Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all other characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this version of the Mask belongs to New Line Cinemas; I'm just using them for this story

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, believe me

Harry Potter and the Mask of Loki

"Hypocrite!" Voldemort yelled at Mark as he stood up, glaring angrily at the green-headed man before him.

"Pardon?" Mark asked, tilting his head inquiringly to one side as he looked at his foe. "Tell me, how does that description make sense in this situation; when have I ever pretended to be something I'm not?"

"You accuse me of being a coward for depending on the Mask, and then you use it?" Voldemort yelled, gesturing wildly at his opponent. "I would certainly call that a hypocritical attitude!"

"See, that's where you're wrong, for the simple reason that I'm not as arrogant as you are," Mark answered, clicking his tongue briefly as he looked casually at his long-time foe. "You couldn't stand the idea that you might not be powerful enough to handle something on your own, so, at the first hint of the idea that you might not have been able to kill me without the Mask 'backing you up', you discarded it and resolved to beat me up without it. Me?"

Mark shrugged slightly as he looked at his foe. "I'm perfectly prepared to accept that I might not be tough enough to tackle the problem using only my natural abilities. Using this thing doesn't make me a hypocrite; it just means that I acknowledge my limitations and try to cope with them."

Before Voldemort could do anything else, Mark had lashed out once again at his foe, this time with a powerful kick to the head that sent his foe flying off to the side. As Voldemort desperately scrambled back to his feet, Mark hurried over towards his opponent and lashed with another rapid punch to the face. In desperation, Voldemort raised his fist to launch a punch that was clearly amateur at best, but Mark nonchalantly caught his wrist and launched another blow, sending Voldemort flying towards the hole in the wall he'd created earlier.

"Now that we've got that out of the way, are you prepared to give up without a fight?" Mark asked, casually dusting his hands as he walked towards the dazed form of his parents' murderer. "You may like to say that we've got a lot of things in common, but if there's a way I can end this without people ending up dead, I'm willing to take it."

"NEVER!" Voldemort roared, as he pulled out his wand and cast a wordless curse at Mark; juding by the twinges of pain Mark felt through his arms and legs, he assumed that Voldemort had attempted the Cruciatus Curse, but hadn't the power to really do anything to him.

"DIE!" Voldemort roared, as he launched another wordless curse that sent Mark flying backwards. "DIE!" he yelled again, as another curse sent Mark staggering away from him once more. "DIE!" he continued, forcing Mark even further from his opponent. "WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE?!"

"Because…" Mark growled, as he lunged back towards his opponent, grabbing Voldemort's right wrist and yanking it up as he glared contemptuously at his long-time foe, "the moment I die, you've won, and my mother's sacrifice was for nothing."

His eyes narrowed as he grabbed Voldemort's throat with his other hand, hauling the Dark Lord into the air as he stared at him.

"And I will never give you that satisfaction!" Mark roared, releasing Voldemort's wrist to launch another punch; if Voldemort had still possessed a human nose, Mark would have broken it.

Mark had just drawn back his fist to launch another punch- he was surprised to find that he actually enjoyed the simplicity of just hitting the bad guy for once- when he suddenly felt something strike him in the chest with a force that nearly rivalled a freight train in its intensity. Even as Mark vaguely registered that Voldemort must have hit him with a Banishing Charm of some kind- evidently wandless magic was one of his many skills right now- his feet had left the ground and he found himself hurtling back through the hole in the wall behind him.

Ah, crap, Mark muttered to himself as he began to fall. This is not going to go well…

On the other hand, he mused, as he reflexively extended one arm like a piece of elastic to grab the front of Voldemort's robe, if I'm going to fall from a great height, this guy is definitely coming down with me.

OK, so he could probably fly up before he hit anything dangerous, but where was the fun in that?

Besides… right now, after everything Voldemort had done to so many people over the course of his long reign of terror, he wanted to see Voldemort squirm before this little conflict between them was ended once and for all.

