Nico Minoru

Nico Minoru is a character from the Marvel comics.

The daughter of Robert & Tina Minoru who is the unofficial leader of the Runaways. She posseses the Staf of One, a mystical staff which can grand any whish, but only once.

Personality
Nico's role as the defacto leader of the Runaways usually means that she is frequently charged with making the hard decisions. Because of this Nico has had to mature the fastest in comparison to her friends, but she still maintains a positive outlook on life and looks to her friends as her family, so she also is the maternal figure of the group. But because Nico guards her friends so closely, she takes a loss much worse than they do, such as when she expressed survivor's guilt over Gert's death. Nico also shows quick thinking and ingenuity when using her spells.

Abilities
She possesses the Staff of One, a mystical artifact that allows her to cast amazing spells. However, a specific spell effect or manifestation can only be invoked once. Attempting to evoke the same effect results in random, often useless, effects. Being untrained in magic, Nico must verbalize the desired effect (directly or indirectly) using normal language. Nico mentioned wanting to expand her vocabulary to increase her versatility with the Staff. The potential power of the Staff is such that it could make even Dormammu afraid (according to Nico's parents), which implies that Nico is only scratching the surface of what the Staff is truly capable of.

Nico must shed her own blood, in ways such as cutting herself, in order to manifest the Staff of One, which emerges from her chest after invoking the words "When blood is shed, let the Staff of One emerge." Once she forced Old Lace to bite her in order to conjure up the Staff. When Nico has her period, she does not have to cut herself. The Staff Of One is reabsorbed into Nico's body after prolonged use.

She has occasionally used minor magic, such as conjuring a small image, without using the staff.

After the Runaway's trip to 1907 New York, Nico's Staff of One transformed in appearance to resemble the Witchbreaker's Staff. It is now more powerful than it's original form. Also, after the Witchbreaker subjected her to a great amount of pain, Nico can now cast some spells without the staff in her possession.

After being resurrected by the Staff of One, it rebuild a new arm for Nico, that looked like a gauntlet. It seems that Nico can cast spells with her new arm without the Staff of One.

