Nico Minoru/Sister Grimm

Subject Facts

Full Name: Nico Minoru
Codename: Sister Grimm/Gloom
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Archetype: Super Hero
Aliases: N/A
Marital Status: Single
Affiliation: Runaways, Avengers Academy, A-Force (all formerly)

Subject Attributes

Superhuman Abilities:
Blood Magic: Even without the Staff Of One, Nico Minoru is possessed of magical potential. While her staff remains her main spell casting focus, since encountering the Witchbreaker, Sister Grimm has shown herself able to cast smaller, less effective spells without it. She has shown herself able to levitate a few feet from the ground, lift and move small objects with her mind, and create small sensory effects.

Standard Abilities:
Leader: Despite suffering bouts of crippling self-doubt, Nico is a natural born leader. She has had experience working with and taking ownership of numerous teams, and has been counted as an individual reliable enough to work with much more experienced heroes, seen as their equal.

Musician: Nico was a tuba player in a marching band, and is able to read and transcribe music.

Linguist: In order to aid her spellcasting, Nico has learned a wide number of 'common' words and phrases in numerous other languages. This allows her to cast important spells on more than one occasion - so long as the wording is different, be it in another language or a slightly altered name, the Staff of One seems not to react in its often undesirable and unpredictable manner.

Widely Read: Nico is a widely read individual and has done a great deal of study into the occult and folklore. She is also well-versed in the Bible, having been raised a Christian and, as a youngster, held the position of an altar girl.

Paraphernalia:
The Staff of One: The Staff of One is an ancient, magical item that has bound itself to Nico. She can call the Staff forth by shedding blood (be it through cutting herself, menstruating or being wounded) and reciting the words; "When blood is shed, let the Staff of One emerge!" The Staff emerges from Nico's chest, passing through flesh, bone and clothing without incident. In order to use it to cast spells, Nico must invoke painful memories, think of the effect she wishes to create, and then 'name' the spell. Due to the nature of its spell-casting, the Staff of One has no standard spells - reciting the exact same spell twice can actually have undesirable and unpredictable effects. The spells Nico can manifest with the Staff are capable of affecting the elements, time, matter, energy, light, biological and mental processes and transport herself, allies and other creatures between dimensions. Indeed, it is able to achieve almost any effect Nico can imagine, bar raising the dead. Once the Staff has expended a certain amount of power, it vanishes back inside Nico. The Staff of One is also capable of defending itself - should it be touched by someone who isn't Nico, it reacts and defends itself in an explosive and violent manner.

Witch Arm: Nico lost her arm during the events of 'Avengers Arena.' Close to death and unable to stem the bleeding, the Staff of One saved and revived Nico, empowered by the extent of her suffering. It rebuilt her arm as a dark, magical gauntlet, with a mauve jewel embedded in the back of her palm. Since it's creation, friends have referred to it as 'The Witch Arm', and it has seemingly increased Nico's magical ability - using the Staff of One or otherwise. Over time, the Witch Arm has changed its appearance, now looking like the arm she lost, no longer black and bejewelled.

Subject Weaknesses:
Mortal: Nico Minoru is mortal, and thus suffers from all the setbacks ad weaknesses that entails.

Untapped potential: Despite being possessed of magical potential. Nico has gone largely untrained. Other than studying for a brief period of time with the Witchbreaker, she has had no formal training in the magical arts and is largely self-taught. As such, she can lack the arcane finesse of more well-tutored individuals.

Self-doubt: Nico has always suffered from uncertainty and self-doubt. She frequently blames herself for the mistakes made by others and allows past mistakes to cloud her gut instincts - which aren't always that accurate anyway. These emotions can interfere quite heavily with her decision-making skills, causing her to over-think or succumb to inaction.

Morose: The Staff of One requires a great deal of physical and emotional suffering to utilise correctly. While taught by the Witchbreaker how to shoulder the staff's burden, Nico spends an incredible amount of time having to focus on regrets, guilt, anxieties and pain, recalling those thoughts in order to cast spells. Her mental state, as such, can be impacted negatively, to varying degrees.

One Use: As its name suggests, The Staff of One is capable of casting a spell once. Repeating it word-for-word and focusing on the same thought or feeling can cause undesirable and unpredictable effects. These effects can vary from useless, to unhelpful, to dangerous.

Recall: The longer Nico uses the Staff of One, the more spells she casts using it. Recalling what spells she's used previously, especially in a heated or tense moment, can be incredibly taxing, and she has on more than one occasion inadvertently 'recast' a hex, to find herself met with very different results.

Subject History

Every year, once a year, Nico Minoru's parents joined five other couples at a 'charity event' - a tradition that seemed to go back to even before Nico was born. One year, shortly turning sixteen, Minoru and the gathered couples' other children decided to spy upon their parents, intrigued to see what the charity event entailed. Nico was shocked to find her father speaking a strange enchantment, and after witnessing the murder of an innocent girl, Nico led the other children in fleeing their parents - who were, in fact, a group of villains known as 'The Pride.'

