BIOGRAPHY - Page 6
While recuperating, Quicksilver chose to stay at Avengers Mansion with Crystal and Luna. The mending of their marriage was made more difficult because Crystal had fallen in love with her fellow Avenger, the Black Knight, despite maintaining her feelings for Pietro. This conflict in their 
relationship was suddenly removed, however, when Black Knight and the Eternal named Sersi were forced into exile in another dimension shortly after Quicksilver moved into the mansion. Though Crystal mourned Dane's departure, the couple began to slowly rebuild their trust in one another. [Avengers (1st series) #372-375]
A few weeks later, Quicksilver received word that Bova had fallen ill, and he traveled to her cottage at the base of Wundagore Mountain with Crystal to see after her. Fydor, the friend caring 
for her, told Pietro that Bova wished to see her creator the High Evolutionary again before she died, and that the geneticist had apparently taken up residence again recently on Wundagore's peaks. Pietro and Crystal contacted the Evolutionary and managed to bring him down to see his first creation, but it turned out that the entire scenario was a trap orchestrated by Exodus. It seems the Acolytes considered Wundagore sacred, both for being the birthplace of Magneto's children and the last place his wife Magda was ever seen alive. They had even created a memorial altar for her on the hillside. The High Evolutionary did not suffer trespassers on his mountain, however, and began chasing off the mutants after retaking his citadel headquarters. Furthermore, Exodus saw the High Evolutionary's work in artificial genetics as an abomination in the face of natural mutation. It was Exodus who had secretly been poisoning Bova, thanks to a parasitic metamorph named Rakkus, who has possessed Fydor. Rakkus' mission was to gather Quicksilver and the High Evolutionary together before destroying them. After a heated battle, Rakkus teleported away to safety, and the only casualty was poor Fydor, whose body was critically injured while Rakkus possessed it. [Avengers (1st series) #380-382]
Quicksilver continued on with the Avengers and, like much of the team, was caught up in the complicated web of an incident called The Crossing. While under the influence of Immortus, Iron Man was working on destroying the Avengers from within and even killed several former members and allies of the team. Pietro and Crystal were forced to deal with the vicious murder of Luna's Inhuman nanny, Marilla, and they were deeply concerned about Luna, who wouldn’t stop 
crying after she had witnessed one of Iron Man’s murders. Desperately trying to warn the Avengers of the traitor in their midst, a future, teenage version of Luna traveled back in time, but she arrived too late to stop his crimes. However, she saved the lives of her parents by throwing herself in the line of fire when a villain tried to kill them. During the entire ordeal, Pietro and Crystal also met a boy named Tuc, supposedly their younger son from the future, whose existence suggested their reconciliation would eventually become permanent. He kept little Luna safe while the Avengers were busy fighting Immortus’ forces. [Avengers: The Crossing, Avengers (1st series) #390-395]
Before they could explore this more fully, however, Onslaught struck. Earth's Mightiest Heroes were gathered in New York to battle a nigh-omnipotent entity known as Onslaught, who had developed massive psionic and reality-altering powers in its short evolution. As Onslaught cycled into a state of pure energy, the heroes realized that human beings could serve as a anchoring vessel for its power, disrupting the creature's development. Thus, they had to literally sacrifice themselves by being absorbed into Onslaught's energy before the remaining combatants destroyed the entity. The only heroes not able to make this sacrifice were mutants, because Onslaught had originated within a mutant mind and the additional mutant energies would have increased the entity’s might. However, the Scarlet Witch’s probability altering powers intercepted these effects, allowing her to join the other Avengers and the Fantastic Four in their final hour. Quicksilver could do nothing but watch as his wife, his sister, and nearly all his teammates in the Avengers were lost in the battle. [Onslaught crossover]
In the days that followed, Pietro and Luna stayed at Xavier’s mansion, trying to recover from their loss. The situation was made awkward by the fact that the X-Men had recently taken in Joseph, who was believed to be a mysteriously de-aged and amnesiac Magneto. Pietro tried working with his "father," even forgiving him, but in the end the old wounds were too raw for the two men to become friends. When Hercules arrived at the mansion seeking to rebuild the Avengers, Pietro left with him. The team could not get back on its feet, though - for weeks, only Quicksilver, Hercules, and Black Widow remained of the active roster. Pietro tried to make it work but, when the government began casting blame on mutantkind for the deeds of Onslaught and the deaths of the Avengers, he couldn't stomach it anymore. He collected Luna and took her to the only place that had ever felt like home to him: Wundagore Mountain. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #337-338, X-Men (2nd series) #57-58, Avengers Annual ’99, Quicksilver #7]
The High Evolutionary gladly offered them sanctuary alongside his New Men and the Knights of Wundagore and Bova became Luna’s new nanny, but Pietro was still immensely depressed by 
the loss of his family. Some time after Quicksilver settled on Wundagore, Exodus and his Acolytes renewed their feud with the High Evolutionary. The attack on the Evolutionary's citadel was furious, and the rightful owners were forced to flee and give up their home to Exodus. The High Evolutionary needed time alone to complete his experiments on his newest concoction, Isotope E, and so he left a group of his Knights under Quicksilver's care. Knighting him as Sir Pietro of Wundagore, Quicksilver became First Knight and leader of nine New Men, taking them to an abandoned castle on the Hudson River, New York. There they took up residence near the world of man. [Quicksilver #1-2]