List of Spells Cast
Below is a list of spell that Nico (and in some very rare cases, others) have cast using the Staff of One. By definition, these spells are the spells that Nico can no longer cast, seeing as she cannot use a spell twice.
 * 1) "Freeze." Magically froze Gertrude Yorkes' mother for a short period of time.
 * 2) "Freeze." Due to this spell already having been used, the Staff of One randomly summoned pelicans.
 * 3) "Smoke." Produced a thick cloud of black smoke to cover the Runaways' escape.
 * 4) "Away." Teleported Nico away from Alex Wilder.
 * 5) "Mud." Summoned a blob of mud that flew right at Karolina Dean.
 * 6) "Burst!" Caused two spray-paint cans to explode.
 * 7) "Rock and roll." Generated a tremor that resulted in the Hostel caving in on the Runaways and LAPD officers.
 * 8) "Waterproof!" Summons a impervious bubble for the team to travel underwater in.
 * 9) "Float on." Levitated Chase Stein's powerless parents up to the roof and kept them there for a while.
 * 10) (Off-panel). Alex Wilder used the Staff of One to bind Karolina Dean's parents with chains made of the very metal that cancels out their powers.
 * 11) "Dance!" (Cast by Alex Wilder) Reanimates a frozen Nico.
 * 12) "Bondage." (Cast by Alex Wilder) Ties Karolina up with chains of metal that nullify her powers (this indicates that there may in fact be a way for the Staff of One to overcome it's one-time-per-spell limitation).
 * 13) "Hands off!" Caused the Fistigons gauntlets that Alex Wilder had stolen to blow up.
 * 14) (Off-panel). Nico unsuccessfully tried to resurrect Alex Wilder
 * 15) (Off-panel). Uses a fumigation spell to prevail against an insect-based enemy.
 * 16) (Off-panel). Turns Chase Stein into a fish.
 * 17) (Off-panel). Ironically uses a Reduction Incantation to make Mole Man even smaller.
 * 18) "Deconstruct." Caused a member of the Wrecking Crew to simply fall apart into several pieces, temporarily.
 * 19) "Flashback." Allowed Nico to view the last living memories of the Gertrude Yorkes of the future.
 * 20) "Rockstars! Fired an energy blast at Victor Mancha.
 * 21) "You suck." Caused Turbo's wrist turbines to reverse, causing a vacuum around her.
 * 22) "Insulation!" Negates Victor Mancha's electromagnetic powers for a while.
 * 23) (Off-panel). Turned the entire team, except for Victor Mancha, invisible.
 * 24) "Shine on, you crazy diamond." Encases Ultron in a solid block of diamond.
 * 25) "Fumigation!" Cast for the second time, the spell has the unpredicted consequence of teleporting Nico and Karolina into a desert.
 * 26) "Acid rain!" Summons a cloud that produced acid rain to cause a few security daemons to melt.
 * 27) "Old Lace to Old Yeller!" Turns Old Lace, the team dinosaur, into a small dog, temporarily.
 * 28) "Hellfire!" Fires jets of hellfire at Spider-Man.
 * 29) "Dreamtime!" Causes Spider-Man to instantly fall asleep.
 * 30) (Off-panel). Summoned a flying carpet to transport the team across New York City.
 * 31) "Sunburst!" Fires a burst of solar energy at a villain.
 * 32) "Detox!" (Cast by Chase Stein) Causes a villain empowered by MGH to vomit the drug he had ingested and lose his powers.
 * 33) "Get to work!" Turns Chase's list of things to do when he turns 18 into a wrench.
 * 34) "Revelations!" Undoes the illusion cast by Geoffrey Wilder to make himself look like his son.
 * 35) "Shut up!" Blasts Chase away in a swirl of energy (it is unknown if Chase retained his ability to speak after this).
 * 36) (Off-panel). Casts a muzzle spell on Old Lace after the dinosaur attacked her.
 * 37) "Pixies, find the leak!" Successfully summons a dozen pixies to show Nico how the new Pride has been keeping tabs on them.
 * 38) "Forget." Erased Geoffrey Wilder's memory of ever coming to the future and sends him back to the 80's, where he was summoned from.
 * 39) "Caffeine injection!" Gives an exhausted Molly Hayes a sudden excess of energy to keep her fighting against a gigantic monster.
 * 40) "Now here comes the sweet talk." Gives Xavin the voice of the monster's late wife to go along with his shapeshifting into her, convincing the beast to stop destroying buildings.
 * 41) (Off-panel). Summons a magical cage of energy to trap the Silver Bullet Gang inside it.
 * 42) "Be quiet." (Cast by Chase Stein) Makes Nico unable to speak louder than a whisper.
 * 43) "Yeah, pretty soon I'll just be a bad dream." (Cast by Chase Stein) Causes Nico Minoru to suddenly fall asleep.
 * 44) "Get Lost" Temporarily blinded Kate Bishop.
 * 45) "Chill out." Causes an Artic atmosphere which halts the fighting between the Young Avengers and Runaways.
 * 46) "Wake up" A spell used to wake up the other members of the teams, who were knocked out by Noh-Varr.
 * 47) "Prodigium Effodio" 'Excavating monster' a red light in the shape of a monster that got the heroes into the Cube through the floor.
 * 48) "Going Down" Phasing through the floor of a building to escape the Punisher--Molly calls it 'Shadowcatting'.
 * 49) "Crash" Used to knock out ninjas.
 * 50) (Off -panel) healing spell Nico used to heal herself.
 * 51) (Off -panel) Nico creates costumes for them to wear in1907.
 * 52) (Off- panel) fire controlling spell, to help the effort of rescue of the factory fire.
 * 53) "Open Sesame" used to open the bank vault.
 * 54) (Off-panel) --Witchbreaker's staff-- a Flight spell
 * 55) (Off-panel) --Witchbreaker's staff-- a spell which caused water to flow through the streets to extinguish the fires and ,temporaily, the fighting.
 * 56) "Vegan" --Witchbreaker's staff-- Stops Maneater.
 * 57) "The show must go on." --Witchbreaker's staff--Neutralizing the Yorkes ,and making them unable of changing future events such as; Gert's death ,and their own.
 * 58) "Pop" After Xavin holds the Runaways in forcefield bubbles, Nico uses this spell to explode them before the Skrulls invade
 * 59) "Stone Cold" - This was used in "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" so it's not canon, but the spell froze a member of the Wrecking Crew.
 * 60) "Clot" - This was used in "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" so it's not canon, but the spell attempted to stop Chase's bleeding
 * 61) "Canopener" - This was used in "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" so it's not canon, but the spell opened the Iron Lad armor.
 * 62) "Rubber Soul" - This was used in "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" so it's not canon, but the spell bounced Victorious' energy back to himself.
 * 63) "Applause" - This was used in "What if the Runaways became the Young Avengers?" so it's not canon, but two large red hands clapped themselves around Victorious.
 * 64) "Scatter" Nico's infamous spell that was meant to scatter the villainous Majesdanians over Earth, but it also emotionally scattered the Runaways.
 * 65) "Ocean View" After the Majesdanians break the Runaways' new kitchen, Nico uses this spell to repair it.
 * 66) "Xavin! Here! Now!" Nico uses this spell to magically pull Xavin through the air, pronto.
 * 67) "Wings" Gives Nico brilliantly large wings to fly
 * 68) "Suck eggs, skunkhead" Nico used this spell to shoot out eggs at a Majesdanian's face with the force of bullets
 * 69) "Balloons" Nico used this spell to magically attach air balloons to Cadie McDonnogh's falling helicopter
 * 70) "Zombie Not" Nico's spell attempted to turn plastic-surgery zombies normal, although since she can't "reverse magic", it causes them to form into one large zombie. It's later revealed the reason is because her magic took control of itself; it thought she said "zombie knot".
 * 71) "Oily" Nico's spell to break apart the zombies backfires again and spills oil through the streets of Los Angeles.
 * 72) "Cocoon" Wraps up Val Rhymin once and for all in a cocoon.
 * 73) "Wardrobe Malfunction" Nico causes Marie robe to turn against her
 * 74) "Deflector Shield" Reflecting magic lightning blast back towards Marie

Trivia

 * Nico is sixteen years old during the events of Runaways.
 * Since it's later established in Runaways Vol 5 #1 that two years passed since Gert's death, it entails that Nico is eighteen in the latest volume.
 * Nico and her family are of Japanese descent.
 * Nico was raised in the Christian faith, attended church every Sunday, and was even an altar girl.
 * She says she had My Little Ponies in kindergarten and that Gert hid them in the woods.
 * Nico played the tuba in marching band.
 * Nico is bisexual and after finally acting on her feelings is currently dating Karolina Dean.
 * Nico is a member of the Forums social media network.