"My name is Terra, and I have done horrible things. I have sworn to serve a dark master. I have obeyed his every command and committed crimes in his name. I have betrayed and attacked everyone who used to be my friend. One-by-one I have destroyed the Teen Titans. And with no one left to stop me I have brought an entire city to its knees. My name is Terra. I have done horrible things... and I have absolutely no regrets..."

That is what you have been told about me. You have been told that I couldn't control my powers; that I was too ignorant to realize that Beast Boy never broke his promise to me; that I betrayed my only friends; and finally, that I don't remember any of it. But I'll tell you something that has been kept from you: I never forgot a thing.

Why did I get these powers? Why couldn't I control them? Why didn't I have a home? Why did I go to Slade? Why did I pretend I didn't remember a thing? All of these questions, and more, will be answered throughout this story of my life. To begin, we'd kinda have to go a little further back to before I was born. To tell my story, we would have to tell my hero's story: my mother's story.

My mother's name was Carrie Ann Markov. She was the daughter of two rich atheists: Annemarie Markov and Jonathan Markov. Their biggest concerns every day usually had to do with their next dinner or garden party, or which family was being absolutely disgraceful. Their favorite activity, though, was comparing my mother with every other girl they knew.

My mother was never perfect in my opinion. I thought she was human. But I always thought that she was beautiful. My mother had hazel, almond-shaped eyes, long blonde hair, was very skinny, and was 5'8". Her favorite color was ice blue, and most of her wardrobe consisted of clothes of that color.

When she turned sixteen, her parents bought her an ice blue hybrid car and told her she was going to have a coming out party. My mom never objected to all of the 'obnoxious rich-people parties' that her parents threw, or how she was told to be a debutante. No, she was never asked if she wanted to come or if she wanted to be a debutante; she was told to. But she didn't mind. Sometimes they were actually fun.

Her relationship with my grandparents was fairly good. In fact, she rarely ever fought with them. She did her homework every day, she came home by curfew, she got straight A's, and as far as her parents knew, she only had rich friends who were children of her parents' friends. That, however, wasn't true. She had all kinds of friends: popular friends, geeky friends, goth friends, friends of all races, and more. Actually, I think she was friends with her whole school! But her best friend of all time was Zach, and he was gay.

If my grandparents had ever heard that she had a best friend who was gay, she would be grounded. Yes, Carrie's parents were homophobes. She couldn't hate them for that. She always knew that they had their views, and she had hers. So, she figured that she and her parents had to have some conflict; and this was it…

That, and her love life.

At first, I never believed this, but later I discovered it was true: my grandparents had arranged for my mother to be married. In fact, they did this before she was born. Before her 'fiancé' was born, too. One of her mother's friends was pregnant at the same time my grandmother was, and they found out it would be a boy for her friend and a girl for her. So, they decided, as the two richest and refined families in town, if their children got married, they would be a power couple. That, and there wouldn't as much competition.

Carrie saw her fiancé at a few dinner parties; his name was Tom, and he seemed nice.

"So. You must be the guy I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. Nice to meet ya!" My mother said to him, sticking out her hand.

"And you must be the girl I'm getting married to." Tom said, shaking her hand. "Somehow its not supposed to be this simple..."

She laughed. "Yeah. I know what you mean. Whose parents set up a marriage for them before they were born?"

"Apparently ours. Look, you seem like a nice girl. But I've got a girlfr--"

"Lemme guess: You've got a girlfriend that your parents don't know about, and you'd much rather marry her than me? No sweat. I have a boyfriend myself. I'm sure we could be friends, but the whole, 'marriage' thing...it's just not right."

That boyfriend she was talking about was the world to her. His name was Max Smith, and they were in love. Max had, "Gorgeous black hair, and sweet, baby blue eyes...He was tall, strong, but not crazy, almost-creepy muscle-y strong. He was perfect..." According to my mom. He wasn't the smartest guy, but what he lacked for in grades he made up for with the acoustic guitar. For her sixteenth birthday, he wrote her a song. She loved it.

Of course, this was something that my grandparents new absolutely nothing about. They didn't know about Tom and Carrie's agreement not to get married. They didn't know that she had best friends that they would never approve of. In fact, they didn't even know how much they didn't really know their only daughter. But I knew her, better than anyone else. She was my mother, and she was my hero.