Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Okay okay, I’ve got the best idea in the whole world right now, so just hear me out!” Shadow X pleaded, green optics glowing much brighter and more mischievously than they should be. “Like, it’s gonna be great and you’ll all love it!”

The group of Cardbots sitting before him had been rallied into Edo’s garage for an ‘emergency meeting.’ No one really had actually known what Shadow X wanted a meeting for, but upon hearing his starting sentence, many bots started to get up only to be pushed back down by the purple copter.

Mega Ambler (a victim of being commonly held hostage by Shadow X) raised his one visible optic at the young bot, expressing disapproval and disinterest. “Shadow X, the last time you had ‘the best idea in the whole world,’ it was you suggesting that we give Black Hook a whole new paint job because his current one looked bad, which he overheard—“

“Be glad Jun was there,” Black Hook grunted, though his words didn’t mean any harm. “I might’ve painted you green.” 

Buster Gallon eyed the captain, optical ridges rising. If the pirate noticed the bot’s stare, he didn’t acknowledge it.

Regardless, with all the other bots hearing Mega Ambler and Black Hook’s interjections, some voiced their agreement that whatever Shadow X was planning wasn’t something too good. The purple copter only groaned and stamped his pedes, silencing everyone again. 

“Okay okay, I get what you all mean, but this is about Blue Cop!” 

Silence.

And then— 

“That’s even worse!” Mega Trucker called from somewhere at the back of the group. “Blue Cop? Our team leader? How are we going to love pranking him?” 

Shadow X shot him an unimpressed look. “Who said we were gonna prank him? I mean—I guess it counts as pranking—but that doesn’t matter! You guys mess around with him all the time, and it’s not like you all have been trying to hide your annoyance at him with all the dumb rules.” 

The prankster wasn’t wrong. Blue Cop was the common victim of all the shenanigans and pranks that went on in the garage or just anywhere, whether it was someone snatching his cap away or getting hit by a stream of water and then laughed at. Good naturally. 

Said bot had never gotten truly angry at them, though he’d reprimanded each and every bot in Edo’s garage at least once. However, the past few days had been tense with Blue Cop making everyone act more carefully around humans and populated places in Motown (the Star Guardian had had enough with the team almost blowing their cover almost every single day), causing more frustration and restlessness than usual.

AKA, that meant there were plenty of bots that wanted to get back at the team leader. 

Phoenix Fire vocalized a sigh, saying, “I mean, it explains why Blue Cop isn’t here. The angry-at-him-part… I guess it’s not entirely wrong either.” 

Most of the Cardbots inside the hangar nodded their assent. The purple copter felt the metaphorical adrenaline start to pump in his fuel lines as his excitement brewed. 

His enthusiasm reignited, Shadow X clapped his servos together. Dexter scooted back a few inches, put off by the suddenly loud voice and change in demeanor. Heavy Iron grunted something from the back, optics depressurizing to look at Shadow X better. The truck definitely had something against Blue Cop as well, or else he wouldn’t have stayed.

“Great! Okay, now listen up…”

-

Blue Cop would be lying if he said something wasn’t off with the mood in Edo’s garage.  

Stares were given, quiet snickers were heard, and the garage felt way too quiet. No one really talked, not even the local chatter-box Shadow X, and as the day dragged on, Blue Cop felt his worry begin to grow.

On his last patrol of the day, the Star Guardian mulled over the possibilities that would have made the team so tense and quiet. His first and most believable theory was that his team was pissed at him. 

Not a week ago Blue Cop had enforced the rule of added cautiousness and stricter curfew, to which Jun had agreed after some thought. Since then, he’d noticed plenty of the Cardbots in their team had gone restless and seemed more put-off than usual.

A flicker of guilt sparked into life in Blue Cop’s chassis. He hadn’t meant to make their life miserable, it was just that he had to make sure none of them put themselves in danger. Humans were unpredictable—many would understandably react negatively towards the Cardbots, like Edo had initially did.

Maybe the curfew had been too strict. The added cautiousness would stay, but Blue Cop would relax the curfew time. And he’d apologize. And maybe ask Edo if he could give the Cardbots a nice movie night. 

Ah, his friends sometimes really brought out the soft side within him.

By the time he pulled back into one of Edo’s hangars, mainly the one where the Cardbots spent most their time in, Blue Cop had crafted out a nice script that came with an apology and the promise to make curfew more lax.

Transforming to pull down the hangar door, Blue Cop looked around only to realize the garage was empty. Completely empty.