"Come on!" Lupin yelled back at his friends and former pupils over his shoulder as their small group hurried along the corridors towards the main hall. "We have to get Ginny out of here before the Death Eaters realise what's happening!"

"I still can't believe you let her run off like that!" Tonks added, looking critically over at Ron and Hermione. "We've got enough problems as it is, and you let the woman who may be the most valuable hostage the Death Eaters could want if they're dealing with Harry run away!"

"J-j-just l-like L-L-Lily, huh, R-R-Remus?" Wormtail put in from off to the side, smiling over slightly at his old friend. "S-she could n-n-never really be t-t-told wh-wh-what to d-d-do…."

Despite his own anger at what Wormtail had done to them in the past- to say nothing of his own remaining uncertainty about the rat animagus's motives in the present-, once again, Lupin couldn't help but smile slightly at the memories his words invoked. It was certainly true that Lily was never one to just be told what to do by anybody; the other Marauders had often suspected that James had initially been attracted to Lily mainly because of her seemingly 'unattainable' status, making her far more of a challenge than any girl James had dated prior to that point in his life.

Then, as they rounded another corner, leading them into one of the larger corridors that connected up to the main hall, Lupin was forced to dive rapidly backwards as somebody attempted to launch a powerful curse in his direction.

"Get back!" he yelled at the others, as he pulled out his wand and rapidly pressed himself up against the wall, followed by the others.

"Ah, it's the werewolf!" a voice yelled from around the corner, prompting shocked looks on the faces of all of the small 'strike force' as they looked at each other; they all knew that voice particularly well, after all that its owner had done to continue her demented obsession with serving Voldemort and furthering his genocidal agenda…

"Lestrange?" Hermione hissed in shock as she looked up at Lupin. "You're telling me that whackjob hasn't been captured yet?"

"Unfortunately, just because she's totally insane doesn't mean she isn't intelligent," Lupin growled, sounding almost unnervingly like the wolf he became for three nights of every month as he looked at the others. "I didn't have the time to get an exact look at the numbers we're dealing with, but what I saw suggested that there's about a dozen Death Eaters in this corridor, all of them ready and willing to kill anybody who goes out there…"

"Great," Hermione groaned, as she slumped against one wall; she vaguely registered Lestrange yelling to them- something about surrendering and receiving a less painful death- but she wasn't interested in taking any offer that psycho had to give them. "What else could go wrong? We're trapped by a bunch of Death Eaters, we can't get past them without being hit by whatever curse they come up with, they'll probably just follow us if we try to go back, and we're outnumbered about two-to-one with no idea whether we'd even manage to get off a spell if we tried to attack! We're definitely in trouble right now!"

"W-well…" Wormtail said, raising his silver hand as he looked uncertainly at the others, "I d-do have an idea that m-might h-h-help us get p-p-past them…"

"You?" Ron said, looking incredulously over at Wormtail. "You've got to be joking; you've got an idea that'll get us out of this mess?"

Wormtail chuckled slightly.

"W-well, you d-don't stay a Marauder unless y-y-you can c-c-come up with some d-d-decent p-p-pranks; th-this is just a more l-l-lethal one," he said, shooting a brief, nervous grin over at Lupin as he spoke. "Remus… c-c-can you put out the torch that's on the w-w-wall over there?"

"What; the one on the other side of the corridor?" Lupin said, looking over at the torch in confusion before looking back at his old friend. "What will that accomplish; there's still more torches down towards them! We can't just jump out at them when it gets dark-"

"But I can sneak past them in my rat form…" Wormtail replied, as he indicated the floor below them. "They w-w-won't think to l-look for a r-r-­rat, w-will they? I c-can s-s-sneak p-p-past them, cause a d-d-distraction, and t-t-then…"

He shrugged slightly as he indicated the rest of the team. "Well, it's a-a-all up to y-you then, really."

"And how can we be sure you won't just go back over to their side as soon as you get there?" Tonks asked, jerking her head towards the Death Eaters.