The children became a collective known as The Runaways, though they reencountered their parents on numerous occasions. It was during one of these meetings that Nico discovered the 'Staff of One' , her mother explaining she came from a long line of dark wizards. Attempting to injure her daughter with the staff, Nico's body instead 'absorbed' the item. She discovered she bore the same powers as her parents soon after, as when cut by Dale Yorkes, the Staff emerged from her body and allowed her to cast the spell 'Freeze' - pinning the Yorkes parents in place. While the Staff remained a mystery to her for the most part, she quickly learned she was incapable of casting the same spell twice, and had to be bleeding in order to summon her stave.

Nico took the name Sister Grimm in order to distance herself from her parents, and initially struggled in the weeks following their running away. When framed for the murder of a girl, the Pride parents desperate to have their children surrender and return to them, Nico refused and became a fugitive. Despite being confronted by Cloak and Dagger, and a vampire named Topher, the Runaways were able to overcome the odds stacked against them and defeat their parents - and their former leader, Alex Wilder, who had been helping the Pride all along. In his stead, Nico was elected as the group's leader, though it was a short lived tenure as they disbanded soon after - unable to clear their names with the Pride gone and unwilling to testify to the children's' innocence.

Following their early dissolution, Nico was sent to live at Father Flanagan's Home for Unwanted Goth Kids. There, she met Marie Laveu, an old enemy of her parents. Laveau sought revenge upon them for stealing the Black Mirror, one of the corner stones of creation. After explaining she needed Nico's blood in order to do so, Nico offered it up, summoning the Staff of One and prevailing over Laveau in battle, taking the mirror for herself. She used it to attempt to resurrect Alex Wilder, who had perished in their conflict with the Pride. It failed, however, the mirror shattered. Soon after, she was informed of the Runaways' reformation, and Nico took her place as their leader once again, hoping to clear their names.

In the months that followed, they were warned of a future threat named Victor Mancha. Nico and the Runaways found Victor and abducted him in order to question him. After his mother was murdered and Ultron, the boy's father, was destroyed, Nico invited him to become a member of the reformed team, much to the anger of other members of the Runaways - especially Chase. It was shortly after an argument between the two that Karolina Dean attempted to kiss Nico, revealing she was a lesbian and that she had feelings for Minoru - something that, at the time, Nico didn't reciprocate, instead having feelings for Victor. The group encountered and defeated the Gibborim, were able to elude Iron Man and SHIELD, and encountered a Skrull named Xavin, who would eventually join them.

After escaping the authorities, the Runaways headed to New York, where Nico made a deal with the Kingpin. In a strange turn of events, the Runaways ended up in 1907, where Nico was kidnapped and brought to a woman known only as the Witchbreaker. She claimed she was Nico's great grandmother, and stated that she wished to tutor Nico in how to better withstand pain, and thus wield her brand of magic more proficiently. The old woman wielded a staff similar to Nico's own. When Minoru rejoined the Runaways, though it remains unclear of how she escaped, she seemed much more magically proficient. Unfortunately, during her absence, Victor had grown fond of another, causing Nico to end their relationship before they returned to the present along with Klara Prast, an individual they had saved during their time in the past.

During the global invasion of shape-shifting Skrulls, Nico and the other Runaways remained in New York, hoping that hiding in plain sight was enough to keep the authorities still pursuing them off their backs. Thinking of moving back to Los Angeles, not wishing to stay in one place for two long, the group were stopped when an armada of Skrull ships attacked New York. The Runaways joined forces with the Young Avengers, and fought to protect the people of Earth from the invaders.

Following the invasion, the group re-located to LA, and had to contend with a band of invading Majesdanians (who wished to reclaim Karolina - Xavin took her place, shape shifting into her beloved betrothed in order to let her remain among her friends), a horde of zombies, which Nico accidentally turned into a singular, giant zombie, and the Staff of One revealing that it could protect itself. Nico dedicated herself to trying to provide normalcy for the team she led, trying to enrol Molly in Xavier's San Francisco campus and organise a team prom. Both attempts backfired, the latter leading to an attack on the Runaways' base of operations. Though most of the team were unharmed, Old Lace was killed, causing great resentment in Chase, though Nico stood by her friend - refusing help from Hunter Stein, Chase's supposedly dead uncle, for fear of alienating him further from the team.

Amazingly, a run in with the Avengers Academy led the team to discover that Old Lace was still alive, living in an alternate dimension that Nico had accidentally banished her supposedly dead body to. Following a joyful reunion, the Avengers Academy and the Runaways ended up locked in a bitter disagreement about their raising of Klara and Molly, but were eventually able to work out their differences, becoming allies and visiting each other frequently. Due to their close link, Nico was one of the 16 young teenage heroes captured and brought to Murderworld in the 'Avengers Arena' event.

