Scarlet Scarves Zines

With a snarl and a huff, Susie threw the joker to the ground, tempted to grind it down to the dirt with her sneaker before she stopped herself. No. She wasn’t going to keep breaking things. So she picked it up, and shuffled again.

The problem was she wasn’t the only one hanging out behind the school. By the bleachers that faced the field-and-track, where a blonde-haired reindeer jogged along and leaving hoofprints in the dirt, she heard the snickers. They traveled to her so easily.

“Yo, you think that’s her lunch?” Through her hair, she glanced up to see a spiked, yellow head. They balanced themselves on the bleachers with some difficulty, which made sense when one didn’t have arms. “Like…she eats cards now instead of that gross chalk?”

A chilly laugh followed soon afterwards. “Looks like she’s…not playing with a full deck! Ha!”

“Haha… Wait, I don’t get it???”

A pause – she had stopped in the middle of her shuffling. One of the cards had loosened from its hold, but she couldn’t really tell just which. The ace? Or maybe that stupid joker card again. After putting the cards back in her pocket, she straightened, cracked her neck to the right, bared her teeth; just part of those little things to make people notice.

“Hey.”

She turned to give a full glare to the two chucklers that were still standing on top of those bleachers. Their laughter stopped immediately; their smiles frozen in place on their faces.

“Do you losers know how to whisper?” She marched towards them, wrapped a hand around one of the cool, metal poles of the bleachers that made up its back, and shook. It rattled and swayed, like a skyscraper in one of those monster movies she binged the other night. With a menacing grin, she used her other hand to grab hold, then proceeded to lift. Metal screeched as the bleachers were separated from the ground.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a few of those runners stop and stare. Yeah. They always stared. Like she cared. 

“Maybe I need to teach you a lesson!”

“R-Run away!” She couldn’t tell who said that, and she didn’t care anyway. Maybe it was the armless punk who knew how to use his legs to scram, or the snowdrake who flapped his little chicken wings and tried to fly. 

Until at some point, she was back to holding up an empty set of bleachers. It was heavy, ugly, and stupid. But at least they stopped laughing.

She dropped it to the ground with a clang, dug in her hands in her pockets, then fixed her glare at the runners across the field. She wasn’t sure how many. 

“WHAT YOU ALL STARING AT?!”

Her shout echoed across the field, and just like that, the rest ran away. Probably because they were track-and-fielders. But also because they were scared of her.

Everyone always ran from her, didn’t they?

--

In the red forest, the Bad Guys were working on their evil plans.

“Here’s one, just repeat after me.” Susie cleared her throat, propped her axe on her shoulder, and gave her best snarl. “Where you been, you slow-ass pack of losers?! Ready to die?!” She then placed her weapon on the ground, leaning on it. “Okay, now you try.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay!” With his tongue perpetually sticking out and a rotund belly one could bounce Hearts Donuts off of (which they had already done to pass the time), her new blue buddy wasn’t exactly the most menacing thing she had seen in the Dark World. Then again, most things here weren’t anyway.

Lancer bounced on his feet, pointed at Susie, and shouted, “Hey there! You guys are as slow as a pack of sweet and tangy sugarplums! Get ready to take a comfy nap! And don’t forget to drink plenty of milk!” He finished it off with a twirl. “How was that?”

“…Uh… You didn’t repeat what I said at all. You just made everything sound delicious?? But hey, we’ll work on it.” She lifted her weapon again, grinning like mad. “Let’s just spar instead. Ya wanna see my Purple Thrasher?!” This was a step above her Red Buster, because Thrasher sounded way more sick.

“Oh, you know how much I love thrashing!” Grabbing his motorcycle out of thin air, Lancer hopped in and honked his little horn. “Now let’s eat!”

“Stop making everything about food!” A powerful purple flash of light rushed out of her weapon, aiming for one of the weird red trees. She was gonna demolish it–

“Oh, you dropped something, Susie!! You dropped something!”

