As much as Asher tried to undo the aura around Orion, every time he went off to work, it would be there again. He’d seen aura’s all his life, but this was not like anything he'd witnessed before now. Asher couldn’t squeeze out a whole lot of information about Orion’s job either.

And the likely culprit, Orion's supposed boss, was even harder to find information about. As the boss of a crime syndicate that only made sense, but Orion genuinely struggled to remember anything about him when Asher tried to bring it up. And it seemed to be that way for anyone and everyone who worked for him, no one could even tell him what he looked like.

Orion would forget crucial things and act out sometimes, but he didn’t seem to be influenced by anything. Other people were influenced by some sort of supernatural phenomenon, but it didn't quite line up with something a demon would do. Orion himself remained as kind and stupid as ever even when he was being much weirder than usual, whatever it was must be effecting him differently. Scientists were supposed to be smart and sure, Orion knew some things, but he could be really oblivious sometimes. It was fairly hard to get information based on that alone.

"I just wish I could figure out why you're like this." Asher said.

"I've always had problems like this, part of the whole disorder thing. It's nothing new it's just, worse is all." Orion assured him.

"If it was just the mental affliction you wouldn't look like... That." Asher said with disgust. He said tracing the lines in the air around him.

"Like what? I'm not that ugly." Orion tried to argue.

"Yes, yes you're a handsome fellow. I'm talking about all of this nonsense." He said as he pulled at the dark aura blending around his Orion until it finally dispersed again.

"What?" Orion asked.

"If you can't see it you won't understand." Asher said. "It just keeps going back to where it started. Shouldn't you have gotten at least a little better by now or at least different in some way?”

"I mean." Orion sighed. “Better looks different for everyone and I’m not sure what that looks like for me anymore. Honestly, if I can’t even remember that I’ve forgotten things, how can I tell if I stopped forgetting them? What if I’m just not thinking about it? Amnesia for amnesia.”

“I didn't mean the mental stuff. This aura that keeps latching onto you like some kind of parasite.” Asher grumbled. “It doesn't look like something a demon would do, and it's not some sort of external influence… It’s really confusing.”

If it was some sort of blackmail or extortion it wouldn't come back so strongly and if it was a demon, it would have alerted them of his presence and confronted him by now.

He wanted to ask more about that boss Orion worked with but he never answered when asked directly. Or more like, he couldn't, like he was afraid of something. If he could just get some sort of hint, maybe he could figure out what he is and do something about it.

“Is it that bad?” Orion asked.

“Yes it's that bad.” Asher closed his eyes for a moment to think. “How much do you know about auras?”

“Nothing but what you've told me.” Orion replied.

“Hang on, let me draw something out for you." Asher got a pad of sticky notes out of the drawer, but it was somehow lacking something to write with. "Where do you keep pens?"

"Oh, here." Orion said pulling a pen out of his coat pocket and handing it over.

"Thanks- Wait. Isn't this mine?" Asher looked carefully at the pen; it had a rather telling bite marks on it consistent with his own.

"Maybe... Probably, actually... It's extremely likely that it is." Orion seemed to mull it over as if he hadn't actually remembered doing it, he probably didn't but Asher had no way of figuring out if that was the truth. But he glanced down at Orion's pocket and spotted a number of pens in his coat. A ridiculous amount.

Asher grabbed all the pens from Orion's pocket before he could react. He held Orion at a distance with a hand against his face. There were some rather expensive ones as well as ones with name engravings that were very clearly not his own. "Are any of these yours?"

"No comment." He said. “Just give them back.”

"You shouldn't be doing that, baby." Asher said cupping Orion's face in his hand.

"I'm sorry..." He said looking away with a hint of pretend shame. "It's my dark side. I’m evil you know.”

"Evil?" Asher rolled his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes, I am a bad person. Now give it back." Orion responded jokingly as he tried to push through Ashers hands to get the pens back, but Asher kept pushing him away like a dog trying to get human food.

