The Last Tuffle: Chapter 3

Time passed for the young Tuffle boy. His early childhood consisted of going to school, spending time with his family, and playing with his friends. Like many Tuffles, Enoki enjoyed learning about science, technology, and the environment. 

During his time at school, Enoki first learned how to be kind and courteous to his teachers and his fellow classmates. One of the daily tasks was for him and his peers to help clean up the classrooms, lunch room, and the hallways between class periods. This was done to encourage responsibility, early teamwork, and getting rid of germs as quickly as possible. When mopping the floors or wiping the desks got too mundane, Enoki hummed songs out loud to help pass the time.

As Enoki got older, he enjoyed his classes more and more. For art class, he learned how to make both physical and 3D models of clay pots to help inspire volunteers who came to the school who worked at the local art museum. Mathematics was easy for the most part, though he never liked to spend too long on a single math problem. English, Japanese, and Tsfrujin classes were mostly long and tedious. He didn’t know how he was supposed to learn three different languages at once. “At least you don’t have to learn how to speak Saiyan,” his teacher had mentioned. “That language is too hard for most people to learn.” This led him to wonder if the teacher had ever interacted with other Saiyans, since it was rare to find them around, except in the poorer areas of the city.  However, when Enoki had asked him that, the teacher waved him off to his next class.

History class was interesting in and of itself. A friendly man with dark orange hair and glasses was teaching the class, and he was more vibrant than his previous teachers. He spoke with excitement when talking about historical events, as if he were telling a story and not doing a lecture.

“Long ago, our planet used to be a hot, lifeless place. Pools of lava and molten rock poured across the land. Rumbling earthquakes occurred at every moment. Over time, the planet cooled and oceans flooded what was left of the land. Due to movement beneath the earth, the land rose up from beneath the water and the first signs of life began to appear.”

Enoki was busy making a paper airplane, trying to finish before his friend, Cherren, who sat next to him.

The teacher continued. “Animals with scales and hard-plated bodies evolved to survive the harsh hot summers and the dangerous summer thunderstorms. Only the strongest flora and fauna managed to stay alive for many more years. Eventually, the first race of sapient being came to be: the Plantians.”

Now this part was getting more interesting. Enoki forced his hands to stop folding the crumbled paper. An image, similar to a PowerPoint presentation appeared behind the teacher, showing a group of aliens with round heads, gathered around a campfire and several round mud huts.

“Plantians were a tribe of people, with oval shaped purple heads, all looking very much the same. They had lived here for hundreds of years, mainly in caves. Others lived in simple huts in the desert. They used their ki to heal each other from diseases, in addition to herbal medicine for other conditions.”

The teacher walked over and picked up another textbook. He flipped through the pages, looking confused. “Let’s see…it says here that the first Super Saiyan by the name of Bardock saved the Plantians from Emperor Chilled and his alien race thousands of years ago…wait, that can’t be right.”

Some of the students raised their hands and started blurting out questions.

“What’s a Super Saiyan?”

“Were there any Tuffles around during that time?”

“Is Bardock a time traveler?”

“Can that event be made into a movie or a TV show?”

“All right, all right, one question at a time,” said the teacher.

He looked at the book again and decided to stick with his original resource. “That topic is for another time,” he stated, ignoring the audible groan from the students.

“Anyway, the Plantians lived their lives for a while, but eventually went extinct. Scientists are not completely sure what caused their disappearance. Some claim that they were killed due to a short term Ice Age that occurred. Others theorize that they were killed by Chilled’s soldiers many years later. The most recent theory, however, is that the unfortunate race were unprepared for…the Saiyan epidemic.”

A monstrous sounding ringtone came from a student’s phone nearby, startling Enoki and several other students. The teacher sighed. “Kiwi, I told you that you are not allowed to have your phone and scouter on in class.” “Sorry, Mister,” said a lanky boy with straight brown hair. The teacher held out his hand. “You may have them after class.” The student lowered his head, walked over and placed the items in the teacher’s hands. The teacher put the items by his desk as the boy went back to his seat.

“The Saiyan epidemic,” the teacher continued, this time with an image of dark figures with spiky hair standing in front of crashed space pods. “It is theorized by previous researchers that when the Saiyans arrived to this planet to escape their war-torn homeland, they brought with them new diseases that they had acquired on their planet. Despite their healing powers, the Plantians were not immune to the new diseases and eventually went extinct.”

