The sound of gunshots, laser fire, and cursing echoed in the sewers beneath Bunker Hill. Pistols, rifles, lasers, and a couple of shotguns were part of a messy multi-way gunfight.

One group was a team of Gunners that had been part of why the whole fight was happening. They were reinforcements to the ones that had planted a large bomb beneath the settlement, though their comrades had largely been killed already. Someone had hired them,

The group currently pinned down around and trying to defuse the bomb was technically a mixed group of Minutemen and Brotherhood of Steel, an alliance brought about because the woman in the vault suit covering the Brotherhood scribe working on the device was part of both factions. She was also in the Railroad, but that part wasn't so well known. Her three companions, Piper Wright, Curie, and Cait, were helping hold off the attackers, as Scribe Haylen of the Brotherhood assisted with defusing the bomb.

The third group was just a small gang of Raiders that somehow caught wind of a chance to take out The General of the Minutemen, and found themselves in a three way fight as the Gunners did not take kindly to their presence either.

"Just give up, assholes!" A Gunner shouted, a bald-shaven and angry woman that blazed away with an automatic Combat Rifle.

"Why so eager to die?" Cait shot back, verbally and literally, the Gunner diving away from shotgun pellets, only for a Raider from behind to nearly hit the Irish brawler with his pipe pistol

A few sprays of 10mm rounds made that Raider cry out, and the man fell from behind his cover dead.

"We're getting wasted!" A female Raider screeched, firing her own shotgun blindly around some debris.

"Yeah, you are, how's it feel getting you ass kicked by girls?" Pipe shouted.

"...Oi, reporter, stop stealin' my lines!" Cait joked, as Curie sighed, the synth/robot firing her laser.

"I would personally prefer we simply ended this violence quickly. I believe I already have enough data on combat related maladies."

"Sorry, Curie, but I guess these Gunners and Raiders want to help with research anyway," Nora replied, dodging a stray round that pinged off her cover beside the bomb and firing back with her plasma pistol, a cry of pain from her target signalling his demise.

"They do realise if the bomb goes off they're in the blast radius too, right?" Haylen snarked as she tried to unscrew a metal cover on the device.

"Not sure they really care, Raiders are too dumb, Gunners are kinda mad we killed all their guys."

Cait growled as she realised she was out of ammo, and grabbed a grenade from a Gunner's body, tossing it towards the dead man's companions. They gave a shriek of surprise, as an odd sound came from the grenade.... And a cloud of misty fog?

"...That's a weird grenade," Piper realised, seeing the ice spread all over the area.

One of the Gunners had stood to flee, but the woman had literally frozen in place, coated in ice over her skin and combat armour. The other had been scrambling to toss it back, frozen on her hands and knees reaching towards it, icicles blowing off her hand back from the blast.

A third Gunner, an angry looking conscript with a skull bandana and a blonde ponytail, jumped out of cover and fired wildly with her Assault Rifle, forcing Cait to lob another borrowed grenade. This one detonated at the feet of the firing/screaming Gunner, a flash of blue freezing her in place, along with her trigger finger still held down, but the ice in the barrel caused the gun to explode violently, making the frozen woman spin and smash into the ground with alarming and predictable results...

"Ugh, that's messy," Piper winced.

"Shit, screw this, I'm not losing more people!" Another Gunner yelled out, and the remaining members of that problem began to retreat, wildly firing as they bolted.

"Hey, the Gunners are running!" A male Raider shouted.

"Yeah, now it's just us and... Ah crap, it's just us! Everybody else is dead!" The other, a female, shouted out.

"Well, great, now they know they outnumber us, dumbass!"

"So come on out, hands in the air!" Piper shouted, and after a few moments, the pair of Raiders came out, seething, with four guns trained on them.

"Good, now maybe we can work on defusing this thing without having to dive for cover," Haylen said as the other four women kept the Raiders guarded, removing the cover to see the bomb's insides.

"...Weird fuckin' bomb too, all the blue glowy crap," Cait noted.

