Chapter 3 - The Hopeful Beginning

It seemed as though MNC had been doing poorly financially recently, so the higher-ups decided to commission a brand-new arena to be built. It was slate-gray and cramped, all the better for the unique Games that would occur here. The gray walls helped the players to notice anything out of the ordinary and pursue it, any splash of color would merit attention. In this arena, the best Pros would be created.

***
'This is strange' the Iceman Pitgirl thought, as she strutted around the Arena. There was a gigantic metal oval about four feet wide around the entire Arena, hanging ten feet above it. The ring was broken only by two large steel circles at the poles. These were located directly above each team's Moneyball. Upon this huge ring the Pitgirls walked. Blue was halfway around, and across the ring was her enemy counterpart, the Hotshot Pitgirl. Her mind turned to the inherent danger of Red strutting about in this angular-gray nightmare of an Arena. 'What if one of those horrible Pros attacks her? She's bright red and an easy target!' Blue's brow furrowed at the oversight by the Arena designers. 'Surely there must have been a better way to protect her... and me.' Blue glowered. She hadn't even considered her own safety, fixating instead on her sister. 

Before the Game, the Pitgirls were given strict orders to walk around and around on the enormous steel ring in opposite directions. They were to walk at the exact same pace, making sure they met each other at the same time in the north and south poles of the Arena (In essence, meeting twice per lap). A tiny device in their ears would tell them what the others pace was, so they each could match the other without looking. The Pitgirls were to perform as more complete copies than ever before, they were to be indistinguishable aside from clothing. Both of them were to wave at the crowd continually as they walked, and to high-five each other when they passed by, but under no circumstances to engage in conversation. Mickey would be taking their places as Announcer.

Blue's long brown pigtails shuffled around slightly as the shoulder they rested on moved along with the arm, waving with an air of discontent. 'I wonder why all of this... no, I know why' Blue thought. 'This is some publicity stunt. They want her face... my face... our shared face! to be on the forefront of the Games. Putting us in a more camera-friendly position is just their way of doing that. It must be a publicity stunt.' She sighed quietly, very much to herself, afraid of attracting the anger of some higher-up. She didn't know if sighing constituted as conversation. She looked over at her counterpart again, they were now at 10 and 2 O'clock on the oblong, heading for the Hotshot territory. The tiny ticker in her ear ticked louder, alerting her that she was no longer stepping at the same time as her counterpart. They had to end up in the same place so they could high-five over the Moneyballs. She quickened her stride, stumbling a little once. Hopefully no one had noticed. 'There is a much better Pitgirl to be admiring at the moment, after all' Blue thought. 'Humm.. all this thinking about Red, I'm losing track of my surroundings. I've got to stay focused.'

Approaching the large steel plate overtop of the Hotshot Moneyball, Blue's mind began to wander again. Or more appropriately, her eyes did. Her bright eyes wandered all the way from their ordered targets, the audience, to Red's large... juicy... bouncing... breasts. Her eyes popped and her brain fried as she watched the enormous globes strain to pop out of their revealing red cover, and she almost forgot to high-five as she walked past.  She caught her neck muscles starting to move around, attempting to get a view of the ass moving away from her, but stopped it. 'This is no time to be unprofessional, this is no time to lose your job.' Blue mumbled as she walked forward, brow heavyset. Her mouth opened, cherry-colored lipstick gumming her lips briefly, and she took in a tiny breath of air. It was time to get serious.

The Pitgirls high-fived each other several more times, mostly without incident. After passing her double again, Blue grew bored of waving and looked down at the Arena. The Icemen had skillfully lead a large team of Bots nearly to the Hotshot Moneyball. A well-placed shot from a red-garbed Sniper reduced the head of an approaching Gunner to the consistency of chunky salsa, and the desceased fizzled out of existence. Blue opened her mouth, brain registering her need to announce the death of a team Gunner, but stopped her voice. In this game, she wasn't an announcer, she was just meat. She thought she caught the eye of the Hotshot Sniper looking at her, and shuddered as the muzzle of his high-powered weapon swept across the playing field, searching for any hint of color other than the swirling-gold Moneyball behind him. Blue sighed for their safety again. In the heat of battle, who knew what could happen? She looked across the field to Red for strength, that sassy lass she only knew the face of. Her face. The same type of body, cloned next to each other, now different simply in clothes. Surely they must be kindred spirits? Blue turned her head down. They couldn't be the same. She thought back to her science and repair training. 'Caulder's First Law prevents clones from being perfect copies. Even if kept in exactly the same rooms, exposed to the exact same stimuli, one clone having even a single grain of rice more, or even a grain of altered direction would change them dramatically, change their relation from same to similar.' Still she looked on at her muse, waving her tired arm as enthusiastically as she could, trying to make the crowd believe she was sincire about her undying affection for the Game, while simultaneously making clear her undying affection for her sister by staring at her body.

The ticking in her ear began to get louder. She had stopped walking completely, staring dumbfounded Red's tight, muscular thighs. Even from this distance, Red was a sight that caused your heart to throb. Red had stopped too, waving with both hands at the crowd. She blew a kiss. The ticking was as loud and fast as the bang of a MAC-10, no longer to signify her partner's stride but simply to get her attention. Blue began to stride forward again, and noticed Red was moving too. Clearly Red was smarter than she was, able to pull them both out of the nose dive Blue had caused and even give some random, sexy reasoning for it, and also to synchronize perfectly with nothing more than beeps. Blue admired not only her body as she walked ever closer to those succulent melons, waving furiously with her right hand to the crowd. As they stepped over the Iceman Moneyball, they raised their left hands to connect. Their high five hit a sweet spot. Leather finger-gloves snapping together with a wonderful smack. As their arms trailed away, Blue bent her pinkie finger, and their cloves caught on each other briefly, holding their bodies together for another instant. Mickey would be irritated.

