Your friend sits on the couch, simply staring into the ground. He's been like that for a couple minutes now, and it was frankly starting to worry you.
After some brief introductions with the rest of the girls, you made the decision to come clean with him about who they were, and where they were from. At first, he thought you were just playing some sort of joke on him, but once you and the girls convinced him that you were all serious, he got like this.
Finally, he takes a deep breath, and looks up at you. "You know this sounds like a load of bullshit, right?"
"I'm well aware, yes," you deadpan. "But trust me, as weird as it sounds, it's true."
"See, I want to believe you," he starts, "but aliens coming from some other horse dimension?" He shakes his head. "Sorry, that's a bit too far."
You sigh as you pinch the bridge of your nose. "Well, fine, you don't have to believe us. Just help us out."
This gets his interest. "Help you with what?"
"We need to get down south to Paradise," you explain. "Twilight here," you motion to her, "thinks she can manage a way back home from there. Something about magic."
"Riiiiight."
"Um, if I could interrupt..." Twilight breaks in. "I mean, I could show him the same way I showed you-"
"No," you cut her off. "Last thing I need is you putting yourself in a coma."
The others stay silent, but nod in agreement towards her.
"Well, in any case," your friend says, "it doesn't matter much. Feds got every road out of the city blocked off, and they're looking through every car that comes in or out. No way we're sneaking past them."
You let out a grunt as you lean against the wall, trying to think. There has to be a solution here...
"Hey, I got an idea," Dash pipes up. "Why even bother sneaking past?"
Everyone just stares at her. "Explain," you say.
"Well, why not just, I dunno, smash through?"
Your friend is quick to shoot that plan down. "They got full checkpoints set up. We're talking thick cement booths and walls, and I heard rumors on the way over about a quarter mile of spike strips just past them, too. None of our cars would survive brute forcing that."
The others look somewhat saddened by the news, but you keep thinking. None of your cars would survive, yes, but...
"We can get through."
Everyone looks at you. "Beg pardon?" Applejack asks.
"Up top, in the airfield, there's an old semi truck and trailer, probably used to transport smaller planes," you explain. "It's broken down entirely, but maybe we could fix it up, load a couple cars in the trailer, and smash our way through."
Everyone gives the plan some thought, before your friend gives a clap. "That is absolutely the stupidest idea I have ever agreed to."
"Alright, then, no time to lose. Let's get to work."
The next few days are spent entirely on fixing that truck, as well as packing enough supplies for a multi-day road trip into the cars chosen for the trek: a Porsche 911 for yourself, and a Nissan GT-R for your friend. Both cars had enough room for three of the girls each, while still containing enough power to keep you both competitive with the law.
Eventually, you both got the semi back to working order, though it was an amateur job if you ever saw one. If you had to guess, it wouldn't last longer than a couple days before it broke down again.
Thankfully, you didn't need it to run that long.
With the engine taken care of, you both started other small bits of tuning to the truck. Of course, "tuning" in this case meant welding a bunch of scrap to the front, in the interest of making it capable of surviving a massive frontal collision. Sure, the weight would slow it down considerably, but you figured that once it was up to speed, momentum could handle the rest.
Once that was also done, there was one last issue to address.
Neither of you had any idea how to drive a semi truck.
Sure, you knew the theory, but you had no idea what to do with a vehicle that size, let alone with that many gears. Unfortunately, you were picked to drive it by the time-honored tradition of rock paper scissors, so you had to give yourself a huge crash course in how to drive it without exploding the engine.
Once you were convinced you were okay at it, everything was ready.
You leave early in the morning, before the sun had even fully come above the horizon. Both cars were parked in the trailer, and you were sitting in the cab. You could see the cars in the hole you cut out behind you, giving you quick access to the trailer once the time was right.
Taking a deep breath, you start the engine, and then shift up a gear.
And then again, as you start to stall out.
And again.
Eventually, after shifting several gears, you managed to get up to a stable 35 miles an hour, enough to ease your way onto the highway. Hopefully, no one would question the slow truck driver too much.
You start to pick up speed, but you take care to keep it smooth. The last thing you wanted was to attract too much heat too early.
From the console, the CB radio crackles to life. "How's it going up there, Mac?"
You can't suppress a grin as you pick it up and answer. "Breaker one-nine, nice and steady, over and out."
Your friend laughs. "Don't get too carried away with the trucker talk, you might turn into one."
You return the laugh as you continue the cruise down the highway.
Soon, you spot one of the FBI checkpoints, which just so happens to be near the bottom of an incline. "Got visual, better start holding onto something."
"Copy that, commencing clenching."
You slowly start to accelerate, making sure to once again shift up a gear once the RPM starts to climb. At some point, the downhill slope starts doing more work than you, so you instead turn on the police scanner and maintain your course.
"All units, this is dispatch, any visual on street racers?"
"Dispatch, this is checkpoint Charlie, we got negative on racer sightings."
"Roger that. Checkpoint Alpha, dispatch, anything on your end?"
"Negative, dispatch, nothing over-"
"Uh, this is checkpoint Charlie, we got a semi coming out right now."
"Copy that, advise when it's stopped."
"Um... Dispatch, it's not stopping."
"I didn't catch that, Charlie, say again?"
"That semi isn't... EVERYONE OUT OF THE WAY, NOW!"
You grip the wheel as tightly as you can as you veer towards an open lane of the checkpoint, right before you slam through it.
The impact almost throws you from your seat, and you can even barely see the cars in the trailer getting just a touch of air time. After a few seconds of grinding metal and smaller impacts as you tear through a few parked police cars, you're through to open roads.