"Yeah, like we thought, some kind of Institute device. Definitely going to be needing it recovered once it's safe..."

"Indeed, it does exhibit a very high level of technology," Curie commented.

"Who cares about that stupid thing, just shoot us now and get it over with," The female Raider spat.

"Nope, you get a nice little trial. We're bringing law and order into the Commonwealth these days, let the people see justice get done," Nora replied.

"Also a rope can be reused, saves a lot of ammo, and a good execution draws a crowd!" Cait added, hefting up a hunting rifle she'd nabbed from another dead Gunner.

"Crude but she's not wron- Blue, the other one's reaching for something!" Piper said, cutting herself off as she realised the danger.

The male Raider pulled a small pipe revolver, but was cut down by assorted gunfire. His own crude weapon still went off, the round flying past Haylen's shoulder, into the depths of the bomb.

"Oh sh-" Haylen managed to say, as a bright blue flash erupted.

Above the surface, as the sun was setting, the people of Bunker Hill managed to hear a rumbling noise... and then waves of cold rapidly washed over the settlement. A few screams managed to start, but ended swiftly.

For about a quarter of a mile around the trading town, everything dropped to subzero, ice forming instantly, frost and icicles appearing. Nothing escaped the chill: Settlers, traders, raiders, ghouls, mutants, mirelurks, bloatflies and brahmin were locked in icy blue stasis. Even one of the Minutemen's repurposed Mister Handy Provisioners hovering down the road was encased, the robot falling from the air with a thud as the hover nozzle iced over.

Down in the sewers, the scene was similar. Ice covered every surface, every person. Haylen's wide frozen eyes were locked staring at the bomb, waves of icicles blowing off her. Nora stood nearby, skin as blue as her vault suit, gun still raised and coated in ice.

Piper's red coat held a purple hue now, the layers of cold blue above and below it, her reporter's cap blown off by the icy wave and her black hair like a wave of icicles too. Cait's red hair too looked more purple, frozen mid-swing as she turned to face the bomb, her hands frozen manipulating the bolt of the borrowed rifle. And Curie stood, her synth body frozen to the core underneath her ice-coated flannel shirt and jeans, icicle-coated laser pistol still in hands.

The two frozen Gunners now had extra layers of ice upon them, the cryo-grenade and larger bomb ensuring they formed an extreme cold spot, the same applying to the grisly remains of the fallen one. The female Raider meanwhile was frozen in shock, hands still up, staring at the fallen form of the dead male beside her, itself coated in ice, like every other dead Raider and Gunner in the room.

***

Back on the surface, standing just at the edge of the wave of ice, a man in a dark leather coat and sunglasses looked on emotionlessly, as a woman in a cleanroom suit cursed.

"It appears the Minutemen did not succeed in defusing the stolen device. Unfortunate," X6-88 said.

"Quite. Father will not be happy. Not only does our Diamond City operation lose the ace in the hole if they grow suspicious of him, but a number of our commonwealth trader informants are probably ice cubes in there," The woman grumbled.

"On the plus side, if the town is indeed also a Railroad safe haven, it will pause their activities somewhat."

"That was almost a joke, X6. Fortunately it wouldn't have been funny even if you had meant it."

"My apologies, Doctor Li. What's our next course of action, ma'am?"

The woman sighed.

"Well, looks like I'm stuck building another one of those freeze bombs to replace the one that oaf Mayor managed to lose. Which is fine, not like I enjoy surface work. The town should defrost in a day or two, quicker if people try to help, assuming they don't wander in over the next hour or so while the cryo effects are still lingering. Closer to the actual bomb site detonating in the underground though, that's probably an ice box for a few weeks...."

"I see. Then there is nothing more to be done here?"

"No, X6. Let's relay back, and tell Father the bad news...."

The pair vanished in a flash, long gone before other commonwealth residents came to investigate the large icy cloud hanging over Charlestown, snow gently starting to fall from it over the cryo-stasis locked area....