Edo had been about to go out to buy some repair supplies prior to Blue Cop leaving for his patrol. It meant he wouldn’t be back for another hour or so. The Cardbots had all been in the garage then.

Jun was at home doing homework and wouldn’t be back to seal the Cardbots up for another few hours. There should’ve been at least half the team in the hangar right now.

Except there wasn’t a single bot he could feel within this garage.

Concern spiking and worry running rampant inside his processor, Blue Cop whipped his helm around to look for Mega Trucker, Fleta Z, anyone.

Had they been discovered and taken? Did they all get fed up with Blue Cop’s seemingly controlling nature and run away? Or had Jun come in early and sealed them up? 

The last theory clearly wasn’t a possible one. Jun always waited for Blue Cop to pick him up at the Milky Way to drive him to the garage so he could seal the Cardbots up. 

Unless there’d been an emergency, Blue Cop thought.

And he hadn’t been here.

The Star Guardian checked the time. 4:32 in the afternoon.

There were still hours to go before he had to pick up Jun from the Milky Way.

Blue Cop needed to find his friends.

Worry painting his optics, the police-car bot sprinted out of the garage, careful to not dent Edo’s hangar door as he hurriedly closed it. He prayed to Deus Machina his friends were okay and that they were just angry at him—

Two huge servos gripped the underside of each of Blue Cop’s pauldrons, and suddenly the Star Guardian was yanked up in the air, pedes dangling. 

Blue Cop yelped, both in surprise and pain. The digits of black-colored servos dug painfully into the mesh under the blue-and-white bot’s arms, and Fleta Z gave the team leader an apologetic look.

“F-Fleta Z? What are you do-ING?” Blue Cop held back a scream as the flier suddenly increased the speed and altitude they were flying at, causing the Star Guardian to slightly shift and slip a bit from Fleta Z’a grasp. 

His core turned cold. The thought of landing ‘SPLAT’ onto the asphalt below did nothing to ease the churning in his tank reserves.

Fleta Z winced and apologized as he tightened his grip on the police-car bot. “Apologies, Blue Cop. I did not mean to scare you like that. Just…hold on for a bit longer here.” 

The police-car bot blinked through the haze of fear and stared up at the plane’s green optics, ones that were staring right back at him. Then Blue Cop remembered.

“Won’t we be seen? Put us down!” 

And then a parade of thoughts occurred to Blue Cop, one that made his stress levels quadruple. “Fleta Z! Where are the others? Are you okay? What’s going on?” 

Giving a look of what seemed like guilt, Fleta Z offered an answer that felt vague and evasive, but it was enough to clear up the worry Blue Cop had for his friends. 

It was enough to clear up the worry for the others, but not enough to ease the worry that there might be something going on.

“Everyone’s okay, including me. Don’t worry Blue Cop, I assure you that nothing has happened.” Fleta Z frowned. 

Letting out the huge vent Blue Cop realized he’d been holding, he said, “Thank Deus Machina—I saw you were all gone and I thought something had happened, you all scared me so bad—“ 

“We’re fine, Blue Cop,” Fleta Z said gently, the gratitude coating his optics as if he was touched by Blue Cop’s worry. 

He slightly tightened his already-tight hold on Blue Cop’s shoulders as the Star Guardian started slipping again. “Like I said, just hold on for a bit longer. The others are safe, and I’m just taking you to them.” 

Blue Cop shuttered his optics, the magenta visor above them doing nothing to hide his confusion. If everyone was safe and well, then what were they doing all outside the garage? And why was he well over two hundred feet—and rising—in the air?

It took a while for Blue Cop to piece together his jumbled and panicked thoughts, since being hundreds of feet above ground didn’t sit well with him. By the time he tried to voice his poorly-put-together question, Fleta Z had started descending towards land.

As the small well-hidden area where Blue Cop assumed the team was clustered (judging by all the large colorful shapes moving about) grew closer and closer, a small tingling sensation at the back of his processor made him uneasy, making him momentarily forget about the height he was at.

This morning the team had been so quiet and subdued, and now Fleta Z was bringing him to the secluded spot where Blue Cop suspected some of the more sensitive Cardbots in their team went. 

The police-car bot supposed there could be a plausible explanation for this course of action. Maybe the team had felt the need to talk about the new regulations somewhere more private, where none of their human friends could hear.

The team was safe and sound and Fleta Z sounded okay, so that could be one of the most reasonable theories.