During her time in Murderworld, during which she teamed up with a number of other Runaways and Academy students, Nico lost her arm at the hands of an Apex-controlled Darkhawk. The Staff of One was able to save its barer from death, and replace her arm with a magical replacement. Unfortunately, Nico witnessed a number of her friends die upon the island, and though she was a staunch campaigner for peace within the arena, it was only through Deathlockett's killing of Apex that they were able to survive, adult heroes eventually able to rescue those remaining after the event.

Three months after leaving the arena, Nico travelled to Bagalia to find Cullen Bloodstone along with the other survivors of Murderworld, Cullen having gone on a hunt to find and punish Arcade. There, Nico met Daimon Hellstrom, who offered to teach her more about black magic. Baron Zemo invited the Murderworld survivors in Bagalia to remain there and join the Masters of Evil. Though they declined, the group stayed for a while longer, Cullen and Nico fighting demons in Mephisticuffs. Daimon further educated Nico - helping her find a middle ground between being a hero and a killer, and he briefly resurrected Alex Wilder in order to help illustrate his point. Reunited, the pair kissed, Nico believing that 'being good' got her nothing in life. However, it was revealed Alex's resurrection was little more than a trap set by Baron Zemo, and after a battle with the Masters of Evil, Nico and Alex parted ways, the latter returning to hell.

Following seeing Alex resurrected, Nico decided to take time away from the Runaways and spend time with her family in Japan. The wedding of Nico's cousin was crashed by the arrival of Singularity, Medusa and She-Hulk, all of whom were trying to escape from Antimatter. Nico assisted the heroines in fighting the villain, and they became a short-lived team called A-Force. It was during this time the 'Staff of One' created arm seemingly changed its appearance, reverting to the human arm she had lost in Murderworld.

The resurrection of Gertrude Yorkes - or rather, temporally displacing her injured form so that Nico could save her - pulled the Runaways back together again, and following Karolina Dean's break up with her then girlfriend, Julie Powers, Nico and Karolina started dating.

Subject Interview

She hit the incline hard, rolling and sliding down the steep, rocky surface. Her hands grasped and flailed as she went, hoping to catch onto something, anything that could slow her desccent, but she found no purchase, no outcrop onto which she could latch. She reached the bottom of the slope after what seemed like an eternity, slowing enough to come to halt when the ground levelled out. Skidding to a stop, she lay still for a moment, before letting out a single, pained groan. Her body burned white hot, and it took all her mental strength to push herself up into an awkward sitting position.

Nico's dark eyes took in the state in which she found herself. Her usually tattered fishnets were even more shredded than usual, and cuts and scrapes covered her legs from the thigh down. Both arms had experienced similar trauma, and there was a dull, persistant ache in her shoulder that suggested a bruise was fast forming. Still, looking on the bright side, she was alive, which she found somewhat surprising given the severity of her fall.

Taking a few more moments to catch her breath and steady her spinning head, she rose slowly to her feet, wincing. Once a bout of fleeting dizziness had passed, she hobbled in a small circle to ensure she still could. Though it pained her, she managed a full turn without collapsing. It was only then that the witch looked up, taking in her surroundings.

Her brow immediately furrowed.

Where she expected to see high-rise buildings against an overcast horizon, instead, towering spires of red rock jutted upward into a noxious sky. Beyond a green haze of thick cloudcover, two heavenly bodies hung, casting a dim light on the world below, seemingly devoid of life, a world apart from the hustle and bustle she'd experienced only moments ago.

“Well...I'm not in New York any more.”

Turning on the spot again, gazing open-mouthed at the strange reality that faced her, her eyes caught sight of a familiar object, laying grounded no more than five feet away from her: a black, metallic stave, topped with a golden ring. The Staff of One still glowed faintly, an eldritch mauve light pulsating about its head. Memories came flooding back to her: a busy street, a hand in hers, a long foreboding shadow...fragments of an image that she was unable to piece together. Raising a hand, she pressed her fingers, tipped with chipped nailpolish, to her forehead.

“What did I cast?” she asked herself quietly, racking her brains in a vain hope to recall the last spell she'd uttered, the one that had, most likely, pulled her into a realm not her own. For a good few moments she tried, but found herself unable. Letting off a frustrated huff, she extended her hand, and the Staff slowly rose from the crimson dust in which it lay and floated toward her outstretched palm. Once her she had it in her grasp, she stuck its base firmly into the ground, using it to prop up her injured form.

Using it again, with her memory hindered, was unlikely to produce favourable results – it was renowed for its unpredictable nature. It would, however, serve as a fantastic crutch until she was able to work out where she was, why she was there and how the Runaway could find her way home.

Author's Notes

Player Alias: Widow/Star

Other Characters: Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow et al.

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