Annie had apparently gone off to play by herself again, just like before, so Ash, Misty, and Tracey naturally didn't wait for her this time. Once they'd rested, they set off on Lapras.
Over the next few days, they visited one island after another, hoping to collect their badges as soon as possible so they could enter the Orange League tournament.
But...
Quite unexpectedly, just as they were getting ready to continue their tour of the Orange Archipelago and challenge their second Pokémon Gym for their second badge, they ran into a strong, dark-skinned Nurse Joy out at sea.
Of course, she wasn't the same Nurse Joy they'd met before. She was the daughter of the sister of the nephew of the niece of the uncle of the cousin of that Nurse Joy.
In short!
To put it simply, she was also related to the Nurse Joy family. Born and raised in the southern Orange Archipelago, she'd gotten into the Pokémon Center, a worldwide monopoly, through family connections. She now worked as a Pokémon healer at one of its branches in the Orange Archipelago, with a permanent contract and generous benefits.
After meeting her and watching her treat a giant Magikarp, the three of them were invited to a Pokémon treatment center on the island, where they enjoyed a delicious free lunch.
That left the three of them deeply moved, and their fondness for this dark-skinned Nurse Joy shot up in an instant.
So, to repay her for the free lunch—and to mooch a few more dinners and maybe even breakfast the next day—the three unanimously decided to lend the dark-skinned Nurse Joy a hand. They'd row around the nearby islands together and treat the Pokémon on each one.
However!
What they never could have expected was that, barely half