When everyone else started steering clear of the pink balloon once she'd started to unpack reams of electronic equipment and cables in the middle of the grounds, Snake had steered clear too. The whole concept of Pokèmon disgusted him, anyway - children kidnapping fighters from their lives, sending them off to fight for sport, and justifying it all with concepts like friendship and love and that the little monsters were supposed to enjoy it - even the Pikmin, uprooted, followed only Olimar yet never asked that he loved them, or however that song went.
So he didn't get curious. When the other guest fighter - that hedgehog - mentioned he wanted to have a look, Snake merely advised, "I wouldn't." No-one ever bothered to explain why it was such a bad thing that Jigglypuff was mounting the front with long red drapes, or why Pikachu refused to charge the battery she wanted, leaving her lugging a sparking generator across the grounds in the dead of the night.
When she mounted gigantic speakers at either corner of the stage, he finally realised what she was doing.
He swallowed his pride enough to talk to Pikachu about it.
"She's putting on a show, huh?"
Pikachu tilted its head. "Pi. Kaaaa."
"Yeah, I don't," Snake agreed. "I don't have anything against you. It's just the idealogy you represent." He folded his arms. "That doesn't answer the question."
"Ka-chuuu?"
"You know, the one about Jigglypuff. Aren't you going to watch her?"
"Chu."
"Why not?"
"Pika-pi. Ka-chu-piii."
"But," he said, some vague part of his mind taking over, "she's going to a lot of effort. And you're a Pokemon, too - "
"Kyaaa!"
"Listen, Sparky, I don't know what an egg group is, so that remark was lost on me."
He sighed. Being fluent in six languages had its bonuses - it sounded terrifically impressive, for one thing, to say that you were. Usually when asked to demonstrate he stopped at the fifth. Of course, his sixth language was more useful than most people immediately assumed - Pokèmon were seeing more and more frequent use in front-line combat since the turn of the century, and being able to interpret enemy commands was a vital skill on the battlefield - but most people burst out laughing before he got to explain that, especially as most Pokèmon lingual subsets were highly-tonal languages which his voice sounded pretty undignified imitating.
He thought back to what Pikachu had actually said. 'Pika-pi. Ka-chu-piii. '
And that, in itself, was all he needed to know.
On the night of her concert, he was the only one in the audience. He'd made an effort for her – dressed up in that tuxedo he'd got for beating the first game three times, brushed his hair until it shone, shaved around and trimmed his beard, removed the rocket launcher he wore strapped to his left leg. He couldn't remember the last time he'd dressed up for something – it felt strange, both peaceful and naked.
He sat and fingered through the programme on his seat, and tried not to look at all the other empty ones. There was a faint sniffling sound behind the curtain, like air being let out of a sad balloon.
"I'm here," he called, uncertainly. "Came early to get a front row seat."
The sound stopped.
A piercing voice came from the speakers.
"Jiggly?"
"Yeah, I am," Snake admitted. "Well, I'm always keeping people waiting. Guess everyone else is returning the favour."
There was a silence. The curtains rustled.
"Puff…"
"No, they aren't." He shook his head, even though she couldn't see it. "I'm sorry."
"…Jig?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Jig'ly-puff? Jiggly!"
"Listen," he said, "I don't know what it's like in your world, but I'm not afraid of a little artificially-induced sleep, and I get a lot of nightmares from what I do. Besides, I've fought off worse things than a song – I've fought off mind control, and mind reading, and resisted torture."
"J – Jigglypuff?"
"Yes," he assured her. "I'm going to stay awake so I can listen to you sing."
There was a faint gasp of surprise behind the curtain, and then a long silence. Snake realised that this was the first time she'd been truly free for a long time, not under the orders of a Trainer, not being forced to fight when she didn't want to, not being forced to love when they didn't deserve it. She was raised from youth to be a warrior – she'd probably forgotten about this part of herself. He might have been reading too far into it, but her wildness, her outlook, her history, her intoxication with this brand-new freedom, reminded her of someone he used to know.
Also, he thought, they were both very pretty to look at, and both startlingly unpopular.
But soon the tournament would be over, and she'd be under someone else's control again. He felt a glow of genuine sympathy underneath his ribs.
Somehow, the briefness meant this moment would mean more to her, to him. Mono wa aware, he supposed, in his fourth language of six.
The curtains unrolled, and Jigglypuff's eyes were round and glowing softly with old tears. She gave him a sorrowful look, and walked towards the microphone. Snake gritted his teeth against the inside of his cheek. All he had to rely on was his own willpower, and the Nintendo-illicit cigarette and the four cups of coffee he'd consumed ten minutes before he came.
"Jigglypuuff Jiggle-iiggl-ly puuff…"
She did, he thought, have a beautiful voice. There was a sensation of calm like nothing he'd ever felt before, curling in his head like smoke, or laughter, reminding him of that night he'd woken up to see that Meryl was still lying there next to him just like she'd been when he'd fallen asleep, of that worn hard loving smile Otacon had given him the day they both decided they had a whole world to fight against and as long as they were together it would all be alri –
He had an odd, sudden sensation of falling over, and he jerked awake. The stage was deserted. The windows on the mansion were opened, now – no sound to worry about.
He buried his head in his hands.
"Damn," he groaned.
He decided to take the opportunity of being dressed up to go and visit Samus for a bit, just to say hello. Better yet, she was sexy and mysterious and dignified with an air of sadness and tragedy about her, which was exactly Otacon's thing, and if Samus decided that Snake looked very good dressed up, he could ask if Otacon would be allowed to join in, and, if she was okay with it, the resulting scenario would probably be more fun than anything which had ever happened to him in his life. Besides, he'd showed his body off at her enough times. It'd be fair to talk to her while dressed a bit more modestly.
Wondering vaguely if he should have brought a present along or if getting to see him like this was enough of one, he knocked on her door. Six foot three (oh, he liked tall women, she could keep the suit on) of glistening orange powered armour opened it.
She immediately collapsed to her knees, shaking with laughter, and he decided that something he didn't understand had gone horribly wrong.
"Samus," he started, feebly, "…what?"
She laughed on, then broke it into a vicious smirk.
"Oh, Snake," she said, shaking her head. "I didn't know you liked it. Nothing against it – I just wouldn't associate it with you – "
"You mean the suit – "
"You – you don't know?" Samus frowned. "But – oh, I get it, you were out with Jigglypuff, weren't you?"
He recalled Jigglypuff. The way Jigglypuff had made him feel. The way he'd failed to keep his promise to her.
He nodded, sullenly.
Samus gave him a look of pity.
"She was talking for a long while about 'hazing' the guest fighters. But I saw Sonic a few minutes ago, and he seemed fine."
"I – "
Samus tapped a button at the side of her helmet, darkening the surface of her visor into a blackish mirror.
He stared. He wished he hadn't.
"So all that self-pity was – "
"Yeah," Samus nodded. "We were in on it. We knew it'd work – you and Sonic are both ballsy enough to think the rules don't apply. Turns out Sonic's got more common sense than you, though."
"But…" he started, in disbelief, "I – I thought she was different. She made me – feel something – "
"Well," Samus said, cheerfully, "the shade of eyeshadow she picked really brings out the green in your eyes."
"Samus – "
"I can't read the Unown alphabet, what does that say on your cheek?"
"…I don't really want to read it out in front of you."
Samus made her face visible again, and gave him a thin smile.
"Since I like a man in a suit," she started (was that sarcasm?), "I'll help you clean that up before you go down to eat. I think I have some wipes or something."
"Samus…"
"I took a bunch of photos with the suit's internal camera, anyway."