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Juliet introduced herself and Helena slowly turned to face the woman again. The noblewoman was taller than her and that became even more apparent when they were within hand shaking range.

Helena slowly took the other woman's hand, aware immediately of the feel of it. It was the same as Henrietta's, which Helena chalked up to both of them wielding swords.

"My friends call me Hel, or Hels, or I guess if you're Kalosian you'd say El." Helena would say as she gently shook Juliet's hand before pulling hers back and resting it at her side.

"What do you mean you felt we'd run into each other?"

The Fishbone. Helena remembered the events clear as day. There was a pirate she might have killed and she left him bleeding to death after looting him and his allies. She remembered being on the crashing and then sinking ship. Having a Quillon in her face. The entire event was one panicked tragedy after another.

If Juliet watched Helena's reaction to the name Fishbone she'd see her eyes become unfocused and her lips part as her breathing picked up several paces, nearly audible but not quite.

Her eyes found Juliet's again after idly looking around her for a few seconds. It would be the easiest out in the world to say 'yes' but instead the teen said "I don't know," in a much softer voice than the one she'd been using. Then, without meaning to, she added "I don't know what anyone wants with me, but a lot of people seem to think I'm special."

Jean wanted her because Ratio did. Ratio wanted her because something. Sal warned her that the Darkhorse Hunters would be after her for winning badges. And now Bertrand Balibar wanted her.

"So I'm just kinda going with it." Over the course of the last sentence Helena would manage to compose herself, lips playing into a smile between words, this one managing to reach her eyes, lighting them up. But only when she wasn't speaking, each word carried the secondary effect of a lost sort of look in her eyes like it troubled her and she wasn't actually okay with it.

Juliet's words about the spotlight caused Helena to blush. She hadn't intended it, but it was there hot on her face. As the noble continued to speak Helena would roll over the possibility of her being an enemy in her head. She knew Zack, which meant she had probably met everyone already. If she wasn't privy to Balibar's intentions it meant that she wasn't part of that inner circle.

The Redgrave sibling knew from Absolon Balibar that not all of them were privy to everything that the nobility did. It's why she trusted him enough to let Azucena bring him into her inner circle. Perhaps the same could be done with Juliet.

"Wait," Helena said. She took in a deep breath. How do you bring up 'do you know about the dark horse hunters that might kill everyone? What about Jean-Pierre?' she wasn't quite sure. All she did know was that Juliet was curious about Balibar.

"Would you like to come to the dinner with me? As my date?" The question, once it was out there, cause the blush on her cheeks to bleed into the rest of her face lighting it up like a christmas tree.

"I'm not very popular either," Helena said and this time she laughed softly. She wanted to poke Juliet and see if she could trust the woman enough to tell her more. "I was just hoping to go with someone who wasn't doing it to manipulate me, and you didn't ask me first so I figured you'd be safe. You know, 'one of the good ones'."

Helena didn't want to even drop Salieri's name first. If Juliet opened that door, she would. However, Helena had her own secrets she could share. Working past the inherent intimidating of finding Juliet to be attractive, Helena would take a deep breath and then a few steps forward so she could whisper.

"I'm the one who told them where the oil field was. So it's all my fault if you're not very popular." How Juliet handled that information would be very telling to how Helena needed to proceed next. However, she doubted it would hurt her chances with the Balibar family if the Nostrad family hated her.

There was something delightful about causing Juliet to laugh that when the noble looked at her again, she'd be hiding her smiles behind her fingers. It wasn't one she could help, one that did reach her eyes. At least her blush had retreated back to her cheeks.

"That's" Helena breathed a sigh of relief, "that's a lot more than I could have hoped for." As her hands lowered from her lips the smile remained plastered there. "Though," she stuck a thumb back toward the boutique where Franz as no doubt going to emerge with poshy street clothes for her, "we could still show up in matching outfits." This time her voice was playful, not exactly flirtatious, but definitely enchanted with humor. It was a thin line between the two.

"I'll bet we could make a ton of enemies if you showed up in Balibar colors instead of Nostrad ones."

Helena held up her left hand as if showing off a ring, but there was no such thing. "Trouble and I are married, sorry." Then she'd turn toward Franz as he approached.

"I have just the outfit for you," he'd say and Helena, clearly in a better mood, would wave to Juliet before following the tailor into the back.

Ben didn't have to see an attack coming to know they needed to transition into the brawl he was trying to turn this into. "Dance!" Was called as the uppercut hit. There were a lot of downsides to using an uppercut. Open yourself up. Maneuverability down.

The upside was that taking one shifted an opponent's body when they were the size of Pokemon. Caboose would follow the command, as he could see the shifting ears. Slower than her first move. Still fast considering the minimal movement. His dance consisted of using his momentum to raise his body with a jump, which would be enough to turn a solid gut shot to fling and injure him into one that would instead start his lower body spinning into a sideways flip. He would keep his position, and a 3 quarter health hit should become glancing enough to only take half instead.

Two important things had been shown here, to Ben one, Nuzzle wasn't strong even with Caboose's type to.boost it. Two, Strength was tough but had no normal type boosting. Which meant one thing for a pokemon reduced by nearly a third of their health by the two.Their disco ball was a good choice. Electro ball slid along Caboose's body and down his tail as he spun, frint right paw going down to the ground to gain control and the rest of his movements flashy to give an impression of another attack. In that state, discharge was the best bet to actually hit.

Electro ball would attempt to slam into the Meowtic from a blind spot while Caboose attempted to use the new momentum to dodge what came next. If Ben was right, even accounting for a likely difference in special defense to defense, accounting for Caboose's special attack and paralysis taking the opponent to about a quarter of his speed would cause a lot of damage.

Beyond that, Ben kept an eye out for Future Sight. Distortions in the air. Whatever it took. He would call out the direction of it if he saw the attack, and one additional point. For elevation. For example, three two was three o'clock above.

Assuming Paralysis didn't cause her body to seize up, Meowstic would disappear as Caboose launched his Electro Ball. She vanished in a flicker of light, only to reappear with a blow to Caboose's belly in another flash, her priority Sucker Punch allowing her to close the distance and strike.

Sucker Punch would deal around a third of Caboose's health in damage, and momentarily stop him in his tracks, just long enough for the air to shimmer pink and strike from below. Like an upwards death-wind, Future Sight's psychic waves flew towards the Pikachu, aiming to catch him in the midst of being struck by the surprise attack.

If Paralysis did take hold, then Benedict would likely notice the ground below his pokémon shimmer pink, and Caboose would have enough of a chance to escape it. All the while, Meowstic would take the Electro Ball and lose around two fifths of her health.