There were some hushed whispers among the students.

“Now here comes the interesting part,” said the teacher. “During that time, there lived a group of furry hominids who lived in caves, and learned how to use tools. They were quite similar to the Saiyans for a while in terms of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and bipedalism. There were several key differences, however. First, instead of fighting each other, like the Saiyans, these people discovered that by working together as a group, they could increase their chances of survival. There was said to be two genetic mutations that occurred over time. The first allowed these people to do certain tasks such as learning how to make fire and telling stories that separated them from other animals. The second mutation allowed them to progress at an abnormally fast rate. Due to this, they learned how to grow food, domesticate animals and eventually build technology. These people were, as you might have guessed, our Tuffle ancestors.”

There were several awes and sounds of approval from the students. The teacher continued. “Had our ancestors not adapted to this planet as fast as they did, they would have been wiped out long ago. Unless they had strong builds and alien powers like the Saiyans.” The slide behind the teacher shifted from pictures of monkey-like beings, to small human-like people working on farms, building the first vehicles, then observing a blueprint for a city design.  “This brings us to our glorious civilization today,” said the teacher. An image of the current Tuffle city under a clear pink sky coming into view. “Thanks to the brilliant inventors, rulers, and scientists of years past that have brought us here,” he added.

The slides shifted to images of the Tuffle king in his prime, a large man with a black beard, and deep set eyes, sitting on his throne, alert. Dr. Rachi, another man with white hair, a beard and a mustache was shown working in his lab, still fairly young in his 80s. The average life expectancy for Tuffles was around 150 on average, much longer than for humans. Fragrasia, a woman with reddish blonde hair who was a famed anthropologist and one of the makers of the first scouter, appeared next on the screen. These people had been great role models in Enoki’s mind for a long time and still were in the moment. He tossed his paper airplane to his friend, who grinned and caught it. If he could be like those people and make a difference of some kind, he would make his mother proud for sure.

With his father however…

“Enoki, you can’t believe those stupid lessons that those schools are teaching you, nowadays.”

“Father, why is that?” asked Enoki, who was sitting on the couch in the living room. His father was facing him, sitting in a smaller chair that seemed to strain under his weight.

“You know it is mostly propaganda and scare tactics to foster negative opinions about our mighty race. You know that the Plantians died because many of them were too weak to overcome the harsh summers in the badlands right?”

“From what I heard, it was the Saiyans whom contributed to that,” mentioned Kinoko, who was busy preparing white rice noodles in a pot on the stove.

“Well, you must have heard wrong, because their demise was a result of unfortunate circumstances. But the important part is that the Saiyans managed to survive, and even today, they still find ways to adapt to their surroundings. Just like you will soon.”

Enoki inwardly groaned. Endo had hinted that Enoki and his father would begin hand to hand combat training outside for the first time. Before, they had been practicing push-ups, long distance runs, weight-lifting, and other exercises every morning before school and on the weekends. The thought of physically hurting someone made Enoki very uncomfortable. 

“I’m just glad you registered him at a school for diversity. Many of them around here will only accept Tuffles through their doors. The so called places of education for my people I saw the other day were a little more than shacks in need of repair.”

Kinoko looked at Endo with a look of annoyance. It was a look that said that Ebdo was going off topic. Endo sensed what she was implying and cleared his throat.

“Remember that there has been a recent war going on between the Saiyans and the Tuffles. Started recently around Age 720. You will have to learn how to protect yourself in case the war comes to us.”

“Endo, stop scaring our son like that!”  Kinoko reprimanded, looking over at the two men. “War or not, the border has been set up with every defense system imaginable, stopping intruders from going through, over, or under with electricity. It is highly unlikely that those Saiyans can manage to break through the boarder and our strong military force.”

Endo whispered to Enoki, “Emphasis on ‘unlikely’” and Enoki shivered. Kinoko walked over. “Enoki, why don’t you work on some homework and talk to your father later.” Without hesitation, Enoki got up and walked up the stairs to his room.

A moment later, Kinoko called, “I don’t want to hear you playing video games before getting started on your work! You don’t want to eat Brussel sprouts and do extra chores this weekend do you?” From up above, there was a sound of a device being turned off and a loud groan of frustration.  

“That’s what I thought,” she finished.