Everything should be fine, so why did it feel like he was falling face-first into a trap?

As Fleta Z slowed their merciful descent, Blue Cop noticed three things: one, the Cardbots looked expectant and excited mixed with an air of mischief; two, the Cardbots were all holding some kind of water gun and… were those pink ribbons?; three, there was a hastily built tall platform surrounded by buckets of…pink paint? 

Dread started building in Blue Cop’s tanks.

Fleta Z whispered a half-hearted apology before dropping Blue Cop on top of the deformed tower. It teetered precariously and the police-car bot had to stay still and balanced as he waited for the thing to stop shaking. A fresh wave of fear and panic lodged itself in Blue Cop’s core, and he in-vented harshly.

“I—Fleta Z! What—EEP—” 

A very undignified yelp escaped Blue Cop’s vocalizer as one pair of very mischievous green optics appeared before the blue-and-white Cardbot in their alt-mode, making him nearly trip over himself and fall straight down into the sea of buckets of paint. 

“Hey, Blue Cop~” Shadow X greeted in a sing-song voice. “How are you doing today?” 

One pair of magenta-colored optics stared back at the VOTL aircraft with unease, alarm, and exasperation. 

“Shadow X…”

Somewhere down below, Buster Gallon hollered. “Can we start now?” 

Blue Cop peered down the edge of the platform, and he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. 

The Star Guardian couldn’t have been more than thirty feet up in the air, but after the not-so-lovely flight with Fleta Z, Blue Cop couldn’t help but feel anxious being even just a foot off the ground.

He missed land. 

“I—okay,” Blue Cop started, optics rapidly taking in all the dimensions of the hastily-built tower. “What’s going on?”

The scaffolding was sturdy enough, but Blue Cop definitely couldn’t jump or make much movement on it lest he topple the whole thing over—stepping too much on one side of the tower would collapse the whole thing. He suspected the design of the contraption had been deliberate. 

It also helped that Fleta Z’s not-so-smooth ride had been enough to make Blue Cop stand there like a statue, the Star Guardian trying to calm down.

The purple copter was still lazing about in front of him, and Shadow X perked up upon hearing the question. 

“I was wondering when you’d ask!” Shadow X’s screen optics looked down at the sea of bots under them. “Anyone wanna explain what’s going on to Blue Bro?” 

Silence.

A cacophony of voices erupted from under them, and Blue Cop shakily crossed his arms as he attempted to listen and decipher the gist of the message.

All he got was: “Turn him pink!” 

Blue Cop briefly envisioned himself with a pink paint finish, and he more or less choked on his own vocalizer. The police-car bot gave Shadow X a thoroughly alarmed look. 

The VOTL aircraft groaned, not having noticed the clear expression of alarm. 

“No! Well, yes, but why are we turning him pink?” 

Blue Cop did the answering for him. 

“Because of the ‘stupid’ and ‘unreasonable’ curfew and caution?” the Star Guardian asked wryly, though underneath the unamused humor Blue Cop was panicking and thoroughly shaken.

He did not want to be pink. 

“Yes, thank you—wait. Oh, I hate you so much,” Shadow X whined, the front of the aircraft tipping down before rising up again. “Yeah yeah, we’re turning you pink. Because you suck—and stuff, blah blah blah. 

Shadow X transformed, hovering in the air as he pointed a digit at Blue Cop, who looked down at it with furrowed optics. “It’s been so boring with all the dumb rules! We can’t go outside and mess around, we can’t do anything in the garage, we can’t even stay out longer after patrols!” 

The purple copter was suddenly all too close for comfort, and Blue Cop leaned back (could leaning back topple the tower? He didn’t want to know.), arms uncrossing so his servos could come up in front of him. 

“So I thought, ‘why not get back at Team Leader?’” continued Shadow X, who gave Blue Cop his personal space back. “Anyways, the group and I decided to paint you pink and stuff since red would be too much of a jumpscare, blah blah, and there was no way I was letting you take purple!” 

Two pairs of optics stared at each other in an unrelenting staredown, green versus visor-colored magenta. 

The crowd under them shifted impatiently, and Mega Trucker almost painted himself pink, tripping over his own pedes trying to see what was happening up there. 

Blue Cop surrendered first.

The Star Guardian knew this was his mistake and his alone. He should have never forced these kinds of rules onto his team, his friends. It was unreasonable and, he admitted inwardly as well, would piss him off to some degree. No freedom and nothing to do was the complete opposite of what Jun wanted and what the team signed up for, and it was all Blue Cop’s fault. 