"Because they'd kill him for letting us out of our cells as soon as they realise he's the only one who could have done it," Ron stated grimly as he looked back over at Tonks. "Pettigrew here knows that he'll just get away with being sent to prison if he keeps helping us; he tries to side with the Death Eaters again, he'll definitely end up dead."

Lupin nodded in agreement as he looked back at the last other surviving marauder, a harsh glare in his eyes.

"Just remember one thing," he told the rat animagus before him. "If you do try and side with the Death Eaters, I shall ensure that, when I die trying to fight these Death Eaters, I shall devote all my energies to making sure you're the one I kill first. Clear?"

Wormtail could only nod.

"Good," Lupin said grimly. Turning to look at the wall opposite him at a point just around the corner, he aimed his wand at the just-visible torch- if he went out any further, he would run the risk of being attacked by the Death Eaters himself- before yelling out "Aguamenti!"

As soon as the brief light from his wand leapt out of the tip to extinguish the fire before him, Wormtail's body had shrunk into its rat form and he was scurrying around the corner, the thin pink tail that had given him his name vanishing around the stone corridor as he headed for the Death Eaters. For a moment, there was only silence as the small team held their breath and waited for something to happen, and then they heard brief thump, as though somebody had hit the floor, followed by yells of rage and the sounds of a struggle.

"GO!" Lupin yelled, the four of them almost instantaneously spinning around the corner to launch a series of rapid stunning hexes at their opponents, acting in an almost unspoken agreement; if they hit Wormtail by accident, it would at least be relatively easy to revive him from a simple stunner. In a matter of minutes, around eight of the twelve Death Eaters who had been there originally were lying stunned on the ground, with three of the others clutching injured arms or legs after getting close enough for their opponents to hit them with a more damaging curse.

Unfortunately, the one remaining unharmed Death Eater standing before them was Bellatrix Lestrange, who was currently holding Wormtail as a shield, glaring at the others as she held a sharp dagger up against his neck in a manner that made it clear that she could easily slit his throat before he even tried to get away.

"So, you thought this filthy traitor would serve as the 'ace' up your pathetic sleeve, werewolf?" Lestrange inquired, staring mockingly at Lupin as she studied the shaking form of Wormtail in her grasp. "An efficient little scheme, I grant you, but far from being anything near good enough to defeat us!"

"Let him go, Bellatrix," Lupin stated grimly as he aimed a wand at the woman before him. "You're trapped; there's no way out of this."

"No?" Bellatrix asked, laughing slightly as she studied the werewolf before her. "On the contrary, my good little dog, there is a way out of here, and I'm holding it; either let me go, or I kill this… thing I'm holding."

"And what makes you think we even care about him?" Ron interjected, glaring at Bellatrix as he tried to hold his wand steady while pointing it at the insane woman before them. "He's the whole reason your bloody boss is walking about these days; why would we want him to live?"

Bellatrix chuckled slightly at that as she continued to hold her knife up against Wormtail's throat.

"Simple," she said, a grin on her face that reminded Hermione unnervingly of Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the Joker in the original Batman movie. "You're weak, pathetic, light wizards who allow themselves to care about the people who try to help you without really believing in anything but saving their own lives; I, on the other hand, know that the only person you should really be concerned about in a battle (When the Dark Lord is not there, of course)… is yourself."

As much as her opponents hated to concede the notion that Bellatrix could ever make a valid point, they had to admit that she'd made one here; it may be regarded as a weakness, but their refusal to sacrifice random innocents (Even if the term wasn't exactly accurate in Wormtail's case) was the only thing separating them from their foes, and they refused to sacrifice it.

Right now, there was no way for them to take down Lestrange before she managed to kill

Then, before the four members of the Order of the Phoenix could even begin to lower their wands or come up with another plan, much to the surprise of all those present, Wormtail spoke.

"A-a-and y-y-you made a b-b-b-basic mi-mi-mistake…" he said, his voice somehow simultaneously sounding terrified and confident.