"A bad person?" Asher laughed. "I know the other Orion enjoys playing the whole mad scientist bit, but all you've ever done is make weird drugs for your job, act mostly in self-defense and uhh… commit petty theft I guess."

"Making the drugs was my own doing.” Orion admitted. “The one that's the main export of the syndicate. I made that on purpose.”

"What?" Asher stopped. Orion snatched the pens back while he was distracted.

"It was always the plan from the beginning to do that." Orion explained clutching the pens like a precious treasure.

"Oh. Well, I'm sure you have your reasons." Asher said. "You're a good person."

"What makes you so certain of that?" Orion glared at him threateningly. Asher might have pretended to believe it had he not still been holding the pens like some kind of treasure.

"Your aura is too… innocent. And if I had to guess this is just a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that you think you have to be evil because of it." Asher laughed "And the evilest thing any part of you could come up with to go along with that, was stealing pens."

"Stop psychoanalyzing me." Orion grumbled. “What the hell does innocent even mean at this point? I think we have wildly different definitions.”

"But I'm right, aren't I?" Asher pet Orion's head. “You good little pen thief.”

“I was just joking, don't be mean. And you’re wrong, I just like pens.” Orion pouted, he was quite serious about that. “They help me remember things. Besides most of them I stole by accident because they’re fun to play with.”

“You’re such a nerd.” Asher took off a sticky note and noticed some small writing on the one beneath it, "Hey what's this? Did you write this?"

"What?" Orion looked over at it.

Written in an exceedingly small, sloppy handwriting was some sort of poem, parts of it didn't quite fit in the line and were written up the side of the note to fit it all in.

“An attempt at a poem I think.” Orion could just barely make out the words, it was something about the drug, dimensional energy and the clearest line on the note being ‘becoming what was disregarded’. It was apparent enough what it was getting at with all the theatrical cynicism.

"Alright edge lord, what's it about?" Asher looked at the note carefully.

"I don't want to talk about it." Orion glared at him.

"Don't give me that, Orion." Asher prodded him, "Just talk about it, it’s better to talk about this sort of thing, besides I don't want to end up finding more shitty poetry all over the apartment."

"That probably won’t change even if I do.” Orion shrugged. “And can you even call it poetry if it's barely legible?”

“Look, I’ll give this pen back to you if you explain it to me.” Asher tried to tempt him. Orion thought about it for a moment before agreeing.

“Fine. I needed the energy souls release when they die and a lot of it." Orion continued to glare at him, but Asher was ginning too much from having found something that made it so easy to entice him to speak. “Take this seriously, please.”

“You’re just too cute,” Asher pat Orion’s head, he knew that already, in fact a lot the time Orion decided to reveal things it was something he already told him and forgot about. “I’m listening though, please continue.”

"So, I... made sure it would happen. The drugs I made at that time releases the soul from the body so I could gather that energy. I’m not the only one who had access to the formula and with the amount of energy already hanging around from the pillars it doesn’t even require my input anymore. So, it's been running rampant ever since.” Orion explained, it was clear he didn’t think fondly of his work. “Whatever part of me that wrote this thinks all the shit I’ve been through is just retribution for that."

"So that's why it does that. I didn't think it was intentional, but it makes a lot more sense." Asher said, he’d already known most of what Orion said, but that specifically was new information. Not anywhere closer to an answer but new information, nonetheless.

"What?" Orion asked.

"Oh, so I can actually see it happening, like with the whole aura thing. I can't see it as well as a full demon can, but I can see souls a bit, It's pretty trippy." Asher explained. "If it's any consolation it only seems to affect humans, but I imagine you've collected enough by now since you said you're almost done with the project."

"Yeah. That part is over now. I don't feel any better about it though. It’s still a point of contention especially since finding out what the Lucidians have been doing with it." He answered.

“The secondhand bodies.” Asher said under his breath.

“Right.” Orion finally dropped his gaze and looked at the floor. “Like, that probably would've been me. If I weren't... the one doing it. And… it was almost you…”

“You're very adamant about that. From what you told me about your sister, I can't imagine her just leaving you alone to fend for yourself.” Asher said.

