[b][u][color=f49ac2][h3][center]~Melody Hemlock~[/center][/h3][/color][/u][/b]
[color=00a651]"M-my name is Peggy. I-it's nice to m-meet you too. Your, err...Your hair is, err, really pretty. It's a nice, err, colour,”[/color] said the girl who apparently really, really liked green.

Melody beamed. [color=f49ac2]“Thanks,”[/color] she said, suddenly pleased. Oh, she [i]liked[/i] this girl. Not as much as she liked Abigail, of course, but… yeah. She seemed pretty decent. And she’d complimented Melody’s hair color! Most people didn’t notice Melody at all, let alone have an opinion on her hair. And a ton of people who did have an opinion on her hair… well, needless to say, it wasn’t a very good opinion. Well, fair enough. Not everyone liked pink, after all.

So, to have someone think her hair was [i]pretty?[/i] Yeah, Melody liked that. Melody liked that a lot, actually.

[color=f7941d]“I’m Avery,”[/color] said the orange-haired boy who’d been crying. [color=f7941d]“Nice to meetcha.”[/color]

His name was [i]Avery?[/i] But… her name was Avery! Or, her middle name was, at least.

Wait. Maybe this was Destiny too? Melody wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, since it was already pretty clear that Abigail was her destined Best-Friend-Forever, but… eh. Maybe Avery could be, like, second place?

You didn’t argue with Destiny, after all.

[color=f49ac2]“Nice to meet you too!”[/color] she said, happily. Today was a day of happiness, and faith, and miracles, after all!

A lot of things seemed to be going on in the lab. A serious and kind of bored looking guy with a Swinub seemed to be trying to strike up a conversation with a short guy who was almost as short as Melody and Peggy, and looked about twelve years old, and—

And then a boy burst into the room, screaming about being late and apologizing and wanting to claim a Totodile. He was tall --maybe Avery’s height?— so it was pretty hard to miss him, to be honest.

Of course, Melody didn’t really have much of a chance to contemplate this, because suddenly there was a blur of purple, and a Nidoran was leaping at poor Tesla.

Wait, a Nidoran? Abigail’s Nidoran?

Well, Melody couldn’t really pursue that train of thought either, considering that there was a small and poisonous Pokemon attacking her Tesla. She squeaked in shock and stumbled backwards, [i]just[/i] managing to get Tesla’s tail out of the way of the Nidoran’s mouth. Woah, that was close—

And then another Pokemon –-Peggy’s Houndour, the one that had growled at Melody earlier-- was lunging at her too. With Tesla in her arms, she couldn’t really do much but attempt to get Tesla out of the line of fire. Unfortunately, this meant letting the Houndour tackle her right in the chest (that thing jumped [i]high!), [/i]and so it wasn’t really very surprising that she ended up tripping over backwards.

She landed hard on her tailbone, but at least managed to set Tesla down fairly gently. Well, it kind of hurt, to be honest, but at least she’d managed to cushion Tesla’s fall.

Of course, Tesla had decided that it didn’t really [i]like [/i]the fact that all these Pokemon were attacking it, and promptly made an attempt at electrocuting both of them with a well-placed Thunder Wave.

Oooh. Whoops.

She winced. Mareep hadn't really been aiming for her, but she still ended up catching the tail end of the wave, and it... did not feel good. She felt a little stiff, actually, but... whatever. She'd live. Should she tell Tesla off? But Tesla was preening, looking somewhat smug, and he just looked so happy about his paralyzation attempt that... awww. Well, telling him off could wait.

Then she turned around, and— was Abigail looking at her? Had [s]senpai[/s] her best friend noticed her?

Her hand went up to smooth her hair almost instinctively, and— oh Arceus. Oh sweet, merciful Arceus. Her hair... was an absolute mess.

She turned white.

How could she even think of being Abigail’s best friend while looking like [i]this[/i]? Melody, as a matter of fact, did care about her appearance. She color-coordinated her outfits. She always made sure her make-up looked good. She took pride in keeping her hair nice and neat.

So obviously, she had to do something about this situation.

In other words… she stopped, dropped her bag to the floor, and whipped out her hair products.

A heavy duty hair brush and some detangling spray would solve this no problem. Right?

She started brushing.