"Really?" Bellatrix asked as she looked at Wormtail with an amused smirk. "And what would that be, you pathetic little coward?"

"Y-y-you as-as-assume that I'd w-w-w-want to l-l-live in jail…" Wormtail stated, a grim expression on his face as he turned to look directly at Lupin…

Then, much to the shock of all concerned parties, Wormtail lunged forward against the knife, wincing suddenly as the blade made contact with his throat, sending blood flying through the air like a fine red mist as he collapsed to the ground, Lestrange's scream of rage and frustration filling the halls as she stared in shock at what Wormtail had just done…

Then, before she could come up with a new strategy, she suddenly felt multiple stunners strike her in the chest, and she was sent flying back into the wall behind her, unconscious.

"Peter!" Lupin yelled in shock, diving down to the ground to crouch beside the last remaining other Marauder, looking in shock at the vicious gash along Wormtail's throat. "But… but why?"

Wormtail couldn't answer his old friend's question- indeed, with his throat the way it was, it would have been impossible for him to say anything-, but, as he looked pathetically up at his old friend, his lips moved weakly, as though he was trying to say something.

I'm sorry… Hermione vaguely noted as his lips moved before her.

Then he slumped to the ground, the last vestiges of life gone.

Staring solemnly at the sight before them, Ron finally broke the silence as he stared in confusion at the body of the man he'd once believed was only a rat.

"Why… why'd he do that?" he said, looking in confusion at Lupin. "We'd not exactly given him a reason to die for us…"

Lupin shrugged.

"Who can say how his mind was working by the end?" he said dejectedly, as he reached up with one hand to close his old friend's eyes. "Maybe… in the end, he just wanted to do the right thing for once in his life over the last few years."

"Maybe…" Tonks mused, nodding slightly as she looked at the fallen traitor who'd just died for them.

She had to admit, Lupin's explanation was as good a one as any for what Wormtail had done…

Then the faint sound of footsteps was heard from down another corridor, and the small group were forced to reevaluate their priorities; right now, survival sounded like it was once again going to be the order of the day.

Oh, shit… Ron mused to himself, as he turned to look down the corridor in time to see a mass of Death Eaters heading for them. This is going to be ugly…

Still, as he glanced around and saw his assorted allies preparing to cast their first spells in the struggle, he knew one thing for certain.

No matter what happened in this fight, even if they did die fighting these assholes, Ron knew without saying that none of them would go down without a fight.

As he stared at the red-haired witch before him, her body tensed for combat as she pulled her wand and aimed it at him, Malfoy couldn't help himself.

He burst out laughing.

"You really think I'm frightened of you?" he said, staring incredulously at Ginny as she stood before him, her wand aimed and ready to cast a spell that would begin their duel. "You're a complete traitor to everything decent in the wizarding world, whereas I-"

"Reducto," Ginny stated grimly, aiming her wand at a point mere millimetres from Malfoy's foot; if she'd wanted to, the spell could have easily punched a hole in his foot, if it didn't actually sever the leg in question.

"Are you going to talk, or are you going to fight?" Ginny stated grimly as she raised her wand to point at Malfoy's face once again. "I'm giving you a chance to put up a decent fight- which I realise is far more than your side normally gives anybody- but if you don't stop bragging I'll just stun you now and leave it at that."

As Ginny finished speaking, Malfoy only took a moment to decide what he was going to do now; raising his wand, he launched a spell in Ginny's direction, only for the young red-haired witch to duck the spell and launch her own one in his direction. Malfoy attempted to duck to one side, but before he had even moved a few inches to one side the spell hit the side of his face and he found small bats flying out of his nose. Malfoy quickly raised his wand to cancel out the earlier spell, but as soon as the bats had faded Ginny had charged up towards him and punched him in the face, sending him staggering back once more as he clutched at his now-black eye.

"BITCH!" he roared, as he cast a wordless Reductor Curse in Ginny's direction; fortunately, his injured eye meant that his aim was off by a few feet and he only hit the wall behind her. "You'll PAY for that!"

