It was no more the insides of a captured freighter, but rather, the outskirts of what seemed like a village so primitive and downtrodden that Legume might have assumed he was transported to an archeological exhibition were there no live beings around them and if he was not focused on something else. There's no debate about it, he has been teleported. Apparently, Dain knew that technique as well.

And now, since there were no other power level signatures left on that spaceship, it was gone completely from Legume's radar, much like his own spaceship. Well. He's gonna need a new ship, then. Right after he deals with Dain.

The first thing which the bounty hunter wanted to know before the two Saiyans inevitably enter into a fight is what he meant with the statement "his time". Legume's time. Darn, his careless speech must have betrayed that at some point. Legume sighed a little, then his face formed a slight smirk - the sword wielding Saiyan raised Vanity to the sky, cracks of pure white energy popping in and out of existence around his frame, intensifying with each second.

"Well, the only thing I can say is... you caught me. But prepare for something which you will struggle to believe." Legume muttered, then suddenly stabbed his massive weapon straight into the ground in front of him with a loud crack, letting it sink until its handle lowered until the Saiyan's torso, at which point he stopped and clenched onto the handle with both of his hands. The cracks of energy around his body transformed into a whole aura, a pure white, fiery one, picking up rubble and dust scattered across the dirt road beneath his feet.

"I am not, as you might imagine, from the same time as you. I was born in the 41st millenium according to your system of time keeping, in a peaceful, unified, orderly Galaxy. Through an event which I am still slightly ashamed of, I accidentally ended up thrown forty thousand years to the past, to this primitive, chaotic, dystopian era - and I have decided to do everything in my ability to make this brave new world I've been forced to call my home a better place.

As for what abilities I use for that goal... well, how about this?"

The white aura around his body suddenly burst in a bright flash of light, the white rapidly shifting colors and trasforming to pure golden, and once the flare faded away, Legume stood with a faint, flowing light golden aura, in his Super Saiyan transformation, a set of azure eyes staring towards Dain.

"To put it shortly, teleporting me away to have a one on one match is the worst decision you have made in your life."

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So Dain's confidence, taking someone he had already presumed to be extremely powerful, to a distant planet for a one on one duel, was actually built over a some sort of foundation. Much to Legume's surprise, the bounty hunter Saiyan suddenly activated a transformation of his own, powering up into his Super Saiyan state and adding onto it that Legume's transformation got his blood boiling for a fight. Alright then... Legume could not say that he shared such Saiyan-like enthusiasm. Sure, he loved to fight, train and test my skills like any martial artist, and had a strong sense of honor much like he did righteousness... but it never came from his genome or anything like that. Forty thousand years of evolution and intermingling with other species did its own part, and Legume counted that he was only... thirty four percent Saiyan or something?

Genetically, at least.

Legume initially did not say a word, only pulling out the massive weapon in his hands from the ground and lifting it up, placing it on his shoulder. This was where Dain pointed out something else, something which the Super Saiyan did not expect to come from his mouth any time of the day - whether Legume wanted the fight to actually take place when they were in the middle of a town and with plenty of bystanders watching the staredown. It was a problem, indeed. Legume's azure eyes clanced towards the people surrounding them, his ears catching the sound of a woman screaming and children chattering. If he throws even a single punch, most of these people... are going to die.

He had trained to control the focus and strength of his punches even while transformed, but not while so many fragile beings stand so close to the fight, and the other side is just as powerful. And doesn't hesitate to throw a punch without remorse, either...

A plan, however, concocted itself in Legume's mind.

"You see, Dain..." the Super Saiyan began, raising his index and middle finger and placing it on his forehead. "You're not the only person who's got access to the other's tricks."

Suddenly, Legume vanished from his position, reappearing right behind the bounty hunter and, hopefully before he managed to actively respond, would grab onto Dain's shoulder and teleport again, this time with his soon-to-be opponent in tow. What Legume's energy sense latched onto, and thus teleported towards, was one of the inhabitants of the very same village, who had been spending his time foraging in a thin forest a few miles away - as soon as two golden-haired warriors surrounded by auras suddenly appeared in front of him, the villager shrieked in fear and ran in the opposite direction as fast as his eyes let him.

"There, how about now?"

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