“Huh?” Susie missed, her attack skewing far off to the right where the Bake Sale was being held. There was a big crashing sound, followed by terrified screaming, but that wasn’t important right now. “You messed me up, Lancer!”

With all the grace of a very bouncy ball, Lancer jumped off his motorcycle, laughing his evil laughter that still wasn’t that evil to begin with, though at least he made the ‘Ho ho ho’ deeper this time. “But Susie!! Look!” He hopped again, making (gross) splort noises towards the dropped item. “Hehe, butt Susie…”

It was just an old deck of playing cards, the kind Susie carried around whenever she was bored or hungry. She hadn’t even known she’d brought it to the Dark World. But here it was, packed into a tattered-looking tuck box on the ground that Lancer eagerly picked up.

“Is this pocky? I like pocky! But I can’t have any before dinner.” He poked at the box opening, giggling. “Can I have one?”

“Those are just some lame cards!” She quickly snatched it from Lancer’s hands, already halfway to shoving it back in her pocket. “Don’t touch my stuff!”

“O-Oh, I’m sorry.” Lancer suddenly deflated. “I guess that wasn’t a very Bad Guy thing for me to do…”

That instantly made her feel like trash.

Careful to first put her axe away, Susie took out the deck of cards from its place – looking even rattier than the box they’d been in. Some of the numbers had been scratched off by her claws, with the symbols all cracked and faded. The four of clubs was just a plain old club that looked wrecked, and the six of hearts was nearly broken in half.

“Yo, Lancer,” she called out, then proceeded to sit on the leaf-covered ground, leaning her arm on one knee. “Wanna check out some cool tricks I can do?”

At that, Lancer’s little sad face flipped; in fact, his whole bouncy body flipped, excited. “Oh, I love tricks! I used to know some guys who did that! I think they’re dead.” He sat across from her, his legs jittering and crushing the red leaves beneath them.

“Well this trick is gonna knock YOU dead!” she promised. Lancer gasped at the threat to his life, eager for more!

Susie gripped the pack of cards in her hands. She was going to do shuffle tricks. The kind that she saw on TV and looked rad as hell. All she had to do was not mess up. Easy. First, there was the riffle cut. It wasn’t as cool as the others, but the simple flipping of the cards in the middle gave that satisfying sound. It also got Lancer watching quietly. She did let a few cards slip free to fall to the ground, but those ones had been loose!  “T-That’s part of the trick!”

“Oh, okay!” Lancer instantly believed.

Then, she tried one of the butterfly cuts, separating a dozen cards at a time from each other, tilting them around. She tried to do it one-handed, but the balance was difficult, and, uh, maybe one or two more cards dropped to the ground. Lancer was still watching, even though she had fewer than 30 cards in her deck right about now.

But who cared about those baby shuffles? It was time for The Ultimate Shuffle. She’d been practicing this one! The waterfall cut was one of the coolest shuffles, and all she had to do was let each card fall from one hand into the other! She couldn’t mess this up!

“One, two, thre-!” And then the last of her cards flew all around herself, like leaves carried off in the wind. Oh. Oh, she had looked so lame there.

Susie waited for the laughter. She waited to feel stupid for ever trying something like this – but instead she heard… more splorts? (Still gross).. She raised her head, watching as Lancer went to pick up one card in particular. He looked… surprised? “Uh, Lancer?”

That was when he rushed to her, his smile wide, showing off his incredibly white teeth. The leaves kicked up in the air in his dash. “Hey! Why is there a mini-me in there? Susie! Do you carry pictures of me wherever you go?”

“No?? Why would I?” What was he even talking about??

Then she saw the ace of spades in his hand. It was just a simple, unimportant spade card. Oddly enough, this one wasn’t as messed up as the others. She supposed she had always liked the looks of this one for some reason…

Lancer clutched the card in his hand with glee. “Can I keep it? Can I? That’s so cool your trick could make a card of me! You’re so cool, Susie!”