"Yeah, I'm really scared of a man who hides behind his father's money to get out of every problem he's ever faced in his life…" Ginny retorted as she rolled off to the side, leaving Malfoy staggering around as he clutched at his aching eye; she may have decided to give him a fair chance in a fight, but nobody said that she couldn't' insult him a bit in the process. "Tell me, was that the main reason you always made such an ass of yourself in school? You felt free to constantly insult and belittle everybody you wanted all because you knew that Daddy would be there to bribe a few people in case you ever went just that little bit too far and ended up causing some actual damage?"

"Shut. UP!" Malfoy stated grimly, as he spun around to fire a spell at Ginny; even as he turned, however, Ginny had ducked into a nearby classroom, hurrying to the opposite end of the room and ducking to the ground underneath a desk as she studied the door.

"That's why you couldn't kill Dumbledore yourself in the end, wasn't it?" Ginny continued, smirking as she watched Malfoy charge into the classroom, his wand raised as he looked angrily around at his surroundings. "You'd have actually had to do something permanent to somebody… something that you knew full well no amount of money could undo for you… and it scared you. For the first time in your whole pathetic excuse of a life… you'd have to deal with the consequences of what you were doing."

"You know nothing about me, you filthy blood-traitor!" Malfoy roared, launching a spell at a desk on the opposite side of the room from where Ginny was currently hiding.

"Change the record, will you; that insult's just getting stupidly old!" Ginny retorted, taking advantage of Malfoy's momentary distraction to crawl under a different desk. "Face facts, Malfoy; you'll never be a good Death Eater- hell, you'll never even be a competent human being- because you don't have the nerve to take the chance that you might fail and have to cope with the consequences of what you've done. At heart, for all your brag and bluster, you're just an unimaginative, spoilt, pointlessly arrogant, ridiculously cocky… coward."

"STOP INSULTING YOUR SUPERIORS!" Malfoy practically screamed as he cast another spell, this one destroying a few desks rather than just the one he'd destroyed earlier.

"You're not my 'superior', Malfoy; you're just a brain-dead idiot who doesn't realise how ridiculous he sounds to everybody with half a brain in their heads," Ginny stated grimly as she continued to crawl as fast as she could through the desks around the room. "The sooner you accept that you're a total waste of space who would have been expelled from school ages ago without his father's money and the favouritism of 'certain teachers' to keep him out of trouble, the happier we'll all be…"

"SHUT UP!!!!" Malfoy screamed once again, aiming his wand to destroy even more nearby desks…

Only for Ginny to suddenly pop up behind him and lash out with a move she'd seen in one of those muggle movies Hermione had brought along to test her father's attempts to modify a television (She believed the attack was called the 'carrot chop' or something like that). As soon as the blow had made contact with the back of his neck, Malfoy collapsed to the ground, letting out a brief yell of pain as he clutched at the back of his head.

"Now then," Ginny continued, unable to stop a brief smile crossing her face as she pointed her wand at the back of her opponent's head, moving her foot to cover the wand that had fallen from Malfoy's hand after she'd made contact. "Care to give up now, or does this really have to get more unpleasant?"

For a moment, Ginny wasn't ashamed to admit that a part of her hoped that he'd take up the challenge and actually try and keep fighting anyway.

Then, after a momentary 'stand-off', Malfoy's shoulders slumped and he leant forward, placing his hands on the floor as he bowed his head.

"You win this round…" he muttered grimly, as Ginny, her wand still pointed at his neck, crouched down briefly to pick up his own and slip it into her pocket. "But this changes nothing; the Dark Lord will defeat Potter, and then you'll be lucky if I show any interest in having him spare your life. You don't get any favours just because you're a pure-blood, you know…"

"Malfoy, what did I tell you about changing the bloody channel and stopping being so repetitive all the time?" Ginny muttered, as she grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back to his feet, her wand still aimed at the back of his head; she would have tried a Body-Bind, but she didn't want to leave Malfoy where he could be discovered, and he was too heavy for her to carry for a prolonged period of time even if she used a spell.

