The Superhuman Gambit

 is a Fallout 3 quest. It is also a Xbox 360/PC achievement and PlayStation 3 Trophy.

Quest Objectives and Walkthrough
The town of Canterbury Commons has become the battleground of two self-proclaimed "superheroes" - the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist. Its inhabitants are not very happy about it and ask you if you can help them.

Upon arriving in Canterbury Commons, the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist will be engaged in a brawl. Once the dust clears, Uncle Roe will speak to you, asking you to handle the ordeal. With a speech check, you can double the pay, from 200 to 400 caps. After you have accepted the quest, speak to Derek Pacion. He gives you the best info on where to find them. The AntAgonizer lives in a cave north of town and the Mechanist lives south of town in an old robot factory. (Both locations will be marked on your map.) With the Child at Heart perk, you can ask Derek for their weaknesses. The Mechanist doesn't harm the innocent, and other than the royal guard, the AntAgonizer's ants are weak.

AntAgonizer's Lair
If you decide to take out the AntAgonizer, you head to the AntAgonizer's Lair north of town. Inside, keep an eye out for frag mines. (The path to the right immediately upon entering the cave leads to random equipment that is guarded by a combat shotgun trap.) Go down the stairs and to the right is an empty room. A button on the wall lowers a staircase to a cave. Continue through the cave, killing a few ants and you'll soon reach the AntAgonizer's lair.

Alternatively, you can sneak in the back entrance - a pipe to the west of the entrance at the top of the same mountain of rocks that the main entrance is on (requires a lockpick skill of 50.) This route bypasses all of the ants in the tunnels. It is also possible to use this entrance if you pickpocketed the AntAgonizer's key during the brawl when first entering town.

Once in her lair, there are no ants to fight, just the AntAgonizer. There are several ways to interact with her at this point:


 * If you have already received the Mechanist's armor and are wearing it, after a brief introduction she will attack the player, believing you to be the Mechanist.
 * If you have the Mechanist's armor, but are not wearing it, you have the option of giving it to her. You will be awarded with the Ant's Sting, a knife that poisons an enemy for an additional 4 damage per second for 10 seconds, and negative karma (as she remains a delusional "supervillain").
 * By attacking her or speaking with her and being aggressive, you can engage her in battle. Killing the AntAgonizer will not affect your karma even though she is an evil character.
 * Speaking with her, you can choose to help her destroy the Mechanist. The Mechanist will barge into her lair and you'll have to fight him.
 * With a high enough Speech skill, coupled with her real name given to you by Joe Porter, you have the option to convince her see the error of her ways. This is an extremely difficult speech check and may require several reloads to avoid a fight. Make it easier on yourself and wear items such as the Regulator coat to give you a Charisma boost (on normal difficulty with around 60 speech will get you a 30% chance, speech in the range of 90-95 will give you a 60% chance, so take all the advantages you can). If you succeed, she will give up her career as a supervillian, hand you her costume, and leave quietly. Be sure to keep the costume if you plan to also convince the Mechanist to end his "career" - he will want to destroy it.
 * With the Lady Killer perk you can gain the 'speech' outcome listed above regardless of how low your speech skill is.
 * If you have been to Hubris Comics and read the note to the editor about AntAgonizer's canceled Grognak the Barbarian comic, you can use this to point out that she can still be redeemed. Doing so will yield good karma. This bypasses the gender-specific perk and means you don't need to make the very tough speech check. You will also receive her armor.

Mechanist's Forge
The Mechanist's Forge is located just south of town on higher ground, inside the Robot Repair Center.

To reach his hideout without having to fight through his robotic security, you can lockpick the elevator near the entrance with a skill of 75 or above, bypassing the heavily guarded stairs. Otherwise, the facility is broken up into four sections: Office (left of Entrance), two Maintenance areas (Sector A and B, which are connected by a control room on the upper level) and the Forge (where the Mechanist is hiding). Sector B is closest to the entrance (metal door past the elevator), and the Forge entrance is on the upper level of Sector A.

The security terminal for Sector B is in the control room on the upper level, which allows you to disable the automatic turrets and security robots. The security terminal for Sector A is located in a small control room near the back of the bay, close to the Forge entrance (upper level). From this terminal, you can disable the automatic turrets in this room, as well as emit an emergency pulse explosion that will destroy any active robots in this sector.

Once you enter the forge, activate the coffee maker to reveal the Mechanist's lair. You then need to activate one of the little gears to the right of the door. Lying, Congressional Style is lying on the desk in this room. While you're here, there's a huge amount of scrap metal, energy cells, and various crafted weapon components (pilot lights, conduits, et al) to be found in the facility (including a Nikola Tesla and You book in Sector A). The book is on a desk next to a toolbox on the ground floor next to the conveyor belt. On the desk there are two already disabled Protectrons. There is also an unusual big wrench in his room.

