Once you reach attack cap you can capture the two girls, youll want to use items the smoke bomb is OP if they use a charge attack it nullifies about 80-90% damage. Blackfire is a little tough to capture without the move but its doable. To advance the plot you want to compliment Raven 5 times, meditate about 3 or 4 times and beat her on the roof 3 times (idk what happens if you lose). Then
Guides a little rough but thats the jist of what to do. Also by the way its a good idea to keep at least 4 smoke bombs, a couple boomerangs and 1 adrenaline. The adrenaline is "mostly" extra incase of bad RNG, anyway the game does expect you to use items to win certain fights so doing a tiny bit of extra grinding money to stock up saves time in the long run. 5$ a day, 5$ from couch and about 10$ from library or ~15$ from beating a fight.