"Besides," she added, a slight smile on her face as she forced Malfoy to walk out of the classroom door and back towards the great hall, "when it comes to Voldemort, Harry never really learned how to lose against that bastard."

Ginny just wished that she felt as confident about her boyfriend's chances of victory as she sounded. She had faith in Harry, of course, but even with the power of the Mask against Voldemort's long experience, it would still be a pretty close call no matter how she looked at it…

She just had to hope that Harry- or Mark, or whatever he wanted to call himself- knew enough about his abilities in the Mask to triumph over Voldemort's experience with just magic, no matter how close such a confrontation might be.

As soon as Mark had grabbed Voldemort's robe, he didn't hesitate; instantly, his arm retracted back to its normal length, dragging Voldemort towards him once again even as he launched a powerful punch at the face of the man before him. As the two of them began to roll down the cliff-face- which, fortunately, was relatively smooth compared to what it might have been. The occasional rock still scratched the two combatants as they fell down the cliff- Mark vaguely registered that it had begun to rain since he entered the castle, making it slightly harder to see Voldemort in the dark- but, amid the punches that the of them were currently exchanging- Voldemort being unable to pull out his wand, he had been forced to resort to just punching his adversary- the slight cuts barely registered…

Than the two of them brutally struck a small ledge- if Mark hadn't been wearing the mast, he had little doubt that he would have broken his back- and their descent halted, allowing Voldemort to scramble to his feet and pull out his wand as Mark casually got back up and took a quick assessment of their surroundings; a small ledge on the edge of the cliff, relatively solid without being overly thick, and large enough for the two men to fight it out without having anywhere to get away from the other guy.

In other words, it was small, private, and secluded, thus giving Mark the perfect opportunity to really let rip with his physical abilities without worrying too much about his friends getting caught in the crossfire; so long as he didn't use anything too powerful, he doubted he could have any effect on the castle itself.

Before Voldemort could launch a spell, Mark had lashed out at his foe with a powerful kick, barely even registering the slight pain in his leg as Voldemort ducked under the kick and he struck the wall with his foot. Attempting to take advantage of Mark's momentary 'distraction', Voldemort tried to hit Mark with a spell, but Mark simultaneously removed his foot and struck out at his opponent, kicking Voldemort in the arm and nearly causing him to lose his wand.

"Fight properly, damn you, Potter!" Voldemort roared, as he tried to raise his arm to cast another spell only for Mark to knock his arm away again.

"What, you mean fight like you?" Mark retorted, smiling casually at his opponent. "Well, that doesn't seem to be doing you much good; why should I try it?"

As Voldemort roared in frustration, actually trying to punch Mark as he did so, Mark, naturally, easily avoided the 'attack' by doing nothing more than ducking and stepping back a few feet while looking at the Dark Lord. "By the way, I really did prefer it when you called me 'Harry'; it was always nice to know that at least you always took me seriously enough to call me by my name when we were forced to fight it out in our previous encounters, rather than just treating me like I was barely worth the effort…"

"The only think I take seriously about you is the fact that you are a fool who is incapable of understanding anything about the world we live in!" Voldemort roared, as he lashed out at Mark with another punch that actually managed to graze his opponent's cheek, even if it didn't leave a long-term injury. "You cannot defeat what is meant to be! Kill me, and another will rise; it is the destiny of the wizarding world that it should be ruled by the pure!"

"Oh, get over yourself; practically nobody fucking cares about blood any more!" Mark retorted, as he launched another series of punches at Voldemort with each word, slowing himself down just enough to give Voldemort a chance to strike back without giving him much of an opportunity to do any real damage. "Pretty much all your followers are just there to get the chance to hurt people and feel like they're better than somebody rather getting constantly humiliated by people! Besides, you're hardly one to talk yourself; your father was a muggle and your mother was practically a squid who was constantly abused by her own family! Blood purity? If I'm not 'pure', you're so filthy not even a really good Scourgify could clean you up!"

