After Watts, Gabby, Blaze and AJ managed to calm Starla down and save Speedrick from her wrath, the girls went to Starla's barn to get some air away from the race car while the boys headed to the park.
"Are you… Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Speedrick gulped, still shaken by the cowgirl's attack earlier.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Blaze asked, confused.
"Um, Blaze, remember what happened with Pickle?" AJ reminded his best friend.
"Oh, that's right," Blaze turned to offer his friend a smile. "Don't worry, Speedrick, as long as we don't run into Crusher and Pickle, everything will be fine. Besides, my family's playing soccer, and I figured that since you're here, you might wanna play with us…?"
"With your family?" Speedrick was taken back. "Well, since you're inviting… alright, I will play. As long as we don't run into the little demon, of course,"
"First of all, I don't think you should call Pickle a 'little demon', especially in front of Crusher," AJ warned him. "Second, great. They're just at the field, and they're waiting for us already,"
"Great…" Speedrick shuddered. If that small green truck could blast him out of a building, what else could that large dark blue truck do? 'Rather not take that risk.'
Blaze offered his friend a reassuring smile before he and AJ sped up to lead him further into the park. Soon, they made it to the soccer field, where a family of three were laughing and practicing at one of the goal posts. Blaze beamed at the sight of him.
"Mom! Dad! Sparkle!"
The trio turned around and cheered, driving towards him. "Blaze! AJ!"
Speedrick watched awkwardly and grumpily as the family embraced on another. He rolled his eyes and kept himself from visibly gagging.
Blaze and AJ were his friends, he kept reminding himself. He shouldn't disrespect their little moment, no matter how disgustingly gushy and chummy it was.
As soon as the family separated, the race car sighed in relief and cleared his throat to catch their attention. Blaze heard him and turned to him with a smile before turning back to his family.
"Mom, Dad, Sparkle, this is our race car friend, Speedrick," he introduced, glancing at them repeatedly. "Speedrick, this is my Mom, my Dad, and my little sister Sparkle,"
"Hello!" Blaze's Mom, Phoenix, greeted.
"Hi there!" Blaze's Dad, Flame, grinned.
"Nice to meet you!" Sparkle waved at the race car.
"It always is," Speedrick smirked, holding his head high. "Nice to meet you all as well,"
"Who's ready for a game of soccer?!" Flame cried out, taking the ball into his tires.
"We are!" Blaze and AJ exclaimed.
Speedrick reluctantly agreed. Truth be told, the only sport he was ever gonna consider was racing. Soccer? Not so much, no. But… he was gonna play with Blaze and his family, so he might as well play nice and hope to not get his tires all wrecked because of the game.
They headed to the field and split into two teams; Phoenix, Flame and Sparkle vs. Blaze, AJ and Speedrick, with Flame and Speedrick being assigned as the goalkeepers. The race car was relieved that he didn't have to run around and get his tires too dirty with grass and dirt.
The game started off simple, with Blaze and his mom hitting off most of the goals towards each other's goal. AJ and Sparkle had their attempts, but they usually passed it to get a higher attempt to score a goal. Flame worked hard to avoid a goal while Speedrick barely left his stand, only moving whenever Blaze and AJ were expecting him to (then when they turned away, he brushed away any muck he got on his tires).
Soon, Blaze's team had 9 goals while Phoenix's team had 10. Speedrick had to stop himself from gagging at the sight of the dirty ball as he set it in front of him, ready to kick it after Sparkle scored the goal earlier.
'How DARE she score and get me to touch this… this dirty thing?!' he internally ranted while forcing a 'cheerful' smile to please his friends. 'Argh! I'll show that… that…'
He took a deep breath and glanced at Sparkle, who looked innocent yet confident, a facial expression that reminded him of Blaze. He totally loathed that kind of face.
And he was dead set to be rid of faces like that.
But he had to be very subtle about it, of course. She was Blaze's little sister, after all.