On their very first night, Pietro and the Knights investigated a set of dimensional rifts identified by Sir Delphis, and they came into conflict with Arkon and his bride, Thundra. After aiding them on their homeworld of Polemachus, Quicksilver was transported back to Earth only to find Crystal and Wanda waiting for him. Turned out that the heroes had not died in the battle against Onslaught, but instead they had been transported into a pocket universe, where they were crafted with new 
memories and their histories were "rebooted." Eventually, they remembered their prior existences and managed to return. The joyful family reunion was briefly sundered when the Black Knight arrived, with his own intentions to reunite with Crystal now that he had separated from Sersi. But while she didn't deny having feelings for Dane, Crystal asked him to leave her be for the time being, so that she could reunite with her husband and daughter. [Quicksilver #3, 7]
Quicksilver brought her back to the Hudson castle to meet with Luna and Bova, and introduced her to the Knights in his care. After a pair of adventures with the reforming Avengers, Quicksilver and Crystal took a vacation to New Attilan to visit with her family, the Inhumans. However, there was still considerable bad blood between the royal family and Pietro, artificially fanned by Maximus the Mad, using his psionic powers, which were augmented by the reborn Acolyte, Fabian Cortez. During the transformation ceremony of the Terrigen Mists, Quicksilver's paranoia was enflamed that the Inhumans were deliberately mocking his previous failed attempt to mutate Luna, and so he stole the mists and disrupted the ceremony before Crystal and her family managed to knock him out and incarcerate him in the dungeons. Crystal set Pietro free when it became clear Maximus was behind his actions, as the Mad Inhuman unleashed his psychic disruptions across the entire city. Quicksilver and the Royal Family ultimately managed to stop Maximus' scheming and restore New Attilan to normal. [Quicksilver #4-6]
After returning to the Hudson castle, though, Quicksilver and Crystal argued over the conflict of his duties to the Knights and to his family. What's more, whereas Pietro believed she was still attracted to the Black Knight, Crystal was still trying to come to terms with her experiences in the pocket universe, where she had relived her first love affair with the Human Torch. In the midst of this heated discussion, the Black Knight arrived in an attempt to make claim on Crystal's affections. This only infuriated Pietro further, and he and Whitman engaged in combat until Crystal separated them with a bolt of lightning. Sick of being fought over like a trophy, and completely unsure of her own heart, Crystal took Luna and ran away back to New Attilan, asking neither man to follow her until she had properly decided for herself what she wanted. [Quicksilver #7]
Quicksilver was unable to pursue his wife even if he chose to, for Sir Ram alerted him that the rest of the Knights had been missing since his stay in New Attilan. They learned the Knights had been kidnapped by a mutant strikeforce employed by Exodus, in the hopes of torturing the High Evolutionary's location from them. However, upon detecting large amounts of radiation matching Isotope E emanating from the Savage Land, Exodus discovered the Evolutionary’s whereabouts by himself. Breaking free, the Knights raced Exodus and his Acolytes to the Savage Land, where they rendezvoused with Quicksilver, only to discover the High Evolutionary in a constantly fluctuating state of evolution, using Isotope E like an addict to control his mutations from ape to human to godlike figure and back again. [Quicksilver #8-9]
Nobody realized that the Knights had a traitor among them, as Lord Anon was actually the evolved wolf known as the Man-Beast, one of the Evolutionary's darkest creations, in disguise. While Quicksilver was away on a mission with the Avengers, the Evolutionary decided to reclaim his base at Wundagore and led the Knights into battle against Exodus and the Acolytes. The Man-Beast chose this moment to reveal himself and he joined forced with Exodus after stealing the Evolutionary’s scepter of Isotope E. Claiming to have taken the High Evolutionary hostage, Exodus and the Man-Beast pressed the Knights into service. The White Tiger, another creation of the Evolutionary, recruited the help of her fellow Heroes for Hire and, after teaming up with Quicksilver, they launched an attack at Wundagore. Against the combined might of the Acolytes and the blackmailed Knights they were hopelessly outmatched, though, and eventually placed in the dungeons of the mountain base.
At that point, a mysterious cloaked figure calling himself Nestor appeared, and helped Pietro break free of his chains. Quicksilver explored the citadel at high speeds to take stock of the situation. When he discovered that the High Evolutionary was actually missing and not the Man-Beast's hostage, Pietro alerted the Knights to this fact and charged them with finding their creator 
and rallying their strength for the coming battle. Next, he stole the Isotope E scepter from the Man-Beast's laboratory, making the uneasy alliance between the creature and Exodus even more tenuous. Finally, he freed the Heroes for Hire and they engaged in battle with the Acolytes. As the tide started to turn against Quicksilver and his allies, Pietro turned the power of Isotope E on himself in order to gain an advantage, dramatically boosting his speed to an unbelievable extent. The effects were intoxicating, however, and he actually challenged Exodus for leadership of the Acolytes.
Allegiances changed once more, as the High Evolutionary's demigod status returned once more, and he commanded his Knights to expel all intruders in Wundagore by force. This brought the Heroes for Hire and the Acolytes -- under Quicksilver's command -- to arms against the New Men. To combat the Evolutionary, Quicksilver gave Isotope E to Sir Delphis in order to form a means of stabilizing the crazed scientist. He was successful, and the High Evolutionary ended the fighting. The Man-Beast was devolved to a normal wolf, Exodus was entombed again and the Acolytes were left leaderless. Quicksilver recovered from the initial mania caused by Isotope E and chose to deny any further alliances with the Knights, Heroes or Acolytes. [The Siege of Wundagore crossover]