"SHUT UP!" Voldemort roared, as he finally managed to raise his wand in time to cast a brief, wordless spell; judging by the green light, Mark guessed that it was Avade Kedavra, but he couldn't be sure, although it did leave one arm feeling numb where the spell grazed him.

"You see, that's what I'm talking about; you're stuck in a loop, unable to get past a few stupid, outdated ideas that just don't work any more," Mark said, looking with a broad grin at his nemesis before his expression became colder, grabbing the other man by the throat as he raised his fist to launch another punch. "Now then, care to give up before this has to get ugly?"

"NEVER!" Voldemort roared in rage. Before Mark could realise what Voldemort was doing, he felt a thin wooden rod in his side, just as Voldemort yelled out "REDUCTO!"

Mark barely had any time to react; tapping into reflexes that would have made most comic-book speedsters seem slow, he dived to the side, simultaneously grabbing Voldemort by the shoulders and hurling him into the cliff-face. The impact forced Voldemort's wand upwards just as the curse left the tip, sending multiple rocks flying up into the air before they began to hurtle down towards the combatants.

"Oh, shit…" Mark whispered as he looked up at the sight above the ledge. "This isn't good…"

He barely had any time to even transform into something else. Praying that his need to transform to utilise certain abilities was fundamentally more psychological that he believed, he raised his hands and generated a large blue circular force field, crouching down as he bit his lip and prayed that it would prove to be enough to deflect the worst of the rocks. As the first rocks struck the forcefield, he glanced up just in time to see Voldemort screaming in rage as the first rocks began to fall, raising his wand as though he as going to try and deflect the rocks with magic before they could actually hit him, but then the resulting deluge of dust that accompanied the rocks forced Mark to close his eyes to escape being blinded.

C'mon… c'mon… Mark muttered to himself, staring in frustration at the sight before him, the forcefield he'd so hastily erected constantly shaking whenever something made contact with it. He wasn't sure if it actually could break, given that he was trying to focus all his power on reinforcing it whenever it was hit by something, but he'd rather not risk it. Finish… finish…

Then, just as he was starting to get worried, the last rock fell past the small ledge, and the dust faded, leaving Mark with a sight in front of him that prompted a broad grin as he stood up.

There, almost directly in front of him, was Voldemort, now lying on the ground, one leg pinned underneath a particularly large boulder as he glared in rage and frustration at Mark as the young wizard stood nonchalantly before him, unmarked and unharmed from the recent 'attack'. Mark wasn't a medical expert, but judging by the size of that rock on Voldemort's leg, he strongly doubted that the 'Dark Lord' would be in any kind of position to be used for walking even if the rock hadn't been holding it down.

"Well well well…" Mark said, chuckling slightly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ridiculously large gun- so large that it would never have fit in any kind of pocket if he wasn't wearing the Mask- and aimed it at Voldemort's head nonchalantly. "Looks like the boot's on the other foot this time around…"

Then, as he stood over the fallen body of his foe, the gun in his hand pressed against Voldemort's forehead, Mark paused, his voice trailing off as he tilted his head to one side and looked in a reflective manner at his long-time adversary, as though he was thinking about something.

As Voldemort looked at him in confusion, Mark began to shift between various forms, ranging from a man clad in a simple black suit holding a long green blade, a man in a tattered red-and-blue fully-body costume with one fist drawn back as though about to strike, a man clad in battered armour with a sword aimed at the Dark Lord's throat, a figure in dark red leather holding a large stick that seemed ready to crush his foe's skull, a middle-aged man dressed in a traditional cowboy outfit aiming a gun at Voldemort's forehead, a man dressed in a bat-like costume with two small bat-like objects in his hand…

But, no matter what his appearance was right now, one thing remained the same; Mark was always carrying a weapon, and holding it in a position where he could easily end Voldemort's life with the slightest movement, but he wasn't actually using it to deliver the final blow.

