A/N: So like. After being dragged kicking and screaming into this fandom, I had no idea that Zadr was a controversial ship? Some people say it's pedophilia because they see Zim as an adult, but he has no confirmed canon age, and I just can't see him that way. But just to be on the safe side: THIS FIC CONTAINS ZADR. A lot of other stuff too, but also Zadr. They're around the same age, it's all strictly SFW, but if you're violently opposed to Zadr, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO BACK OUT.

...anyone still here? Okay, so, if you're not violently opposed to Zadr, even if you don't ship it, I really hope you'll stick around. There's way more to this story than just that one relationship. Plus it's my first Invader Zim fanfic, and I'd really love your feedback on it so that I can continue to improve.

The OCs in this story belong to myself, my friend Jordan, and my fiancee Rafe (neither of whom have AO3 accounts). Everybody is used with permission, except the canon characters, 'cause I really don't think Jhonen would approve of this lmao

Prologue

As Mala dropped through a shaft towards the underside of Irk, she felt a familiar combination of relief and trepidation. Relief because she was leaving the cutthroat world of Irken politics behind, if only for a little while; trepidation because of the deeply ingrained warning that she was not supposed to be here.

No grown Irken shall have contact with any smeet prior to their emergence from the larval phase.

There was a guard droned stationed at the bottom of the little-used elevator. It seemed to bristle as she stepped out in front of it, passing an information beam over her to interrogate her, then discovered from her PAK that she had special authorization from Tallest Miyuki to be here. It retreated with what she imagined was surprise.

"Don't worry," she murmured. "I won't be back for a while after this." As if it cared.

Access points to the reproductive and education facilities were so few and far between that every time she came here, she was pretty much forced to circumnavigate the entire area. She walked downhill, past the hatcheries, where smeets grew in tubes until it was time to decant them; past the upload chambers, where they were given their names, assignments, and the collective knowledge of all those who had come before them; and then into a seemingly endless corridor of doors placed at regular intervals, with an electronic sign beside each one that stated which particular group of young Irkens resided within. She entered the room labeled CRECHE-127AB without even glancing at its sign.

Inside the cavernous classroom, one hundred year-six smeets, all within one day of the same age, sat at individual desks, their heads encased in training visors as they worked their ways through countless war simulations.

127AB, like most creches, was destined for a lifetime of service in the Irken military. Most would end up as ordinary foot soldiers; a few would move on to become Elites, or possibly even Invaders; some might be shuffled into other roles, either because they showed flair in another field or, more likely, because they were being demoted for incompetence. But for now, they paid no attention to Mala, as was to be expected from well-functioning smeets. It served as a double layer of protection against familial bonds: mature Irkens were forbidden from making contact with children, and even if someone broke the rules and snuck down here, said children would have no instinct to interact with anything but their robotic creche-carers. Not a single child so much as glanced in her direction.

Except for one.

The very smallest member of the creche, sitting at the very last desk in the back of the room, had removed his visor almost before she'd finished walking through the door. His face lit up. "Mameen!" he exclaimed in a sort of loud whisper.

Mala smiled. "Zim."

He scrambled out of his seat at once, pausing only to shove his closest neighbor (second smallest in the creche) and hiss, "Skoodge! Mameen's here!" Then the two boys were stumbling over themselves to reach her, one fast and jerky, the other slow and plodding.

She obligingly knelt down to them, and Zim began to climb all over her. "Mameen, you were gone way too long this time!" he declared.

"It's nice to see you too," she chuckled. She came here as often as she could get away with, but being the immediate successor to the Tallest was an intense job, not to mention that she didn't want to draw undue attention by abusing her privileges too often.

Zim settled down on her knee. "You should just stay here forever."

"You know why I can't do that, Zim." Which didn't stop him from asking every single time she visited. Zim was an attention-starved child.

Skoodge, always the more perceptive of the two boys, observed, "Mameen, you're wearing different clothes today."

"Yes, that's right," she agreed. Her tunic was the same rusty orange color as always, but most of the additional equipment had been stripped from her ensemble, leaving her with just her gloves, boots, and PAK. "This is my Invader uniform."

Zim's antennae perked. "Invader?"

"I thought you didn't do that Invader stuff anymore," said Skoodge.

"Not usually." She toyed with the bead strung on her left antenna. "But we're shorthanded this year, and apparently even the trainees we do have aren't promising. So the Control Brains have asked me to tutor the new recruits, and possibly join the coming invasion if the need arises."

Skoodge nodded at once, but after taking a moment to process that, Zim scowled. "Are you saying that you have to go away again?!"

"For a while," Mala admitted. "I wanted to come and say goodbye before I left."

Zim leapt off of her knee. "This is stupid! They should just let me be an Invader. I could teach those trainees a thing or two!"

"Yes, well, you need to be of at least jute age to become an Invader." She glanced up, trying to see if his outburst had attracted the attention of his creche-mates, but the other smeets appeared to be oblivious. "But I'm sure that you'll be a fine Invader when you're older."

She tried to swallow down the guilt she felt at telling him that, because she wasn't actually sure of it at all.