At least, except for the spike strips folding out in front of you.
"This is checkpoint Charlie, we are compromised, a semi just barged through us, spike strips deploying now, send backup ASAP!"
"Roger that, air support and ground units en route. ETA 3 minutes."
You hit the first spike strip, and you have to fight to keep the truck straight as you feel at least 2 of the 18 wheels get torn to shreds. Each strip after that reduces the number of functioning tires further, and it isn't long before the ride becomes a very bumpy one.
Still, you keep your foot firmly on the gas pedal, managing to keep a steady speed despite the damage. You can't even see how many cops are behind you, since both side mirrors were completely shattered by the initial impact.
After a number of spike strips that you lost count of, you're excited to see nothing but empty road ahead of you, just as your speed started falling.
Time to get started.
Making sure you leave a brick on the accelerator, you get out of your seat and make your way through the hole and into the trailer, which is easier said than done thanks to the constant bumping from what was left of the tires. Regardless, you manage to edge your way to the back of the trailer, where you quickly shove open the back, which lowers to the ground to make a ramp, showering the road in sparks.
Making sure to keep your footing steady, you make your way to the Porsche, and quickly get inside. Twilight gives you a small worried look, but says nothing as you start the car and immediately shift into reverse, slamming on the gas pedal as you fly backwards onto the road. You quickly shift back into first gear just before you hit the road itself, and a moment later you're completely out of the trailer and speeding ahead.
Behind you, your friend pulls an identical move and pulls behind you, flashing his headlights at you.
You pick up the radio and hit the button. "No time for showboating, we got a tail to lose."
"You're telling me!"
"Nine, all units, we are closing in on the suspects."
"Rotor 1, nine, we have visual."
At that moment, a police chopper flew overhead, shining a spotlight on the two of you.
"Suspects are driving a yellow Porsche and a blue Nissan."
The highway turned as it started heading northwest, and you couldn't help but watch in the mirror as the mangled semi crashed off the road. Just behind it was a small squadron of police cars, which were quickly gaining on you.
"Forgive me for asking, but what is the plan now?" Rarity asks from the backseat.
You smile. "We drive."
You pour all of your focus into the road ahead, reaching top gear as you follow the highway's turns and slip right by traffic. Once the cops start to get within ramming distance, you hop over into the oncoming lane, weaving back and forth among the traffic. Your friend, meanwhile, takes a more direct approach on his side, keeping the cops at bay by avoiding their rams from behind and retaliating with sideswipes of his own.
You slide back into the right hand lane just in time to hit the rear end of a cop that started pulling ahead, sending him spinning off behind you as another cop made impact.
"We're losing cars left and right, get us more backup!"
"Acknowledged. More units incoming."
Only one car remained in pursuit, and it wisely decided to hang back and simply follow for now. The police chopper still flew overhead, but began to hover in place as the road took you into a tunnel.
"Lost sight of the suspects, heading back to refuel."
"Copy, Rotor 1."
While you use a little bit of nitrous, your radio crackles to life again.
"Hey, take the exit when I say, I know a guy who can give us some help."
"Gotcha, you lead the way, I'll try and handle our plus one."
You ease off the gas as your friend pulls ahead, and you apply some brake as well to let the cop pull even with you. You swerve to hit him aside, but he sees it coming, and steers away just in time. Fortunately for you, the movement made him scrape into a passing log truck, resulting in the cop losing control and spinning out while the truck dropped its payload and blocked the road behind you.
"And we're clear," you say, both through the radio and to your passengers just as you exit the tunnel.
"That was absolutely positively cool!" Pinkie finally spoke up from the back. "They were like 'woo woo' and you were like 'slam' and they were like 'oh no' and-"
"Pinkie?"
"Yeah?"
"I know what happened, I was there."
She giggles. "I know, but it was so crazy!"
You give a small chuckle at her enthusiasm. "Well, it's only gonna get crazier..."
"All units, be advised, suspects were heading westbound on I-88, report any visuals ASAP."
You simply follow behind your friend, weaving between cars in sync. You assumed that he knew what he was doing, and even if he didn't, you were still heading in the right direction anyway.
"Okay, so," Twilight said from beside you, holding the atlas and tracing the page with a finger, "we follow this road around this lake, and then it's a straight shot south to Paradise City."
"Not quite," you say. "Cops are gonna have the interstate locked down at points, so we're gonna have to try and go on smaller roads when we can. It'll take longer, but it'll be safer."
"Oh... good point..." You see her starting to mentally figure out a new path, but you snap in front of her face to get her attention.
"Don't bother memorizing a path, we're gonna play it as it comes."
Twilight gasps. "But, we have to have a plan! And if we need to, we can make a backup plan, and-"
"Twilight." Once you're sure she's looking at you, you continue. "Making plans just means we'll be at a disadvantage when they don't work exactly like we think. We take it as it comes, we're less likely to be caught with our pants down."
After a pause, she slowly nods in agreement. "I suppose..."
"Okay, this exit here."
You snap your eyes back to the road just in time to see your friend veering onto an exit ramp, and you follow. Just as you're leaving the interstate, you spot the sign saying that this exit leads to Rockport.
"Rockport, huh?" you ask over the radio.
"Yeah, man, my buddy's been set up there for a while now. Hopefully, he's hanging in there with the added heat."
"If he is, let's hope he can hold on a bit longer, we still got a while before we get there."
The two of you fall into a steady, yet fast-paced cruise after that.
At this rate, you should be there in about an hour.
"Are we there yet?"
"No, Pinkie."
A very long hour.