Once in the Mechanist's lair you have several options that echo the interactions with the AntAgonizer:


 * If you are wearing the AntAgonizer's armor, he will believe you to be her and attack you.
 * If you are not wearing the AntAgonizer's armor, but have it in your possession, you may give the armor to the Mechanist. The Mechanist will give you Protectron's Gaze, a Laser Pistol that fires bursts of laser fire like a shotgun, and you'll receive negative karma (as he remains a delusional "superhero").
 * Attacking the Mechanist or using threatening speech, will of course result in the Mechanist turning hostile and fighting you. Killing the Mechanist does not result in negative karma.
 * If you choose to help him defeat the AntAgonizer he will say something about her attacking the forge. You will then have to follow the Mechanist and help him defeat her and her ants. Note: The Mechanist will most likely die during the battle which will give you the opportunity to get his armor along with the AntAgonizers armor.
 * Convincing the Mechanist to end his superhero career and leave the town alone will grant you his suit and positive karma (like with the AntAgonizer, it is a very difficult Speech check).
 * Either the Black Widow or the Child at Heart perks give a dialogue option to tell him he is scaring the whole town. With that, he will give you his suit and leave (If you have both perks, only the Black Widow dialogue choice will be available). This also results in positive karma while allowing you to bypass the Speech check.

If you plan on taking the Mechanist's or the Antagonizer's costume using a speech check, make sure you do not wait too long or else the Mechanist (or AntAgonizer) will disappear and you will not be able to receive their unique weapon.

Completion
Once you defeat either the Mechanist or the AntAgonizer, return to Uncle Roe to receive 200 caps (400 if you passed the speech check). If you speak with Uncle Roe after dealing with just one of them, the other will disappear. If Uncle Roe has been killed somehow, talking to Derek Pacion will also allow you to claim your reward.

Should you succeed in talking both of them into ending their "careers" (or just leaving Canterbury Commons) you will receive 200 more caps; 400 even if you didn't succeed in the speech attempt when given the quest, or 600 if you did.

Alternatively, you may kill one or both immediately upon entering town (they're invincible for a short time while talking, but can be harmed soon after). Doing this grants you whatever that one had on him/her, as well as 400 caps from Uncle Roe (without ever needing a Speech check). (Alternatively, you can sneak up to both of them, and reverse pickpocket mines or grenades. Regardless of how far along they are in the scene, they appear to be vulnerable to this 'attack'.) NOTE: You will NOT receive the experience reward for this quest if you use this method before talking to Uncle Roe. This is most likely because you didn't officially receive the quest before solving the problem. It is possible to immediately run to Uncle Roe's house and get the quest before their brawl has started, leave, and immediately kill them.

It is also possible to successfully talk to both parties by talking them out of their fighting ways and collecting both sets of armor off each one of them, however, you will not be rewarded with any weapons nor can you find these weapons in their lairs.

If you use the method of getting BOTH armors and getting BOTH weapons (reverse-pickpocketing both their armors and stealing them back when you hand the armors to their enemy), both characters will head out into the wasteland and hunt each other down. This is easily observed if you do NOT complete the quest by talking to Uncle Roe which makes their locations shown by the quest markers.

The AntAgonizer will make her way to Megaton, walking back and forth from the entrance to where Deputy Weld is, until you kill her.

Obtaining both costumes and rewards

 * See discussion page for glitches and exploits.

Bugs

 * If you walk into Canterbury Commons from the north and enter Dominic and Machete's House first, you will not see the fight between the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist, yet Roe and everyone in town will act as if you did.
 * If you enter Canterbury Commons and kill either the AntAgonizer or the Mechanist immediately (or both), Uncle Roe will thank you and give you 400 caps but you will not get the achievement and Three Dog will continue to report on the situation at Canterbury Commons as though neither the AntAgonizer nor the Mechanist have been killed. Going into Uncle Roe's House before they are finished fighting and receiving the quest first seems to fix this problem.
 * If you do not stay to watch the event between the AntAgonizer and the Mechanist, and then immediately speak to Uncle Roe, all three characters may disappear. If this occurs, the quest cannot be finished.
 * When you first come to Canterbury Commons and you see the Mechanist and the AntAngonizer fighting, when you target the ants, they will have no name and be blank.
 * The AntAgonizer's health sometimes won't decrease despite being hit numerous times - this occurs even in her lair. The only known fix is to continue hitting her until she randomly dies.
 * Reverse-pickpocketing a suit from either the Mechanist or AntAgonizer and giving it to the opposing party will update your quest status to "Report back to town for your reward" (as should normally happen). However, speaking to Uncle Roe will not reveal the normal dialogue choice to end the quest and receive your reward. This can be circumvented by killing either the Mechanist or the AntAgonizer, or both.
 * When you team up with the Mechanist and have to defend the Forge, he may wander off and disappear. When you talk to Uncle Roe after killing the AntAgonizer, it shows you that the Mechanist has died; therefore you are unable to receive the Protectron's Gaze.
 * After you convince the AntAgonizer to leave, she will travel to Megaton. If you have blown up Megaton before this quest, she will enter through a door inaccessible to the player, meaning that the optional objective to kill her is impossible to complete.
 * After killing the AntAgonizer without talking to her, leaving via the ladder in the back will cause the game to freeze. The player must leave through the front entrance.
 * Sometimes the Mechanist's Sentry Bot will stay in the same position for the rest of the game; it can be handy as it makes a very efficient guard for the town.
 * The AntAgonizer has been seen near Vault 106 with some ants.
 * When leaving (or entering) the AntAgonizer's lair through the tunnel/ladder shortcut it is possible to get stuck to the side of the entrance.
 * It is possible for the Mechanist to die in his own layer with no intervention of the player. This will not impede the completion of the quest, or change karma.