The room turned into a complete mess, with plates and utensils flying in all directions. Yuri got up from her chair and backed off, while also moving Tuss's wheelchair to a safer place.
But someone grabbed the wheelchair's wheel. "Wait a second," he said with a smirk. "You can't just avoid this fight and let others stand up for you. That's not fair."
Tuss, who had been quiet until now, finally spoke. "Yuri, go and hide. Don't worry about me."
His voice was unexpectedly calming. Yuri couldn't help but notice that.
"No way, I'm your fiancée, after all. I need to protect you." Yuri paused, and then thought to herself, "So that you don't die and leave me without my ore planet."
"Ha! Who would have guessed that Tuss would need a woman to protect him?" The man teased.
Tuss's face darkened.
A playful sparkle appeared in Yuri's eyes. She caught a flying fork and, under the man's mocking stare, threw it at him.
Thwack!
The seemingly harmless fork tore through his clothes and stuck into his chest.
"Murder!" Someone screamed.
The noisy banquet room suddenly went quiet. The man gripped his chest, a look of shock on his face as he stared at the fork lodged in him. "How did you do that?" he asked Yuri.
Pretending to be innocent, Yuri replied, "I was upset and just threw it. I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry."
At last, the adults who had been observing from a distance stepped in.
"Take him away and treat his injuries," Darth Hiro commanded seriously.
Nero, still angry, glared at Yuri. "Who told you to hurt someone? Apologize right now!"
Yuri made a face as if she had been wronged. "They came to my engagement party and caused trouble, so I threw a fork in anger. Who would have thought it would actually hurt him? I thought alphas were supposed to be strong! As an omega, and a disabled one at that, how could I possibly hurt him? I think he's pretending!"
The words "pretending" seemed to linger in the air, and the entire banquet room fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Everyone started to wonder, "Yeah, how could a disabled omega with just a fork hurt the alpha from Military Academy No. 1? This must be a setup, right? They probably caused a scene at the engagement party and then injured himself to avoid taking responsibility."
The more they considered it, the more it seemed to make sense. The glances they gave to Thanos and his group were suddenly filled with suspicion.
Thanos's face turned beet red. Admitting to the setup would damage their reputation; denying it would mean acknowledging they were weak, even weaker than a disabled omega.
Trapped between a rock and a hard place, Thanos and his group never expected this seemingly unimportant girl to put them in such an embarrassing situation.
"Thanos, you ruined Tuz's engagement party. Shouldn't you apologize to the people involved?" Ender broke the silence.
"Yeah, apologize! Is causing trouble at someone else's engagement party how you were raised or what you were taught at school?" Daleks added, looking at Yuri with mixed feelings.
Grinding his teeth, Thanos hesitantly approached Tuss and Yuri. But instead of facing them directly, he turned to Darth and Nero, bowed, and said sincerely, "Mr. Cheng, Mr. Hiro, I apologize for bringing my friends here and creating such chaos."
"Ah, it's no big deal. Just kids having fun. Nothing serious," Darth said, patting Thanos's shoulder and brushing the incident aside.
Nero also laughed, his face filled with kindness.
Yuri rolled her eyes. It seemed as though she and Tuss were practically strangers to them, while Thanos was their real family.
"Zeek, my phantom limb hurts. Come get me," Tuss said through his communicator, alerting Zeek, who was waiting outside the banquet hall.
As soon as he spoke, everyone's gaze fell on his empty lower half. Only then did they remember that this was a disabled man, a hero who had lost his legs to insectoids while protecting a fellow student. And Thanos and his group, as classmates, were not only ungrateful but also came to his engagement party to cause trouble and insult him and his fiancée.
For a moment, everyone glared at Thanos and his group in silent condemnation.
But it didn't matter to Tuss anymore. He kept his gaze downcast as he left the banquet hall with the help of the staff.
The engagement party came to an abrupt end with Tuss's departure.
"Ugh! What is that smell?" Daleks suddenly burst out, his face turning red.
"A beta's in heat! Quickly use the insulator spray, and anyone has a suppressants?" Kilana frantically said, her eyes turning red as if she was struggling to control something.
"Thanos, get your people out of here! You bunch of chauvinist pigs releasing pheromones everywhere!" Ender yelled furiously. His eyes locked onto a girl huddled in a corner of the crowd, his gaze fierce and predatory.
The scene once again descended into chaos, as alphas started to charge at the girl.
"All betas and alphas evacuate immediately!" Darth shouted, as he too rushed towards the girl, tossing aside any alphas who got too close.
Yuri, an omega who couldn't smell pheromones or beta chemicals, watched in astonishment as the alphas lost their senses and turned into beasts under the influence of the beta chemicals. She was thinking, "No wonder the Alliance prohibited alphas from releasing pheromones in public. These were less like pheromones and more like inducers of beta's heat."
Dozens of alphas fought among themselves, while Yuri hid behind a pillar, munching on a bunch of grapes and watching the spectacle with great interest. At the same time, she wondered how long she could last against these alphas.
The chaos didn't last long. The girl in heat was taken away, and the frenzied alphas were given sedatives to calm them down. Soon, they returned to their senses.
That night, back at home, Yuri began studying up on alphas and betas on the interstellarnet. Although she was an omega, she knew that understanding her adversaries would ensure her safety.
In addition to pheromones and beta chemicals, Yuri researched betas' heat cycles, commonly known as their mating period. Adult betas had to go through a heat cycle every month. When a heat cycle arrived, a beta could either take suppressants or find an alpha to help them through it. And helping them through it, of course, meant non-stop intimacy until the heat cycle passed. If left unattended, there was only one outcome: death.
"Wow, being an omega doesn't seem so bad after all," Yuri muttered to herself.
After learning about heat cycles, Yuri shifted her focus to mental grooming. The more powerful an alpha was, the larger their Sea of Consciousness, and the more mental threads they had. However, this also made their Sea of Consciousness more susceptible to chaos. If things got too chaotic, a person could be on the verge of losing their sanity.
Betas could assist alphas in maintaining their Sea of Consciousness, particularly those who had full markings. They were best at keeping their alpha's Sea of Consciousness in check.
Yuri couldn't help but exclaim, "Alphas and betas truly have strong instincts. They support and complete one another, making them an ideal match."
Yuri was even more interested in the mechas and starships of this world compared to alphas and betas. She couldn't access starships yet, but mechas were easy to find and buy on the streets.
After eating breakfast and using her navigation, Yuri headed to Planet Alpha's biggest mecha sales mall.