The convoy rolled through the afternoon in complete silence, engines rumbling over the cracked asphalt while the forests swallowed the sound behind them. No one spoke. There was nothing left to say that hadn't already been said before the prison gates closed behind them. Ahead, Woodbury waited beneath a pale winter sun, its walls standing quiet against the horizon as though nothing in the world had changed.
Michael sat in the passenger seat of the Silverado with a folded map spread across his knee, though he hadn't looked at it for the last ten minutes. He already knew every road leading into the settlement. Every firing angle. Every blind corner. Every possible avenue of retreat. All thanks to all the information that Merle had been providing. Beside him, Daryl rested his forearm against the open window, eyes fixed on the distant horizon while the wind tugged at the sleeves of his jacket.
Behind them, the old school bus followed steadily, packed shoulder to shoulder with fighters from Hope 101. Rick sat near the front, his rifle resting across his knees, saying nothing. Glenn sat beside him, equally silent. T-Dog stared through the window. Oscar checked his double barrel shotgun one last time before clicking it back into place. Nobody joked. Nobody tried to lighten the mood.
War had a way of stripping conversations down to necessities.
Nearly half a kilometer from Woodbury, Michael radioed everyone to stop.
The convoy slowly came to a stop.
Engines idled.
For several long seconds nothing moved except the smoke drifting lazily from the exhaust pipes.
Michael climbed down from the truck first. The others followed without needing instructions.
He unfolded the map across the Silverado's hood.
"Final check."
Everyone gathered around.
"Team One." His finger tapped the main road leading directly toward the gate, then back at his own chest. "Me. Front and center."
A few heads turned. Nobody looked surprised.
"We punch straight through the front. Maximum noise, maximum pressure. We'll begin the assault with an opening fire from the RPG. Instruct your men to not use the molotovs recklessly, and avoid throwing them into houses. We're not here to burn down the place, but to neutralize the threat."
Several men nodded.
"So no unnecessary fires. Civilian buildings stay untouched for as long as necessary. Team One's job is to draw everyone's attention towards us so the others can perform their tasks well."
Michael shifted his finger west, toward the treeline.
"Team Two."
Rick looked up.
"You move once the battle begins. Their security will certainly have a gap once the battle begins since everyone will be panicking and swarm towards us to defend this place. So use that opportunity to sneak inside during that gap in their security. Suppressed weapons only until you're compromised. Secure civilians. Disarm anyone willing to surrender."
He looked Rick in the eye.
"If possible, no executions."
"If someone drops their weapon, zip-tie them and move on."
"If they force your hand..."
His expression hardened.
"...protect yourselves. But that's the last option, not the first."
Rick answered simply. "Understood."
Finally, Michael's finger reached the rear of the settlement, tracing a narrow maintenance road that ran behind the outer wall.
"Team Three."
Jack folded his arms.
Tom stopped fidgeting.
Daryl looked over.
Baldwin stood perfectly still.
"You follow behind Team Two through whatever gap they clear. Once you're in, proceed with your objective" Michael's finger tapped the alley running behind what had once been the town's municipal building. "So while we're busy taking the brunt of their forces. Eliminate everyone on the list I gave. If they surrender, then tie them up. But your most important objective is locating the Governor.
He looked directly at Baldwin.
"If an opportunity presents itself..."
Michael's voice remained calm as silence settled over the group.
"...you end it. Quiet, fast, and you don't stop to make sure anyone sees you do it. Once the job is done, retreat and regroup with Team Two. We'll pincer them from two fronts."
The map disappeared beneath Michael's hand as he folded it again.
"With the noise Team One's making, nobody in that town is going to hear a suppressed rifle three streets over. That's the whole plan. We're loud so you can be quiet. Don't waste it."
"Questions?"
None came.
"Good." He stepped back. "Move out."
The fighters then split off into their respective teams.