“Well. Under normal circumstances me and Freyaa… We would not have ever met. I would have been alone and at risk of falling down the same rabbit hole you did.” Orion explained. “My body stabilized very quickly because of the Lucidians that raised us, it would have been years otherwise.”

“Actually, I just thought of something.” Asher mulled over how to ask. “Why has your boss never gone after Freyaa?”

“The same reason he hasn't gone after you. He doesn't mess with demons.” Orion said.

“I thought she was human.” Asher tilted his head, he wasn't expecting a clear answer since he mentioned Orion’s boss and he definitely wasn’t expecting that. 'Doesn't mess with demons, I wonder why that is.'

“She is, I don’t have an exact timeline for it, but she should have a contract by now.” Orion explained.

“A contract? Humans shouldn't be able to summon contract demons. Earthbound demons can't even summon contract demons anymore.” Asher replied even more confused than before.

“The layers between the dimensions are thinning as a consequence of the distortion. If you tried to do it now, it would work.” Orion confirmed.

“I have too much demon blood to make a contract and shadows souls don’t work either. And you can't use someone else's soul in a contract. So even if I did summon one, we wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.” Asher sighed.

“Right.” Orion agreed.

“You knew that didn't you. You would have found a way to use it to avoid all of this if you could.” Asher sighed again.

“Right.” Orion agreed again, “And Freyaa's contract is too important to have used it for something like this.”

“What is her contract for anyway?” Asher asked.

“It's for the sake of the facility project, I don't remember much about it. Though, knowing her she probably swindled that demon into letting her become some sort of demon herself.” He laughed.

“Can she do that?” Asher blinked.

“Probably.” He shrugged.

“So, what was that other thing on the note?” Asher asked.

“What other thing?” Orion looked at the note again.

“It said something about an alloy. Is that about the project?” Asher clarified.

"Wait, you can read my notes?" Orion was surprised.

"Yeah, your handwriting is sloppy… some of the characters I don't recognize, and the grammar is a bit different, but shadow language is practically the same as demon language." He shrugged.

"Of course. That's right!" Orion pulled out a small notebook from his pocket and started flipping through the pages. "What does this say?"

"Let me see." Asher grabbed the book and started skimming the page.

"What does it say?" Orion asked again.

"I'm not entirely sure. I can read it, but I don't really understand what it's saying. Is there a reason you can't read it?" Asher stared at the notebook.

"I don't know." He frowned.

“It does have a weird aura to it.. Let me try something.” Asher covered his demon eye, the words began to distort and shake becoming completely unreadable. “Oh, that's trippy, is that how you're seeing it? Anyway, I don’t really know how to interpret most of the words written here.”

"Is there anything you recognize at all?" Orion asked.

"Well, I recognize things like BioPort is mentioned a few times, but the context is unclear...” Asher said.

"BioPort? Why would you recognize the word BioPort?” Orion grabbed the book and looked carefully, "I still can't read it.”

"I don’t think anyone could read it if they're not a demon, why do you even keep this on you?” Asher asked.

“It works fine when I’m in the Lab.” Orion admitted.

“And you just thought that was normal?” Asher sighed.

“Well, no but I didn't think it was something supernatural.” He said. “I thought it was just in my head since I use it at work."

“Let's see, that's probably 'Lambda' and uhh,” Asher continued to try to interpret anything he could. “I didn't learn science in demon language and there's enough difference between demon and shadow language to make it difficult, so I don’t think I’ll be able to figure out any of this without doing some research.”

“Oh.” Orion whispered.

"Hey, wait a minute. I didn't see that before. There's a note in the margins telling me to fuck off by name." Asher pouted jokingly. “What's that about?”

“What?” Orion stared at the page which was still impossible for him to read. “You're lying.”

“Am not. Well, I’m not going to just let this go.” Asher said scribbling something in the notebook with a smirk.

“Can you not argue with my notes?” Orion sighed.

“Well, I don't know which one of you wrote this or when, but I think I’m allowed to be a little petty about it.” Asher laughed.