The spell, however, had unwanted side-effects: it emotionally scatters the Runaways. Victor realizes this in time, and Nico spearheads a massive escape from the returning Majesdanians. A short time later, the Runaways realize that having obeyed Nico, they broke the enchantment. Regardless, Xavin shapeshifts into Karolina and leaves Earth, much to the other Runaways' great grief. Later on, Nico uses the spell "Zombie Not" to turn an army of zombies back to humans; the spell, backfiring, turns the zombies into an actual "zombie knot", thus creating a one large zombie. The Runaways deduce that after the Witchbreaker tortured and trained Nico, Nico's magical abilities have been greatly augmented. Val Rhymin's magician informs Nico that the Staff of One carries tremendous magical ability and Nico, being young, should not use it. The magician steals the Staff from her, only to be killed after the Staff defends itself. A silent Nico takes her Staff back, and warns the other Runaways not to touch it. At the 2009 Emerald City ComiCon, writer Brian Bendis implied that Nico might be one of the magicians sought by former Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange, seeing as the search "is not done yet." Although the title went to Brother Voodoo, her image appeared as one of the many candidates the Eye of Agamotto considered to assume the role of the new Sorcerer Supreme. Nico also makes a non-speaking cameo in "Strange" #4 (February 2010) as one of the powerful mages Dr. Strange asks to stop using their powers for an hour. As part of the "Marvel NOW!" event in the pages of "Avengers Arena", Nico is abducted by the villain Arcade and placed on a special island version of Murderworld. The Staff of One has its power drastically reduced for an unexplained reason, preventing her not only from being able to act out against Arcade or the island, but also requiring "dozens of spells" just to successfully grow food to eat. After mounting a frontal attack on Apex and Juston Seyfert's Sentinel, Nico loses the Staff of One when she is dismembered by Chase (now in possession of the Darkhawk armor) and thrown off a cliff. She then crawls to the Staff of One and tries to cast the spell "help", but bleeds out before the Staff can act. The Staff then resurrects her, using her massive blood loss as a sacrifice to grant her enough power to disarm Deathlocket, destroy the Darkhawk armor, and defeat Apex by trapping her underground.