Chapter 165 Breaking the Prison

High above a prison near the Hungarian border, Yelena hovered in Natasha's Quinjet.

Following Natasha's instructions through his earpiece, Alexei made his way toward the prison gates. Natasha had already hacked into the facility's system, unlocking iron door after iron door that were normally kept shut.

Chaos instantly erupted inside the prison. Realizing the gates were unlocked, the inmates flooded outward, charging behind Alexei.

The guards quickly sensed that something was wrong. A large contingent of guards, clad in heavy body armor and holding riot shields, converged on the prisoners.

Seeing so many guards rushing toward him, Alexei suddenly veered toward an iron gate off to the side, slammed it shut, and jammed a shield into the handles so it couldn't be opened from the inside. He left the guards and inmates to battle it out while he ran away alone.

"Did you have to make such a huge mess?" Natasha asked from the co-pilot's seat, listening to the sounds of fighting and shouting coming through the earpiece.

Alexei reached the final, thick steel gate of the prison. With a mighty kick, he sent the entire heavy door flying off its hinges, crashing heavily onto the ground.

Seeing the outside sunlight for the first time in over twenty years, Alexei stepped out onto the outer courtyard and asked into his earpiece, "What should I do now?"

"We'll get you out of here." As Alexei looked up, he spotted a black fighter jet flying toward him from the distance.

Right then, he heard a commotion behind him. Turning back, he saw countless inmates streaming out through the door he had just kicked open.

The courtyard instantly plunged into chaos as throngs of prisoners ran wildly about. Spotting the situation from the watchtowers, the guards triggered the alarm, and shrill sirens wailed across the entire prison.

"Which one are we rescuing?" Arthur asked, looking down through the window at the milling, chaotic crowd.

"The brown-haired fat guy. What are you doing?" Natasha pointed out Alexei amidst the crowd.

"You guys are moving too slow. I'll go drag him up here." With that, Arthur opened the rear hatch of the Quinjet and leaped downward.

"Is he serious?" Yelena turned her head, watching Arthur plummeting away.

"He's just that impulsive. Let's wait," Natasha answered with a shrug.

Alexei only saw a man in white garments drop from the sky like a falling star, landing squarely in front of him.

"Are you Alexei?" Arthur asked, looking up and down at the portly super soldier.

"It's me. Who are you?" Alexei stared at the young man before him.

"Good, you're the right guy!" Without wasting any breath, Arthur grabbed Alexei by the arm and shot straight up into the sky.

"Aaaah!!!!" Alexei shrieked in terror as they soared through the air.

Spotting Arthur rocketing upward, the guards hurriedly raised their rifles and opened fire on the two of them.

"Aaaah! No, stop!" The air cracked with the terrifying whine of countless bullets swarming around Alexei. He threw his left arm up to shield his head, terrified he would be riddled with holes like a sieve.

Suddenly, he realized he was encased in a crimson energy barrier. The bullets struck the shield and dissolved into ripples, completely unable to penetrate it.

Annoyed by the gunfire from the prison guards below, Arthur flicked his right hand, unleashing a massive beam of blue energy. In an instant, the watchtower below was blasted to smithereens, and the surrounding guards were blown away by the shockwave.

Looking up, Arthur suddenly noticed that the explosion had triggered an avalanche in the snow-capped mountains surrounding the prison. Countless tons of accumulated snow were tumbling down the slopes toward the basin-level facility.

"Whoa! That's going to be a cool way to die," Yelena remarked as she watched the avalanche unfold.

"Let's get out of here!" Alexei yelled at the top of his lungs to Arthur.

Dragging Alexei along, Arthur accelerated back into the fighter jet, tossing the older man heavily onto the floor.

"Ugh... Could you be a little more gentle?!" Alexei winced, sprawling across the cabin floor as he felt as though his arm had gone completely numb.

"Let's get out of here then," Yelena said, preparing to pilot them away.

"Wait! Fly higher so you don't get hit by the avalanche. I'm heading back down," Arthur called out to Yelena, leaping right back out of the cabin.

"What is he doing?" Yelena asked, looking at Natasha.

"Probably going to save the people down there," Natasha replied, watching Arthur drop back toward the prison below.

"Wow, what a hero," Yelena muttered, though it was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic.

Every single prisoner and guard on the ground stared in horror at the apocalyptic sight, turning tail and fleeing desperately back into the subterranean prison blocks.

Arthur landed dead center in the courtyard. Surveying the tons of snow burying in from every direction, he couldn't bear to let thousands of people be buried alive here, regardless of whether they were good or bad.

Arthur's eyes instantly turned a brilliant blue. Just as the wall of snow reached the prison gates, he spread his arms wide, sending waves of blue energy surging outward in all directions. Under the influence of the blue energy, the tumbling white snow instantly froze solid into towering walls of ice.

The entire valley transformed into a world of ice sculptures. The avalanche was seemingly frozen mid-air right above the prison, possessing an indescribable, haunting beauty.

"Unbelievable!" Yelena, Natasha, and Alexei exclaimed as they stared at the scene below.

Arthur flew back up into the craft, closed the hatch, and found the three of them staring at him in stunned silence.

"What's wrong? Let's go," Arthur said with a faint, amused smile.

"Are you even human?" Alexei blurted out.

"He's a god! He stopped being human a long time ago," Yelena chimed in from the side.

"All right, let's move!" Natasha glanced at Arthur, feeling immensely reassured by having such family members. She turned back to the controls, a gentle smile gracing the corner of her lips.

Arthur walked over to a bench, lay down, and prepared to catch some rest. Alexei glanced at Arthur, then shuffled over to stand behind Natasha and Yelena.

"Oh, this is so exciting! I'm so proud of you girls, I never expected you to come rescue me!" Alexei said behind Yelena.

Gritting her teeth, Yelena spun around and slammed a vicious punch straight into Alexei's face.

"Ow!! Fine, why are you so hot-tempered? Is it that time of the month or something?" Alexei asked, clutching his bruised nose.

"I don't have a period, you idiot, I don't have a uterus!" Yelena stated with a completely deadpan expression.

"Or ovaries..." Natasha added helpfully from the side.

"Yeah, that's what the Red Room's involuntary hysterectomy does to you. They just reach right in, rip out all your reproductive organs, and snip everything away. Everything gets scooped out, so you can't have kids..." Yelena described it as casually as if she were talking about something that had happened to a complete stranger.

"Okay, okay, stop! You really didn't need to be so clinical and brutal about it," Alexei interrupted, unable to bear hearing any more.

"Oh, I was just about to get to the fallopian tubes, but whatever," Yelena continued.

"Is that true?" Arthur sat up and asked Natasha.

Natasha smiled bitterly and nodded silently without saying a word.

"Well... if you guys want children, you can go to Wakanda and find my cat. It should be able to help you," Arthur said after a brief silence.

"Your cat? It can regrow a uterus for me?" Yelena looked at Natasha, wondering if she had misheard.

"Yeah, his cat can bring dead people back to life." During the battle of Wakanda, Natasha had seen Wanda with a gaping hole blasted through her chest—her heart completely destroyed—yet that white cat named Venom had still saved her.

Although that white cat drove the kitchen staff at the Avengers Compound crazy because of its bottomless appetite, no one ever complained, because its value far outweighed a little food.

"Oh, you Avengers really something else. Even a cat is that miraculous," Yelena sighed in amazement.