"I can't go to school, ma," Blue Oyster mumbled from underneath the covers. "I feel like I'm burning up."

Her mother gripped the comforter in one hand and threw it back, for the sole purpose of cleverly demonstrating that this was an Equestria Girls fic, and tut-tutted maternally. "Well, that's because you're on fire, dear."

Blue walked over to the bathroom mirror and looked at her blue skin and her poofy purple hair. The latter was unaffected both by gravity and bed-head. The former was a fetching shade of teal. Her birth name was actually Mossy Clam, and with every day she was appreciating more and more having renamed herself as an act of teenage rebellion.

Also, her mom was right. The fire didn't hurt her, though. They were old friends.

"Get dressed, dear," Mom said. "The school cannon fires in four seconds."

"But what if it's contagious? I don't want to set anything on fire —"

There was a loud thump. Blue screamed as she hurtled through the air, crash-landing on the roof of the schoolmansion and setting it on fire. Her phone dinged. "Then go see the school nurse, dear," Mom texted.

Blue walked to Vice-Princess Luna's office. She doubled as the school nurse when she was feeling sexy enough to play dress-up in her long stockings, short skirt, and skin-hugging white top. She was also a real doctor, and graduated at the top of her class. She had merely made career choices that allowed her to combine her dual loves of intellectual stimulation and gratuitous fanservice. Blue told herself, not for the first time, that that made her fantasies okay.

"Luna?" Blue asked.

"One second," Luna said, her attention on Snips and Snails, who were tied to the operating table in front of her, which definitely didn't double as anything else during off hours. "What am I going to do with you two troublemakers? The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire, and it's spreading to the disco."

"We didn't start it!" Snails protested.

"Luna? I'm on fire."

The three of them stopped and looked at Blue.

"Yeah, I'd fall into her ring of fire, if you know what I mean," Snips whispered to Snails.

Luna frowned. "Blue Oyster, if you tell me that you're burning for me, so help me, I'm going to —"

"No, ma'am. I woke up this morning like this."

"Oh," Luna said, relaxing. "Well, that's different then." She put on a pair of sexy reading glasses, crossed her legs, and flipped through a convenient book. "That's just Sudden Incomprehensible Protagonist Syndrome."

"What's the best medicine for it?" Blue said, with subtle emphasis.

"The best medicine?" Luna said in the trademark voice she occasionally used. "Well, if you want to not be a protagonist any more, the best thing to do is to fall into a plot hole."

"Where do I find one of those?"

"Oh, it should be easy. Just check the M.A. Larson wing."

Blue made her way there, in a grand adventure that spanned weeks and earned her the enduring friendship of all of the Elements of Harmony and taught her valuable life lessons and turned her into a princess, all of which was cut for space.

She was still on fire, though.

"Look!" Rainbow Dash pointed into the distance. "It's the Cowbell of Destiny!"

Blue gasped, sprinted past the traps, dodged the assassins, and redirected the fanboys toward Vice-Princess Luna. She reached out for the instrument.

"You can do it!" Pinkie Pie cheered.

She did it. The other students, plus Twilight Sparkle and Spike, cheered. They threw a parade in her honor. She banged the cowbell over her head, and the flames were extinguished like the convenient plot device they were.

"Well, I'm glad that's over with," Blue sighed. "I mean, really, I've been on fire for weeks now."

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You should have died weeks ago."

Blue Oyster fell into the plot hole, screaming.

Twilight Sparkle looked around. "Where are we, girls, and how come I feel like we just went on a weeks-long quest for some stupid cowbell?"

Applejack shrugged. "I dunno."

"Me, either," Rarity said. "Fro-yo?"

"Sounds good to me," Fluttershy whispered.

So they all went out for dessert.