Blue felt like putting her head in her hands. 'Clear your mind. That glove thing wasn't clever. You've been dealt a full hand here, but you're playing all the wrong cards. You are free to admire her body from a distance, but no more.' she was agitated. Mickey had refused to remove the security cameras from the basement, claiming 'Company liability' or some other corporate bullshit. Even though her ultimatum had been mostly for her own edification, to belay the problem a few extra days, she was still sick to her stomach with burning lust for her alter ego. Concerns about the pre-war phenomenon known as 'incest' were not applicable in this situation. 'It's more like... twincest.' Blue reflected happily. Any opportunity to smile at herself was a welcome one in this inhospitable job she had been created for. Yes, there was pleasure in doing a good job shining the armor of a Jackbot or replacing a targeting processor on a Blackjack, but it never stayed around for long. Not like that special time she had in the shower. Masturbation. 'It's such an ugly word... masturbation really isn't a sexy word at all. Not sexy like...' her body shivered in remembered pleasure. 'the act itself.'

The fetish for her identical twin had been growing for years. Unable to use her computer terminal for such things due to strict monitoring, Blue had been restricted to rapidly pleasuring herself in the shower, and the only thing she had to fixate on... was herself. It started rather quickly after her release from the cloning tanks. Who could blame her? She was nothing less than a 19 year old virgin in a sex-goddesses body with absolutely no chance of ever getting some. The nightly itch in her nethers grew into a deep, biting need, present at most times of the day. The showers were of limited use for masturbation due to water (and thus time) restrictions, but at least hers was personal, unlike the Pro's showers. Just imagining all those hairy fat guys towelling off before being sent to their deaths was enough to put her off her semi-modified artificial bovine consumption product. But then along came Red. Her twin sister, as beautiful as the sun is bright, was also involved in the Games. As if her raging lesbianism wasn't already strong enough from literally masturbating to herself, here was her twin sister, possibly close enough in mind any body to harbour the same feelings for her... but being from different teams usually meant that they had little contact. She had never heard her speak, though her voice box was surely similar. Maybe they were similar in other ways, right down to sexual desire. Red was a shining beacon, a fantasy she could hold on to, a hope that one day she might be able to love and be loved by the girl in that scintillating red outfit. And here now was the outfit coming towards her again. The girls were at 4 and 8 on the great steel ring.

Blue looked down and ahead, determined to ignore the tittillating sight before her, and her eyes found the Hotshot Moneyball. Already having a portion of its armor shaved off from the semi-successful Iceman assault a few minutes ago, it was easy pickings for a guerilla force of blue-garbed invaders. Two came out of a side door, one rocketting down from above. A Tank deployed his heavy Jetgun to attack the Ball directly under support from the Bots. An Assault made a skilled, accurate volley that took out the opposing Sniper, the only defence this meagre team could muster at that time. The Pitgirls continued to walk forward. A red Assassin streaked out of cloak and lunged at the unprotected back of a Gunner, who quickly turned around and hit her in the stomach with the blunt metal tip of his huge dual-minigun. The Assassin was briefly stunned, and the Gunner grabbed hold of his weapon like a baseball bat, pitched backwards and swung with enormous force, knocking the sparsely-armored Assassin out of the ring.

Blue had her eyes on the entire scene, twenty feet from the large disk above the damaged Moneyball. Time seemed to slow down for her as the airborne corpse soared just in front of her, one of her golden eyes visible from behind her cracked mask. The woman seemed to wink at the Pitgirl as her body hurtled past and disintegrated into nothingness far below. While she continued walking, she couldn't help but ask to herself, 'Was this a sign? Red falling to Blue?' Blue glanced at her sister, who was looking down at the Moneyball forlornly. She looked back down to the game. The Moneyball had a sliver of armor left protecting its glowing yellow interior. Mickey's voice blared over the intercom. 'THREE... TWO... ONE...' he cackled gleefully. As the orb exploded in an enormous flash of light, Blue glanced at her sister one last time. Probably the last time she would ever do, her crowd-pleasing performance surely under par- 'AND THE ICEMEN TAKE THE WIN!' 

The fans erupted with cheers just as her feet stepped on to the now-glowing disk above the Moneyball. Her hand elevated to meet the hand of her adversary... the last time she would touch perfection. Their fingers brushed each others, and Blue clenched her fingers tightly around her sister's hand, making a soft sound rather than the smack of a high-five. Their momentum carried them forward for an instant, until Blue's strong grip pulled them back around. Blue shut her eyes. 'I am doing... the only logical thing' was the thought that went through her head for a brief instant, as the girls momentum spun them around and their locked hands held them together. They twirled around once, like ballerinas. Guided by some inner fire, the twin Pitgirls straightened up at the same time, and Red grasped her other hand. It looked like some sort of strange Tango, with two hands in between their bodies and two hands off to the side. They locked gaze, and Blue noticed for the first time that, like herself, her infatuation had the most beautifully deep walnut eyes. All of this had happened in the course of five seconds. And then, something strange occurred, something that Blue had never counted on. She surprised herself, never thinking to be so bold. Yet the reasoning was sound: It was now or never. Blue leaned forward and kissed her twin on the lips.