He soon took the kick, not caring if it scraped his tire. It went straight towards Sparkle, hitting her and sending her back, which caused her to yelp at the pain and fall over. The ball bounced off of her and strayed across the field and into the trees.
"Ow!" Sparkle hissed in pain.
"Sparkle!" Blaze zoomed to his sister's side immediately, as did Flame and Phoenix.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Speedrick faked an apology, acting innocent and tearing up his crocodile tears. "I… I didn't mean to! I have such a bad aim! I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"
"Hey, hey, it's okay," AJ offered his friend a smile. "It's okay, Speedrick. We know that you didn't mean it,"
'Oh, sure, I DEFINITELY didn't mean to hit her.' Speedrick internally chuckled, but his facade didn't shrivel up as he turned to the family with a fake sniffle.
"I'm… I'm okay," Sparkle carefully picked herself up, with Blaze and Phoenix helping her. "Just a scratch. No permanent damage,"
"That's a relief," Blaze let out a relieved sigh.
"I'm really, REALLY sorry!" Speedrick brought out the crocodile tears. "I… I'll be careful next time, promise!"
"It's alright, Speedrick," Flame assured him. "It was an accident,"
"But hey!" Sparkle looked around. "Where did the ball go?"
"Did someone lose a ball?!"
"Oh shit." Speedrick stiffened at the familiar voice as Pickle came out from the trees, holding the soccer ball in his tire.
"Yeah! We did!" Sparkle raised her tire to catch as the green truck threw the ball back. "Thanks, Pickle!"
"No problem!" Pickle beamed. "But what happened? You look hurt, Sparkle,"
"It was an accident," Blaze explained. "Speedrick had a bad aim, and—"
"Woah, hold up, THIS GUY hurt your sister?" Pickle pointed to the race car with gritted teeth.
"It wasn't on purpose," Phoenix told him.
"How do you guys know that?" Pickle asked, glaring dangerously at the race car.
"He said sorry and promised to be careful next time," AJ replied.
"Mm-hmm…" Pickle giggled, his voice off as he grinned. "Is that so? Well, sorry if I don't believe it. CRUSHER!"
"Yeah— oh it's you guys again," Crusher emerged from the trees to drive to his lover's side.
"Hey, Crusher," Blaze greeted as Pickle dug deep into the dark blue truck's bag and took out a bat. "Woah, easy with that, Pickle—"
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, I always say!" Pickle smirked, causing cold sweat to drop down Speedrick's forehead as he slowly tried to back up. "Especially when you hit kids!"
"It was an accident!" The race car tried to fib his way out of his… deadly situation.
"Nice try, but Crusher's told more convincible lies than those in the past, so…" Pickle snickered. "RUN."
"OH SON OF A—!" Speedrick turned tail and drove off, with Pickle following behind with his bat as his eyes were gleaming in red.
The family watched in horro as the green truck tried to hit the race car, who screamed for help and mercy as he tried to run away from the 'psychotic' truck.
"O~kay," Crusher grimaced before turning to them. "what did Speedrick do this time?"
"He hit Sparkle with the soccer ball," Blaze told him. "but it was an accident,"
"Pickle doesn't seem to think so, and he HATES it when someone lies," Crusher gave a shudder.
"But why would Speedrick wanna hurt Sparkle?" Flame frowned.
"Eh," Crusher shrugged.
"We better go rescue him before Pickle takes it too far," AJ told them. "Crusher, can you calm Pickle down?"
"I'll try," Crusher cleared his throat. "Hey, Pickle!"
"YES, SWEETHEART?" Pickle turned to him with a crazy warning glance.
Crusher gulped and backed up, hiding behind Blaze. "N-Nothing, hon! Go on!"
"GOOD!" Pickle turned away and sped off to follow the race car once more.
"Okay, that's a 'no' on that plan," Blaze sighed with a shudder.
"Guess we'll have to wait?" AJ suggested.
"Why can't we save Speedrick now?" Sparkle asked.
"Because if Pickle could scare Crusher when he's mad, he's dangerous," Blaze hissed.