After a moment's pause, during which time Mark remained dressed in the costume that Voldemort vaguely recognised from his time in the muggle world as some deluded fictional 'hero' known as 'Batman'- why so many of his muggle victims' children seemed to like the concept of a man dressing up as a giant bat Voldemort could never understand-, the green-headed man stood back, a cold expression in his eyes as he glared at Voldemort.

"Well?" Voldemort retorted, as he stared harshly at the man before him. "Aren't you going to finish it? Just kill me already!"

"No," Mark stated as he stared back at his foe.

Voldemort blinked in surprise.

"What?" he said, looking at the man standing before him as though he'd lost all sense.

"I said no," Mark repeated, folding his arms as he stared at the man before him. "It may be the 'practical' thing to do, but if I kill you now, when you can't even try to fight back against me… when you can't even reach a wand… when you can't even run away…"

He shook his head, a revolted expression on his face as he contemplated the mere idea of doing that. "How am I any different from you if I kill somebody who doesn't even have a chance at trying to prevent it?"

Despite the dire situation he was in, Voldemort then began to laugh.

"You fool…" he said, as he glared at what Harry Potter had become with a wild gleam in his eyes. "If you don't kill me now… my followers will come for me… you shall die before them… I shall kill your friends… I shall destroy all who dared to get to know you…"

Mark smirked.

"No, you're not," he said simply.

Voldemort blinked.

"Look at the cliff, Tom," Mark stated, indicating the area where the ledge they were currently standing on joined up to the main cliff-face.

Now that Voldemort looked at it, there was a large crack where the ledge joined the main rock…

His eyes widened in horror at the implications.

The ledge clearly wasn't all that thick, and hence wasn't that securely attached to the cliff; after the force that it had been subjected to when Voldemort and Mark initially crashed into it, it was nothing short of a miracle that the ledge had remained intact after all the blows that the two men had exchanged so far.

And, judging by the rate that the crack on the ledge was growing, the force it had been subjected to when all those rocks hit it meant that it was unlikely to hold on for much longer…

"I won't kill you," Mark stated, as he reached to his belt, raising a small, gun-like device above his head as he stared at the man who'd ruined his life long ago. "But, given the time frame we're facing right now, and the fact that it would take too long for me to lift that rock off you, I don't think there's a single rule in any book that states that I have to save you."

With that, he fired a grappling hook from the 'gun' in his hand, launching himself up into the air with a powerful kick from his feet…

The same kick, Voldemort noted with horror, serving as the last bit of pressure that was required to completely dislodge the small ledge from the edge of the cliff.

"NO!" he screamed as he began to fall towards the sea below him. As the rocks that had pinned his legs down came loose, Voldemort frantically scrambled purchase on the cliff face before him, but this close to the sea itself, coupled with the rocks that were still falling towards him, it was so difficult getting a grip that he might as well not have even bothered.

"NNNNNOOOOoooo….!" Voldemort screamed, a roar of defiance and outrage to the world that would allow him, the greatest wizard who had ever lived, to die in a simple fall like any common man…

Then, as he struck the rocks below, there was a loud snap as his neck broke, a faint gleam of black 'energy' burst from his arm, and, as he flew upwards, Mark suddenly found himself surrounded by a wave of dark energy that had the potential to make him lose his grip from shock if he hadn't been partially expecting it.

Huh, he thought to himself, as his cape absorbed some of the 'explosion' and used it to ride the rest of the way upwards, that was unexpected.

Then he 'sensed'- how exactly he managed it, he couldn't be sure, but he was prepared to bet that the Mask had something to do with it- the 'contents' of the magical 'wave', and smiled grimly as he 'outran' it, aided by both the grapple and the cape.

Unless he was much mistaken, it 'felt' like the Death Eaters were about to get a very unpleasant 'message' to alert them to Voldemort's death…