The apology script Blue Cop had conjured up prior to his kidnapping current predicament erased itself, the Cardbot deciding it would be better to speak from the heart. 

“...I’m sorry.” 

Shadow X almost fell out of the air. 

“Say again?” someone (presumably Black Hook) yelled from under the tower. 

Blue Cop took a deep breath. He made sure his voice was loud enough for everyone at the ground to hear.

This was going to be one long apology. 

“I’m sorry. To all of you. What I did was clearly wrong, and I sincerely apologize with all my heart. I’m sorry for implementing those unlikable and stress-inducing rules and making curfew stricter. They were unreasonable, and as Shadow X has said…dumb.”

The audience from down below were staring up at him with their undivided attention. Anyone who had been messing around was now still as stone. Blue Cop held his gaze with shocked Shadow X as he continued. 

“I’m sorry for causing so much stress, anger, and strain on every single one of you. Jun and I wanted to give you all the freedom we promised, the freedom you all deserve. I’m sorry for not upholding this promise on my end—it was a really bad choice on my end. I…” Blue Cop paused, “...I never try to set up these kinds of strict rules ever again.”

Then he deflated, pauldrons slumping. His optics closed, breaking optic contact with Shadow X. 

With one arm propping the other, a servo went up to massage the side of his helm. “And for the record, while I do still think caution and discreetness should be part of our lives, the rules I set up a week ago…they’re not a thing anymore.” 

“So…I’m sorry, everyone.” 

There was a dragged-out silence before someone began clapping vigorously in a way that could only be from Buffalo Crush. And as far as Blue Cop could manage to make out, several Cardbots like Fleta Z and Phoenix Fire gave smiles and thumbs up to acknowledge the apology. It was a good enough sign of forgiveness for Blue Cop.

The police-car mech smiled. 

Shadow X squinted at Blue Cop as if the Star Guardian had more to say, having gotten over this initial surprise. 

“....Wow. I was actually expecting more of some stubbornness,” Shadow X blinked twice. “Guess nothing can deter you from redeeming yourself, right, Team Leader?” 

Blue Cop gave an embarrassed laugh, though his chassis and pauldrons did feel lighter after handing out his apology. As humans would say, it was as if a weight had been lifted from his pauldrons.

“I meant it, Shadow X. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t ever do that again,” replied Blue Cop, his optics shuttering into a smile. 

The VOTL aircraft hummed, seeming to accept his apology. 

“I’m gonna hold you on that, Bluey. But that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna paint you pink anymore. We still deserve some form of revenge, right?” 

Shadow X winked, and Blue Cop felt the previous dread creep up on him once more. 

“Shadow X…” 

The purple copter grinned and flew downwards to get a bucket of pink paint while chattering endlessly. He ascended back up, facing Blue Cop with an innocent look. Below them, there was a flurry of activity, Cardbots filling up their water guns with paint instead of—well—water. 

“So….you wanna do this on the ground or up here? Both are pretty fun for us, I mean.” 

“Just get me on the ground, Shadow X,” Blue Cop all but pleaded. 

With his apologetic and remorseful feelings gone, the feeling of vertigo and dizziness all came back. He’d been so caught up in righting his wrongs that he hadn’t had the time to worry about how high up he was.

And so Fleta Z picked Blue Cop up from the scaffolding and dropped him back to the ground. 

Blue Cop couldn’t even flee if he wanted to, since his legs gave out the moment they touched land. A long ex-vent escaped from his vents, and his entire frame relaxed. 

Land, Blue Cop thought. 

He was never flying ever again. 

The Star Guardian sat there for a few moments, attempting to wrench his processor back into an operational state. Upon some worried looks some of the Cardbots gave him, Blue Cop raised a shaky thumbs-up. 

“...I-I hope you all are at least considering putting a tarp u-underneath me,” said Blue Cop.

Dexter frowned. He lowered his water (paint) gun. “We can do whatever with Blue Cop, but we do have to protect the flora and fauna.” 

A collective groan arose from some of the more hyped-up Cardbots.

Luckily, the tower platform had been built with a tarp placed on top of it to prevent the Cardbots working on the surface of the scaffolding from scraping their paint. It was taken down, and the tarp was placed underneath Blue Cop.

“Okay, now are we ready?” Shadow X complained, readying his water (paint) gun. The purple copter seemed like he was gonna drop dead if he didn’t start shooting soon. The water gun was comically small in their hands, now that Blue Cop was looking at it properly.