The largest group stayed behind with the vehicles, while Team Two immediately disappeared into the tree line. Team Three fell in behind them without another word, rifles already fitted with suppressors that caught brief flashes of sunlight before vanishing into the shadow of the trees.
Team One immediately moved out when the two teams disappeared.
They left the vehicles on the side of the road and continued the remaining distance on foot.
While moving, Michael raised the binoculars one last time.
When they reached the three hundred meter mark, roughly, Michael ordered everyone to move within the edge of the tree line.
When they were only a short distance from reaching Woodbury. Michael raised his fist in the air, and everyone slowly came to halt.
He ordered everyone to spread out and take positions
Michael grabbed the binoculars one more time and checked the status of the enemy ahead.
Everything appeared normal. Men stood on entries along the wall and even on top of the small buildings. Some were laughing or messing around with each other. Oblivious of the looming danger ahead.
'Are they so confident in their defenses that they are not even patrolling their surrounding area?'
Michael lowered the binoculars while feeling doubtful. He ignored that feeling and turned towards T-Dog beside him.
"Ready."
T-Dog moved into position and aimed ahead.
Everyone was quietly watching their movements, and when they saw T-Dog moving into position. They immediately readied their weapons, mostly pistols, hunting rifles and shotguns. There were also a few who were ready to charge ahead and throw molotovs.
Michael slowly raised one hand.
Everyone swallowed.
For one heartbeat...
Two...
Three...
His hand dropped.
The rocket left the launcher with a deafening roar. It flew out of the tree and streaked across the open ground before smashing directly into Woodbury's reinforced gate.
The explosion tore apart the barricade in a cloud of splintered timber, twisted sheet metal, and pulverized concrete. Guards vanished behind smoke and debris as the shockwave echoed through the entire settlement.
For one impossible second...
Everything stopped.
The surviving defenders simply stared.
Nobody fired.
Nobody shouted.
Nobody understood what they had just seen.
Then two bottles arced high above the smoke and smashed towards them, and fire slowly erupted.
One watchtower burst into flames almost instantly while another Molotov splashed across stacked sandbags and fuel-soaked timber surrounding the main barricade. Thick black smoke climbed into the winter sky.
Someone finally snapped out of the dazed and screamed.
"Fire!"
"The gate!"
"We're under attack!"
Panic spread faster than the flames themselves.
The guards scattered at first before someone — Martinez, probably — barked them back into order, funneling every able body toward the breach. Civilians slowly emerged from the buildings before immediately turning back inside as smoke rolled across the streets.
Michael watched it happen exactly as he'd imagined. Philip Blake was good — calculating, controlled, the kind of leader who usually accounted for every angle. But nobody accounted for a rocket through the front door on a quiet and chilly afternoon, and in the scramble that followed, every set of eyes in Woodbury turned towards them just like he wanted.
Then he spoke only two words.
"Open fire."
The world exploded.
Guns cracked in a disorderly manner. The Machine gun in Michael's hand hammered against the barricades. Bullets chewed through the wooden cover while defenders scrambled desperately for cover while trying to return fire. Smoke swallowed the front entrance entirely, reducing visibility to almost nothing as Michael's team maintained relentless suppressive fire.
Within moments, every able-bodied defender had been pulled toward the inferno consuming the main gate.
Far behind the smoke, hidden beneath the cover of trees and drowned out completely by the thunder of gunfire, Rick's team slipped through Woodbury's western edge, moving low and fast along a stretch of fence line, now devoid of eyes watching over it. No one noticed the suspicious group scurrying past their fences — since most of them had already run toward the noise, toward the fire, toward the fight they thought was the only one happening.
Behind them, Team Three followed through the gap Rick's people cleared, breaking off the moment they cleared the fence and vanishing down the road toward the heart of the settlement.
And a hundred meters in, Jack raised a clenched fist.
The rest of Team Three stopped beside him.
Ahead, they saw Martinez barking orders to their fighters to defend the hole.
Jack signaled everyone, and now..
The real hunt had just begun.