Susie paused. “…You still think I’m cool?” she asked. Lancer nodded ecstatically.

Her lips tugged into a smile, one that didn’t show too many teeth or was the result of manic glee. She patted Lancer’s head roughly. The boy sort of squished underneath her strength, but didn’t seem to mind. “Sure. Take good care of it, ok?”

--

Within Ralsei’s giant castle, Susie only had eyes for the giant cauldron in the middle. Her hands were placed against the rim, staring down into its depths hungrily. “Susie,” Ralsei said with a gentle and only slightly chiding tone. “I told you: I’m not making you any more cakes!”

“Oh, come on! Just one more! I wanna catch it a second time!”

“But Susie!” shouted a familiar voice that made her turn towards the entrance with a smile. “You won’t have any room for my famous Lancer cookies, trademark pending!”

Lancer rolled in – literally, with his body on its side to gain maximum speed. He barreled into Susie, who took his impact right in the stomach. The force of the tackle made her hit the cauldron, dangerously tilting it to the side while Ralsei frantically went to right it up again. She gave her blue bestie a noogie, and Lancer tried to do the same, but couldn’t due to his incredibly short arms.

“Oh, Susie! Susie!” he yelled. “Look what I got! Can you show me more tricks?”

From a very hidden pocket, Lancer took out the ace of spades card, looking just as new as when she gave it to him – which hadn’t been very long ago at all. She grinned, taking out her deck of cards, full except for the special Lancer one. “Got all sorts of tricks up my sleeve!”

“Are you going to play a card game? I know quite a bit myself!” Ralsei clasped his hands together. “Is it blackjack? Crazy eights? Oh, or maybe Go Fish?”

Susie had to pause in her shuffling. “I’ve never heard of any of those games.”

“That’s so silly!” Lancer said. “There’s no fish in these cards!”

Susie ignored Ralsei’s nonsense, too busy finally perfecting her waterfall shuffle! Just as she was lifting up her hand and letting the cards fall, Lancer jumped up frantically with a very loud, “Wait!!!”

She flinched – and all the cards fluttered from her hands to drift to the floor. “H-Hey! I was just about to get it!”

“But you’re missing the most important card!”

Susie considered. “Is it yours?”

“Nope!” He turned to a politely-waiting Ralsei. “Fluffy boy! Can I have some paper and crayons please?”

“Well, that’s very sudden. But I just so happen to always carry some around!” Ralsei bewilderingly produced some sheets of paper and a crayon pack from his robes, happily handing it to an eager Lancer. Immediately, Lancer then began drawing furiously, head bent over the paper as he painstakingly outlined the most minute detail, even going so far as to shade – all with a purple crayon.

“Ta-da! Feast your silky smoothie eyes on this!” Lancer held up what could only be described as a very, very kick-ass drawing of Susie. It captured all her favorite features; namely her teeth and her giant muscles. Lancer also employed his stylistic choice of using jagged lines to show how rough and rugged she was. “Every card deck needs a Purple Thrasher, the most powerful card in existence!” With that, he handed it to Susie, along with his ace of spades – which she now realized had a drawn-on grinning face inside the symbol, complete with lolling tongue. “Next to mine, of course!”

“Lancer…” There was only one way she could repay such a kind and genuine act by her friend.

Clutching the two cards he gave her in her right hand, she then reached down to grab the other cards, and proceeded to devour them, tearing them to shreds with her teeth, one by one!!

Ralsei was the first to react. “S-Susie! You’re not supposed to eat those!”

But Lancer immediately caught on. “Oh, I get it! This is a new trick, isn’t it?”

“That’s right!” she said, her mouth full. “With these two cards, I don’t need the others anymore! Not unless they survive through all the carnage!”

“Can I play? I wanna play!” Lancer jumped up and down, his spade magic already materializing behind him, aiming for those same cards.