Quinn gulped heavily as she sat down and stared at the blank screen, trying to calm herself down. Last time she'd been on the air had been the disastrous interview with Mona, and she had a gut feeling that a real news network would be harder to deal with than just a talk show. But she tried to swallow that fear, sit up tall, and look like she was far more confident than she was. One breath. Two breaths. Three--

"Oh!"

The last breath left her in a sharp [i]whoosh,[/i] and taken aback, she felt that old panic rising. But somehow, miraculously, she held on to the end of the question. And by the time the newscaster got there...

The panic was gone.

Or, not [i]gone,[/i] not exactly. It was still very much there. She could still feel it bubbling inside of her, clawing at her stomach, reaching to find a way out. But somehow it felt so much less frightening, so much weaker. Toothless. 

And, looking at the camera, Quinn felt that same [i]conviction[/i] she'd felt just before the duel, the one that had changed the name from RS-4 to [i]Ablaze.[/i] That conviction to light up the world, to make sure everyone in it could rally under her light. And for the first time...she felt like she'd really [i]met[/i] that conviction. 

The panic and fear just couldn't make it past that wall. So this time when she spoke, her voice wasn't a charade like it had been on Mona's, but nor was it trembling and quavering like it so often seemed to. It was crackled with stress, filled with an unbreakable anxiety, and far beneath it lay hidden a deep, deep undercurrent of seething resentment. It wasn't a clean voice. It wasn't a neat voice.

But it was [i]her[/i] voice.

"[color=ffe63d]Won't deny it scares me. The way they just kind of show up, it reminds me of...[/color]" She swallowed, but took a deep breath and bulled on past the sudden flash of trepidation. "[color=ffe63d]Hovvi, you know? And then after the duel, everything just happened so fast. It's terrifying.[/color]" She took a long, slow breath, then set her jaw as she looked the newscaster in the digital eye. "[color=ffe63d]But I've got a duty. I have a job to do. And I know that Casoban doesn't like me, but...[/color]" She shook her head slowly, and oh-so-lightly closed her eye. "[color=ffe63d]Just because they don't like me doesn't mean we aren't allies, and it doesn't mean I'm not going to give it my all.[/color]" 

A broad smile came to her face, and her eye popped open. "[color=ffe63d]I'm a pilot because I want to [i]protect people.[/i] So that's what I'm gonna do.[/color]"