Prompt: "What does Jazz hide behind his visor? What if he were really half blind without it or really hiding who he really is?"

Based in season 2 of G1.

Summary: It was always years of planning – right from the moment he started. He may have gotten deeper then he planned, but he wasn't going to back down from his mission.

A/N: Units of time reference - /wiki/Units_of_time. Probably will be a oneshot or miniseries while I work on other things.

Warnings: Rated T for hinted mech/mech, violence and perhaps a little death.

Disclaimer: I own nothing – Transformers and all of its characters belongs to Hasbro.

Masquerade

By: SilverShadow140/Eroko

.com

Sunday, September-25-11

"My reflection is distorted and I cannot recognize my face."

-FictionJunction, "Akatsuki no Kuruma"

Always, always, always.

Everything was always too close – always too risky, but he'd always pull it off. They could ask the impossible and it would be done. But why? This question echoed in the head of the Autobot tactician like an illness, setting his processor to unease. Why though? Prowl only felt that deep unease when it was such a critical mission like now; and it wasn't as if the failure would affect the whole Autobot faction. With narrowed optics, he looked over his plan for the fifth time, the noise of the rec room like a gentle buzz in comparison to his thoughts.

It was only when he sent Jazz away that his CPU worked overtime. At first he had wondered if it was mild anxiety because of what had begun between the two of them; after all it was common knowledge that in the past few orns, they had started seeing each other, though they hadn't really amounted to much – mostly going to a few Earth events with each other and working slowly from there, but it made both of them happy… or Prowl at least, though the second in command was almost positive that Jazz also enjoyed their time together, even if it was scarce that they could afford the time while fighting the Decepticons. Even still, he had seen Ratchet about relationship stress and the medic had assured him that he would be fine. But even with reassurance, Prowl found himself at an unease.

Optics glancing around the room, the Datsun noticed the twins up to their usual pranks, though the room was somewhat tame at the moment. With the increase of Decepticon activity lately, most were on edge and awaiting the tidings that Jazz would be bringing. And why did that bother him so much? It was as if everything lately were riding on the information the Jazz could bring in. Sure usually Mirage would also be out there helping, along with Hound and Bumblebee, but they were stuck in med bay along with Powerglide and Skyfire.

An inward grimace almost slipped to his visible expression, but rather than letting it show and linger on the growing worry, Prowl got to his feet and began down the hall that led to the med bay to check on the status of the others. Sure, Ratchet wouldn't be too pleased, but it was his job as second in command to make sure things were running smoothly, even if he wanted to avoid the medic's rage (because it secretly scared him as much as it scared the others).

Entering the Med bay, the very first thing that greeted him was Ratchet yelling over at Preceptor to stop piddling around and to help the white and red mech move Hound to a different table. This event immediately made Prowl re-think his decision to visit and he promptly turned on his heel, leaving the raging head medic to his work. So with nothing better to do he opted to go check with Optimus and Teletraan I to see if they could find out any new information about the sudden Decepticon movements.

But there was something wrong – this much he could tell just from things he picked up here and there. Like how fidgety Red Alert seemed as he arrived just outside the command room. On a usual day, Red Alert was paranoid – Prowl knew this, but he seemed more fidgety, more… worried. With a slight turn of his head, he stopped by the security bot. "Red Alert, report." The black and white mech sounded strict, worried maybe, but he kept whatever suspicion he felt to himself as Red began blabbering.

"Jazz is back, but… it doesn't feel right. I know that he's one of us, but it's as if something bad happened. Either way, he said he needed to speak with Optimus a moment alone about the Decepticon threat bu—" As if answering both of their inner doubt, there was the sound of something breaking then a crash like something fell, making both bots jump for a moment.

But only a moment – then Prowl's CPU went into high gear, throwing orders at the startled red mech. "Go get Ironhide, Inferno and the twins, then come to the command center immediately. I'll investigate and radio if we need a medic. Go!" And with no other words, Red Alert turned and ran for the rec room, leaving Prowl to turn, bringing his gun out of subspace and leaning against the wall to peer around the corner and into the room.

But the sight was enough to make the Autobot stop in his tracks, optics blazing with disbelief. There stood Jazz, a long smirk across his face with Optimus Prime at his feet, a deep wound in his chest leaking energon. His spark ached at the sight, both because of the harsh injury of his leader and his new partner having done something so… traitorous.

Taking a moment to push air through his filters, he stepped out, the Special Operations bot hesitating at his sudden appearance, the smirk falling to a grimace. He pulled his own weapon out from subspace, and circled, Prowl standing his ground. He felt torn to pull the trigger and shoot Jazz, but at the same time the slight feelings there kept him from doing so.

What if there's a reason.

The thought ran through his processor, causing his vocaliser to blurt a single question. "Why?" The Porsche slowed his movements, a dark, almost sad smile across his face. "'Cause it's who I am, Prowler." And in his words there was truth – sincerity, but also malice and desolation. Like this was the path he had chosen; the path that Prowl had failed to see Jazz planning. But the Autobot traitor carried on, a bitter tone in his voice as running steps could be heard in the hallways approaching their location. "It's always been me Prowler – you just didn' notice. But that was the whole point of us y'know – so you wouldn't figure me out." He stopped his movements completely as Inferno, Ironhide and the twins arrived, all of them stopping in horror at the sight of Optimus being downed – and probably dying, but they couldn't do much at the moment – Jazz was still the one in control of the situation.

But rather than acting to escape or hold the Autobot leader hostage, he reached up to the red insignia and scratched away the top layer of paint, revealing the deep purple Decepticon symbol. "I got too into this though. Y'know Prowler, I really did—I... I just can't change this though." And a bitter-sweet smile crossed his facial plated, finally reaching up to his visor and pulling it off to discard it to the harsh orange floor of the Ark. Whereas what had first been thought to be blue optics were actually a deep burning crimson. "It was fun while it lasted Prowler." And with an inward horror, Jazz finally made his move – but not one to shoot the awestruck autobots, but one to transform to his alt mode and screech towards the crowd that had accumulated.

Prowl wanted to try to stop his partner – he really did, but could he? No, probably not – so he rushed to Optimus, dodging to the side as the Porsche approached him at top speed, leaving the others to attempt to catch Jazz while he attempted to give his leader mild first aid, barking an order at Ratchet through his comm. There was a ruckus behind him as Ironhide yelled at Sunstreaker to attempt to catch the fleeing traitor, and a few shots from their weapons. But the tactician began blocking those noises out; his spark wrenched with both anger and sorrow when he thought of the other mech.

And again there were footsteps, and more shouts as Ratchet came barreling into the room with Wheeljack and Perceptor, going to Optimus' side, relieving Prowl from the truck's side so they could attend to the injury. Turning, Prowl faced Ironhide who stalked towards him, looking more than slightly mad, his expression twisted in a deep grimace. "You gonna tell me what happened. No leavin' nothin' out." The red van demanded this harshly, evidently so mad as to forget his rank, but Prowl would excuse the mistake considering the circumstance.

"I… was fooled." The black and white was a little hesitant, considering that it had been someone so close to him to have betrayed them, but what else could he say? That he had seen this coming? That was too far from the truth. But watching Ironhide's expression told Prowl that the bot wasn't satisfied with just that – he went to bark more when Ratchet cut the red van off sharply. "Stop your barking and give me a hand here, Ironhide. Prime will be alright given enough time, but I need to move him, stat."

And with a flurry of movement and orders, everyone was moving around, helping the medic move their leader out to the med bay, and leaving Prowl standing there with thoughts flying through his CPU. But there was only one that stood out from the other ones.

Why?