Juno's arm crackled with energy as Helene brought her light sabre down upon it. The force of the blow knocked her back a few steps, and sent sparks to smolder in the dark hair that hung below her neck. She quickly brushed them out and regarded Juno with surprise. This was a power she had never encountered before. Even Master Luke could not be capable of this, as he had lost one of his own arms to a lightsaber strike.

A humming white energy still pulsed along Juno's arm as Helene began to circle him again. "So this is why Joon-Li was so adamant about refusing me the trials. It was her own Padawan that had turned to the dark side."

A rictus grin split Juno's head at an impossible angle. He let out a bellowing laugh with his head thrown back much farther than his neck should have allowed. "In this one thing at least, you Jedi are all so predictable. You are all so certain that any being who wields the force must be one of you. That there could be no being other than one of your precious Jedi who could be gifted in such a way unless you trained him yourselves. Such arrogance! It makes you blind to aspects of the force that many of you could never learn to exploit. A fact that my race has learned to exploit very well."

Helene darted in with two quick thrusts of her lightsaber, both of with her opponent batted aside with his arm. Each clash sent a shower of sparks around the room. Helene gasped as one burned painfully into her cheek. She spun to recover and brought an overhead slash down against her foe, which he caught firmly in a white-hued fist. Energy pulsed down her arm, and the burn on her cheek was making her eyes water. "If you're not Juno, who are you? And how did you know his name?"

"I'm whoever I choose to be," the being answered, and for a moment the flesh danced across his face, leaving Helene to feel as though she'd just seen his reflection in a shimmering pool. A shapeshifter! "And Juno was the Jedi knight assigned to hunt me down. The Jedi you killed when you saw him trying to murder what you thought was a little girl."

Helene let out a gasp of shock and tried to wrench her lightsaber away, but her foe's grip was too tight. "If she was one of your own, then why did you kill her?" Her eyes were beginning to water from the pain and confusion.

"I didn't. Lucilius did. But even he wasn't powerful enough to overcome us both."

She could barely see now from the pain in her eyes. But it wasn't pain. It was smoke! The sparks from their battle had lit the cloth she'd brought in, and Lucilius furniture was now ablaze!

Helene's foe tore the lightsabre from her grasp and sent her flying back with a powerful kick. Before she could react, he used the force to topple one of the walls on her. She lay beneath, too stunned to move.

"Think on these things, Helene. You have slain a Jedi knight, and will have no place with them. What I offer is place of power, and abilities with the force that your Council has never dreamed. I leave the choice to you." And with that he was gone out the door, Helene's lightsabre still gripped in his glowing fist.