A chorus of yeses rivaled drowned out Blue Cop’s exasperated “No.” 

Then another thought occurred to the Star Guardian.

“Where did you all get the pa—?” 

SPLAT. 

A volley of pink paint silenced the rest of Blue Cop’s question. 

-

“We should do this more often,” Black Hook cackled to no one in particular as he dumped a bucket of pink paint straight in front of Blue Cop’s face, successfully rendering his ability to see unusable. The police-car bot wiped enough away to be able to see.  

The paint did not feel good. It was sticky, and felt weird and gooey and cool on Blue Cop’s frame. The other Cardbots felt the same, but they were having too much fun to care.

The Cardbots had long since abandoned their paint guns, since they were difficult to aim and shoot, not to mention how easily the plastic broke. Not even after a minute in, the team had resorted to just taking buckets of pink paint and crowding around a disgruntled Blue Cop. All buckets and brushes had to be held carefully, since they were tiny as well. 

Blue Cop wondered how they hadn’t crushed any under their pedes prior to the start of the paint assault.

Fleta Z laughed. Though the flier’s voice was laced with slight guilt, he didn’t stop flicking pink paint with the brushes they’d brought along. 

Blue Cop had debated whether or not he should take off his visors or not, and eventually had decided to keep them on, just so he wouldn’t be blind—and because it was the lesser of two evils. 

Shadow X cackled along with Black Hook as he dipped his servos in paint and drew two smiley faces on one of Blue Cop’s pauldrons. “We should! I don’t know about you, but I think this is a great way of releasing steam!” 

Phoenix Fire muttered a half-hearted apology before he not-so-ceremoniously covered Blue Cop’s legs and pedes with paint. 

“It is fun….” 

Blue Cop buried his helm in his servos. “Perhaps fun for all of you.” 

“Yeah yeah, but not fun for you. After this, you might have to go through getting painted with paint a lot.” Buster Gallon said nonchalantly, roughly jabbing the bristles of a paint-covered paintbrush onto Blue Cop’s frame. “You make a decent whiteboard.” 

Mega Ambler frowned as he watched Mega Trucker and Phoenix Fire dump paint onto the Star Guardian’s shoulders, paint dripping into joints and seams. “A potential health hazard, but the paint is washable, so Blue Cop should be fine.”

“A potential health hazard?” 

“...Not a health hazard.” the medic amended quickly.

“Mega Ambler…” 

“I’ve got it!” Shadow X suddenly exclaimed. 

Blue Cop jumped from his sitting position. Black Hook shifted in surprise, a small spray of paint finding its way onto Heavy Iron’s pauldrons. The outlaw didn’t notice, too busy glaring at Shadow X for the sudden yelling. Dexter paused, mid-reach for part of the tarp that had rolled up. Everyone else paused as well, the only sounds being of nature and the steady drip drip drip of Blue Cop’s paint-covered frame. 

The purple copter clapped his paint-stained servos together, sending sprays of paint flying in all directions. Dexter eyed Shadow X with a glare, but didn’t say anything. 

“Blue Cop—how do you feel about a name change?” 

The Star Guardian choked. 

“Excuse me?” 

Buffalo Crush sidled up next to a silent Wild Guardy, who hadn’t done much of any painting on Blue Cop other than being the first to dump both bucket and paint on Blue Cop’s helm before backing away. 

“Why would he need a name change?” Buffalo Crush inquired curiously, a paint bucket pinched gently between his digits. 

“Because he’s no longer blue! He’s pink!” 

Groaning, Mega Trucker held up a brush and bucket, serving as a threat. “Spit it out Shadow X, or you’ll be turned pink next.” 

Shadow X scowled. “As if you could catch me.” 

Eleven pairs of optics (minus one, actually, since Blue Cop’s could barely be seen through the pink paint coating his visor) stared back at the purple Cardbot with unamused expressions. 

“....I get your point,” Shadow X backtracked, blinking. “So I was thinking, if Team Leader over here ain’t blue anymore….”

“Shadow X, we are not renaming me—” 

“Shouldn’t his name be Pink Cop?” 

This time, a full eleven pairs of optics stared at him. Blue Cop had taken off his visor to gawk at Shadow X.

“Works for me.” 

“I mean, it doesn’t sound bad…?”

“Pink Cop does have a nice ring to it…”

“You’ll give him an identity crisis, but sure.”

“It’s a cool name!”

“Is this a reference to Barbie?” 

“G-Guys!”

