Saffron Gym and Sabrina 

Now that Aoki had five elite-rank Pokemon, he was confident in dealing with almost anything that came his way.

Aura of Darkness was truly magical.

The place Aoki currently was a forest very far from a settlement with master-level wild Pokemons so his Pokemons didn't hold back and tried out their powers.

Before that Aoki gave Nidoking the T.M of Giga impact and Earthquake which was very hard to get.

As the Pokemons fought, 300 m of forest around them was completely decimated.

First Chaizard's power of flames and flame control had evolved to a new degree making it very hard to counter.

Now that he could fly, his maneuvering ability had increased a lot.

Upon evolution, he could use Air slash and Steel wing.

His flying speed was not as fast as Pidgeot's but still fast which could be improved later on.

The power of his Dragon moves had received a boost too.

Next was Nidoking, along with the knowledge of martial arts and the ability to stand on two feet most of the time made him deadly in close combat.

His Poison-type moves were a bit weaker than Victreebell but his devastating ground-type moves made up for it.

Lastly, Clefable received a huge boost in her versatility and power.

Her Psychic and Fairy powers increased a lot, enough to completely suppress Darkrai within a few minutes.

The power that received the most improvement was her power of Gravity.

Aoki congratulated them and gave them food to replenish their energy back.

Victreebel and Clefable recovered the destroyed forest with their effort in under minutes.

Seeing everyone surpass Gyarados, he became more motivated to go to elite rank too. Ever since Aoki got Gyarados, his energy rank didn't improve but only his moves improved.

Aoki didn't stop giving Gyarados resources but realized that it would take longer for Gyaraodos to break his limits.

The reason why Gyarados was abandoned in the first place was that he could not progress further and did not listen to anyone.

Now that the second problem was resolved, the first one still remained.

Shellgon had a pretty quick growth phase because of all the lucky encounters like Dragon fruit and Dragon Fang or else he would have taken more time to evolve.

As pseudo legendaries had the longest growth period like Legendaries, Shellgon will take a long time to evolve into Salamance.

Moreover, Aoki would not let Shellgon evolve till he reached elite rank or it will waste his talent.

Aoki returned to his home and had a good night with Misty in celebration of his Pokemon's evolution.

The next morning they got dressed and prepared to go to the Saffron Gym where Misty would be having her gym match against Sabrina.

****

"Oi! Did you hear that people of Team Rocket are disappearing ?" one person said to the other at a bar.

"I don't know about it, tell me what happened." the other answered.

"Apparently there is someone out there in the black market who is kidnapping Team Rocket members for a day and dropping them off at random places in the Black Market.

Upon integration, the members revealed that they don't remember anything after they were kidnapped.

The last thing they all remembered was getting sucked into their shadows"

"That sounds terrifying. It's clearly the work of a ghost Pokemon."

"That is where the problem arises. Team Rocket and the Black Market had used multiple Psychic and Ghost Pokemon but none of them detected anything. "

As the two men talked more about the incidents, Aoki sat beside them listening to them.

'I think we should stop now, we got everything we needed from the last guy we caught.' he said to Darkrai.

[What about the two other people that I have.]

'Toss them somewhere, they are only low-ranking grunts'

With his work done, Aoki left the black market and returned to his residence.

For the last seven days, he had taken multiple rounds to the Black Market to know as much about Team Rocket as possible.

Darkrai could drag a member to his dimension and use his powers to hypnotize the person to tell what Aoki wants to know.

Apart from this, he spent some time with Misty as he was busy before that.

Today was the day, Misty challenged the Saffron Gym.

"This Gym looks amazing from the outside" Misty said looking at the Saffron Gym.

From the outside, the gym looked like a giant lotus with green plants all around it.

The size of the gym was larger than all the gyms they had seen so far.

This was the largest gym Aoki had seen depending on the size.

The gym was a bit peculiar as it gave only three chances to a trainer for obtaining a gym badge on top of the difficulty.

As it gave only three chances, the money lost on losing or received on winning was more too.

It also gave out the T.M for Psychic which was very rare in the market and cost a lot.

At the entrance of the Gym were two rock statues of Alakazam and Hypno.

Misty and Aoki entered through the door and Aoki instantly detected that the entire gym was covered in psychic energy.

After verifying her identity Misty and Aoki were escorted to the waiting room as there was already a battle going on.

There was no public battle in this gym so there were no videos to pre-plan against the attack pattern of Sabrina.

On the way, Aoki saw various rooms where people who had unlocked psychic powers or had the potential to unlock psychic powers were being trained.

Yes, this gym was the only place in Kanto where people were trained in Psychic energy control.

With aura, Aoki could clearly see the pinkish psychic energy around the people training inside the room.

The Door of the main battlefield opened and a guy who lost the match came out but he had a blissful expression.

"I may have lost this time, but I will return again Sabrina chan….ahh! those eyes were cold eyes looking down on me as if I was garbage..… I wish she stepped on me…" he muttered before leaving completely ignoring the presence of Aoki and Misty standing there.

"Well that was weird," Misty said.

"What weird? don't act as if you don't say such things sometimes. " Aoki said with a smirk.

Misty could not refuse Aoki's claims and decided to enter the gym without saying anything else.

"Sabrina is going to use telepathy, just do as you always do," Aoki said.

"I will keep that in mind"

The main battle room was fairy reinforced with purple and pink colored walls.

At one side of the wall was a machine that worked as a scoreboard like the matches held by Alliance.

At the opposite end of the room was gym leader Sabrina sitting on a throne looking at Aoki and Misty with ice-cold red eyes.

The gorgeous girl had long Dark Purple hair and wore a tight red dress showing her curves.

In conclusion, a girl could make a guy's heartbeat faster.

Although others may not feel it, Aoki sensed a threatened feeling from her.

She was one of the strongest psychics users along side Agatha after all.