Something was very much wrong with Zim, far beyond him being so much smaller than the rest of his creche. His since of individual identity was too strong, and yet he was also far too fixated on his interactions with others. He questioned the rules too often, and broke the rules even more often than that. He'd been synthesized from archived DNA, just like everyone else, but long-suppressed Irken instincts seemed to have surfaced in him somehow. When she first came down here, to Creche-127AB, he'd been the only one to notice her (although he'd almost immediately dragged Skoodge along with him) and right from the start, he had referred to her by that antiquated word, Mameen. It was exciting to see an Irken who was so out of the ordinary, but it was nerve-wracking, too. Irkens with a couple of quirks (like her) could survive and even thrive; Irkens who went against everything that the Empire stood for were invariably declared as defectives and permanently erased.

Actually, Zim probably should have been erased far earlier than his sixth year. He was only still around because Mala liked him, and because Tallest Miyuki, in turn, liked Mala. As long as he remained harmless, nobody was going to invoke the Tallest's displeasure over a smeet.

(The now-infamous long blackout that had occurred on the day of his birth had always been suspected to be his doing…but Mala had successfully campaigned to block the Control Brains from doing a subpoena of his PAK, so nobody could prove it for certain.)

Zim was pouting, and Mala scooped him up and squeezed him tightly. She knew that she shouldn't be encouraging his rebellious tendencies, but when she looked around at the Irken Empire, at what they were doing, what she was a part of…well, she couldn't help but think that the more Irkens with a nonconforming streak, the better.

"It's not fair," he complained, making no attempt to dislodge himself from her arms. "We barely get to see you even when you're here!"

"I know," she said. "And believe me, I wish that I could spend more time with you boys, but we all have things that we have to do. I have to get going to Planet Devastus; you two have to stay here and train."

"Bye, Mameen," said Skoodge, who looked slightly downcast but wasn't making a big production out of it like Zim. "Have a good trip."

"When will you be back?" demanded Zim.

She set him down lightly on the ground. "I'm honestly not sure. It will depend on whether or not I have to take part in the invasion. Oh, don't look at me like that – you know that you'll see me again! In the meantime, please be on your best behavior. Skoodge, keep up those excellent simulator marks! And Zim…"

He looked directly into her face, his round red eyes fixed on her aristocratic green ones. She tried to think of a way to tell him to stay rebellious, stay nonconforming, but even if there hadn't been electronic ears all over the place, that kind of thing was dangerous to say aloud. Any disquiet she felt had to be dealt with on the inside.

"Keep asking questions," she finally said. "All right?"

He blinked. "Of course! I, Zim, will ask shmillions of questions while you're gone!"

"Good."

Reluctantly, she straightened up. "I had better get going now. Goodbye, boys! Mameen loves you!"

"We love you too, Mameen!" they called in unison.

She offered them both one last smile. Hearing them say that always gave her the warm fuzzies – a feeling that she tried to hold on to as she prepared to face her serious work once more.

At the port atop the Tallest Tower, where only the Elitest of Elites were permitted to dock their ships, Mala strapped herself into her voot cruiser. Her instruments were up-to-date and ready to go; the ship's engine purred around her. She reached out to touch the comm screen. "Computer, open a connection to Tallest Miyuki."

Miyuki's face appeared almost at once, smiling her disarmingly gentle smile. "Mala! Have you taken off yet?"

"I'm about to. I'll check in with you once I land on Devastus."

"Of course, dear. Keep in touch – I'm always happy to hear from you. Now, you go and show those trainees what being an Irken Invader is really about! Make me proud!"

"Certainly, My Tallest." The two of them were close enough to be on a first-name basis, but it never hurt to observe the formalities on official channels. "I'll talk to you soon."

"And you'll see me even sooner, I hope."

"So do I."

Mala disconnected the call and initiated her ship's launch sequence. The computer was smart; it had learned enough from her that she hardly needed to do anything anymore. High Elites like herself always got the most advanced voots.

She had almost reached the edge of the atmosphere – her thoughts circling between the job ahead, her two unofficial children, and what she'd be working on after she returned – when the missile struck.

There was no warning – just a sudden punch of metal against metal, then the floor of the voot crumpling upwards. In half a second, she was pinned against the ceiling by an eruption of crushed metal, her pulse thumping in her throat, the engine audibly laboring; and then there was no sound but the whistling scream of the air as she plummeted downwards.

Mala struggled to eject herself through the windshield, but she couldn't unpin her arms from her sides. She thought frantically: This can't be happening. I have weapons detection systems and automatic shields. Why didn't I get an alert message? Why aren't any alarms sounding now? Has someone sabotaged my ship? But who could have possibly—?

And then: Whoever just attacked me could have set me up. Because that missile came from Irk.

She'd always known that being the immediate successor to the Tallest was a dangerous position, maybe even more trouble than it was worth. Now she was being plunged back into the cutthroat world of Irken politics in the most literal way possible.

Mala cursed whoever was responsible for shooting her down, cursed the whole Irken Empire for creating a society where this kind of thing could happen so easily, and most of all cursed herself for never being brave enough to do anything about it. If she got out of this – no, when she got out of this, she would never allow her life to end in such a dishonorable way – she needed to get serious about her vague ideas of reform. She had to create a safer place for her people…for her children.

I hope that Zim keeps asking questions.

That was her last complete thought before the booming crunch of impact, the world lurching upside down, and finally, silent darkness.