-

“I—” 

Jun burst into uncontrollable laughter as Blue Cop stared down at the Metal Brace wielder with increasingly growing embarrassment. 

“Jun…”

“I-I’m s-or-rry—HAHAHAHA—” 

Shadow X made some sort of wheezing sound which was suspiciously close to a cackle. “How well did you think we did, Jun? Satisfactory?” 

The purple copter’s only answer was laughter. 

“I think we broke him…” Phoenix Fire peered worriedly over Blue Cop’s pauldron.

“Do I have patients?” 

Blue Cop stood stiffly at the entrance of Edo’s garage. The Star Guardian did have to be carried back to the garage via air, since he couldn’t transform. Blue Cop knew he said he would never fly again, but he hadn’t had much of a say in that situation. 

After all the paint had dried, they’d cleaned their team leader’s visors and put them back on his faceplate. Shadow X told him to set the visor color to blue after Blue Cop said he wouldn’t cooperate if they didn’t put his visor back onto his face.

Parts of the paint were fixed, and white and gold was painted on top of all the pink, Shadow X having stated that Blue Cop looked way too flat in just one color. Ribbens were tied, bows were glued. His Star Guardian badge was completely obscured by a giant bow that the team had managed to make. 

All in all, forty-seven buckets of paint, thirteen paintbrushes, eleven water guns, one tarp, and one Cardbot had been used in this project. 

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—” 

Jun continued to laugh and wheeze as Edo stared, gobsmacked. Eventually the engineer fell into a laughing fit as well. It took all of Blue Cop’s self-control to not panic when both humans started to cry, knowing that it was just a response to the scene before them. They were tears of joy, not tears of sadness and hurt. 

Jun shakily took out his phone in between hiccups and random bouts of laughter and took several pictures. 

The laughter went on for so long, Shadow X took out a stop watch and Blue Cop started counting the seconds. 

When Jun and Edo both finally calmed down, two minutes and fifty-three seconds had passed, not including the time before the stopwatch was taken out. 

“W-Wow, B-Blue Cop…” Jun wheezed. 

He opened his mouth to say more, but Shadow X butt in. 

“His name isn’t Blue Cop! It’s Pink Cop!” 

Another round of laughing ensued, but this time it was much shorter. 

…The “prank” wasn’t so bad. If Jun smiled and laughed like this every day, Blue Cop would be happy. He would do anything for the child to smile like that forever. 

The Star Guardian relaxed, deciding that this wasn’t so bad. His joints and seams ached from being in one position for too long, and the paint felt uncomfortable, but other than that, he was unharmed.

“Okay, b-but r-really, how long did this take y-you all? T-this—snort—looks….complicated.” Jun grinned, and Blue Cop’s optics turned upward into a smile. 

“You should ask Shadow X. This was…an interesting event,” answered the Star Guardian. 

Shadow X dropped from his usual space of the rafters to the floor. “Three hours, maybe? The paint dried surprisingly fast, so everything else was quick.” 

The purple Cardbot snickered, poking Blue Cop in the side. “Isn’t that right, Pink Cop?” 

Blue Cop slowly blinked his optics and let them rest at a bored expression. Maybe. The police-car bot had flown through half of the entire thing, his mind flitting between one thought to the next. 

Choosing to give the most honest answer, Blue Cop replied, “I don’t know. I kind of floated through some parts.” 

An exaggerated sigh escaped from Shadow X’s vocalizer. “I hate it when you say that.” 

A few Cardbots laughed, but that quickly died down as Edo cleared his throat. 

“I’m glad you’ve all at least found something entertaining to do, but does anyone want to tell me—” —Edo gestured to Blue Cop in all his pink glory— “—Where you all got these supplies to do this from?” 

Silence. 

Blue Cop paused as he remembered himself asking this as well. The pieces clicked together in his processor, and Blue Cop couldn’t help but laugh. 

He laughed, and it was so sudden that the other Cardbots jumped in surprise. Jun’s lips quirked, as if he wanted in on the joke too. Everyone was momentarily distracted with the Star Guardian’s sudden outburst. 

Oh, how had Blue Cop not figured it out before? The Cardbots (Shadow X specifically) didn’t have money. The only way they’d get that money from was…

“I was wondering too,” Blue Cop said, in between giggles. “Where did you get all the paint and supplies from, Shadow X?” 

Edo’s face became a dark storm as he finally pieced together the puzzle. 

“Shadow X…” 

The purple copter had the grace to look sheepish.