"Huh. Shiny."

...Now that she thinks about it, the False Sage seemed like he wanted to do some good in the world, too. He said he wanted to "assist humanity's rise to enlightenment", and while he obviously also likes doing horrible things to people, maybe... maybe that's just one of the ways he's broken. Maybe there's a fragment of a good person, somewhere, underneath everything else. And... maybe, with a younger, healthier body and mind, maybe that fragment will grow into something more.

...Probably that's just wishful thinking. But... she hopes it isn't. She hopes this helps.

She pushes that hope, along with her others, out through the ring and towards the old man in front of her.

All Will Be Well. 

Blue Light scans across The False Sage, identifying the myriad places where disease or misuse or the relentless hammer of time have left his body worse for the wear, and fixing them.

(It is, as Musoka warned, a much slower process than it was in the hospital; she's conflicted about this, in a way she wasn't there, and her emotions, tainted with fear and anger and sorrow, are far less capable of powering the ring.)

Several minutes pass. The changes are gradual, at first, but as the soft beams of light play over his body he can feel himself getting younger, healthier, stronger, more alive then he's felt in a long, long time.

...And then Musoka sags, dropping her arms, the blue glow all around them dissipating. "Okay, done. That was... about as hard as I expected it to be, honestly."

"Well, I feel much better! Pleasure doing business with you."

And then he's gone.

Well okay, bye then, she doesn't say to the empty room.

And then she's back. Specifically, she's standing just inside the doorway of the AAS building, the police station has been largely cordoned off with emergency tape, the wounded and dead and unconscious (mostly those last) people are all gone, and Minerva is standing around in the street surveying things.

(Actual Minerva, made of metal and everything.)

A second later quite a lot of money appears right behind her, piling up in the AAS's entrance hall. It appears to be mostly stacks of tied-together twenty-dollar bills, but a good deal of it is smaller currency.

It's just too much. She drops to the ground, gracelessly, and curls up behind her giant mountain of cash, shaking.

And that is when Musoka gets a robot hug.

Assuming she wants one.

She does, yes. 

She tries to get out an explanation, between the sobs, "M-M-Minerva, I'm s-so s-s-s-sorry, I de-aged h-him, I d-didn't know w-what else to do. H-he said he was going to d-d-destroy Beijing and Florance if I d-didn't, I-"

She's crying too hard to talk, now. (Hopefully Minerva's bodies are tearproof)

Minerva's bodies are proof against a lot.

"It's all right." And Minerva can pat her on the back and provide useful being-someone-to-cry-on and try to figure out how to phrase why if Musoka asks in a way that isn't too vengeful-sounding.

She's... just going to keep crying and clinging, as terrified teenagers are wont to do. 

She's not the only one here, though.

Are we expecting additional hostilities anytime soon? She's... in no shape to fight, really.

...Some of that is my fault. She feels... betrayed, by my choice to conceal things from her.

Three percent chance of a significant attack in the next hour, fourteen percent in the next twenty-four hours, only two percentage points of such plans I can deal with without assistance. Most kidnappers do not have plans ready to implement on less than forty-eight hours' notice and the two who do have already made their attempts. And the Titanium Tyrant, who could improvise a third, is busy.

Aaaand then there's the hard question. Inevitably. Minerva can see how this hope will break, like all the rest, having saved a few lives before the collapse of what might change the world. As always happens.

I can't tell you if you did the right thing or not, or how to fix it; I have not mended my own failures well enough to tell you how to help yours. All I can say is that you - both of you - have done good, and will continue to do good, together or, if worst comes to worst, separately. Right now, though, you have time to rest.

Alright. And... thank you.

She... has a lot of work ahead of her, trust to rebuild and training to figure out, but... she has faith that things will be okay.

After a while, she's recovered enough to tell Minerva a more comprehensive account of what happened, though she hasn't stopped clinging. (She omits the time she spent crying and raging at Mom 2; it doesn't seem useful or relevant, and it's embarrassing.)

"...I wasn't really sure if he would actually pay me? I just thought that if it's known that I'm willing to accept money for de-aging people then they'd have less reason to try and kidnap me... ...it didn't occur to me until afterwards that he'd probably steal the money, so now I have 3 million stolen dollars and no idea who to even return it to." (She looks and sounds very dejected about this state of affairs). 

 "...and I don't need 3 million dollars, I just..." (she hiccups) "I just wanted to put it towards fixing-" she waves her hands at all the damage around them ", and to give some to the families of people killed by those mercenaries."

"Don't worry," she says. "You were being very reasonable. You can make plenty of money so you can do things like that just by healing and de-aging people legally, and we know who he took it from," it's not as if the False Sage is very subtle. "But it's important to understand, Musoka: Those weren't mercenaries. Those were Livia's Perfetti." People who are not Idealists cannot hit superheroes moving faster than the speed of sound and nobody but Livia has huge numbers of Idealist-quality troops with outdated weapons. "Livia had her troops here here because she knew she would eventually need to do something like this, and so this would have happened some day. And very many more people would have died if you weren't here to heal them."

--somehow, hearing that this was a good outcome hurts more. She nods, trying and failing to hold back more tears.

At this point, however, she's too tired to cry for long. ...And also to stay upright easily; she wobbles, then catches herself.

"...is there somewhere I can go to sleep? Probably my hotel room isn't safe anymore, but... I'm exhausted..."