Assumptions kill!

Yep. And in this case, they most certainly did.

interesting story

Thanks. That's one way to describe it. ;-)

Classic good guy misunderstanding and causing more problems than good before they realize they screwed up. Might be interesting what the fallout from this might be.

Yes, it was definitely a Charlie-Foxtrot situation, and not a victory for the good guys. ;-(

My muse doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything more with this, so if anyone out there wants to pick it up and go forward, feel free to do so. It's definitely a downer Scooby-verse.

You can tell something is wrong. The fact that Andrew is with Dawn tells me something is up.

I can see it now - no sooner have the Scoobies 2.0 completed their deadly task then Andrew takes out a gun and shoots the others.

The First Evil in the guise of Buffy appears - "Report."

Andrew kneels before her and says, "Your plan worked perfectly, your majesty."

Well that's on way to look at the situation and it's just as reasonable as my explanation, which I've noted several times below.

In fact, given the basic premise of the Joss-verse, it's much more likely to have actually occurred that way. ;-)

Another great alternative on what could have happened when Angel and co took over W & H.

Thanks. That was all I was trying to show. ;-)

So Xander and Dawn have decided to become Big Bads, and are taking out their rivals?

Because that seems to be their motivation, just as much as they accuse Angel and crew of it. With equal justification, too.

Edited to reply:

Only crazy people self-identify as evil. Humans are endlessly capable of rationalizing things. Making hard decisions, doing what has to be done, it was him or me, whatever. No regrets? Good people have regrets and doubts even when they're completely in the right. The only people who don't are, you guessed it, evil.

Well, the way the surviving Scoobies saw the situation is:

1.) Willow helped the Fang Gang re-soul Angelus to turn him back into Angel. How can the Scoobies be sure Angelus didn't come out to play again, after Willow left, the same way he did previously?

2.) Angel has allegedly taken over control of the EVIL law firm which has been trying to corrupt him for several years now, but said EVIL law firm still continues most of its previous activities, despite now having alleged Good Guys in charge of the firm.

3.) Angel offers Buffy a shiny magical item, which he says will help stop the First Evil (who also just happens to be a major competitor/opponent of said EVIL law firm which Angel now controls).

4.) Shiny magical item only starts working *after* the two currently most powerful Slayers and all of the brand-new Slayers Willow Activated are killed, and *then* stops the First Evil, leaving Angel's EVIL law firm the only survivor of what would have been a very nasty three-way fight, if said EVIL law firm still continued to act the way they had been doing, even though alleged Good Guys were in charge.

5.) All of the alleged Good Guys are now highly-placed executives in the aforesaid EVIL law firm, which is still acting just as it did before they took over.

6.) The only survivor of the Hellmouth disaster which killed all of your family/friends, is a vampire who you had very tentatively trusted, who had been previously (supposedly) been controlled by the First Evil, and who had also tried to rape your now dead sister/friend, and said vampire is now another highly-placed executive in the EVIL law firm.

7.) Would these facts convince you that the alleged Good Guys in charge are really Good Guys? Especially, if you find out that remnants of the Old Watchers Council are trying to attack the EVIL law firm and imprison its new CEO?

8.) All of the facts the Scoobies had available to them are outlined above. You do the math, and tell me what *your* reaction would be. And if you say, you'd show up and ask what happened, then I will concede that you are a much more trusting person than I am.

Xander, Dawn, Anya and Andrew were looking for vengeance and payback, not to become Big Bads. In that same situation, if I had the resources available, that building would be a large, smoking crater, and I would have no regrets, whatsoever.

and another one bites the dust.....

I'm loving these fics...too bad they run out soon:{

Yep. Two more left, and then the Fic-A-Day challenge is done for August.

I'm thinking I'm going to do a repeat of this past year for December, though, and post everyday from the 1st through Christmas Day. ;-)

Ouch.

Despite all the missunderstandings, I actually found the alternate viewpoints quite interesting.

This isn't a world I'd enjoy visiting long term, but this little flash was.... something.

No, this universe was exceedingly depressive.

I'm glad my muse only took me for a very short tour through it. ;-)

Yes, never set your timer to go off at zero...

With Andrew and Xander involved, was there actually any possibility that the Evil Overlord List would NOT be invoked, in some manner? ;-)

I'm not going to quibble with the killing of Spike and Angel, as both are vampires and have been shown to be liars and manipulators when evil. It's remotely plausible that a "good" Scooby Gang would kill them. However, killing Fred, Gunn, and Wes goes against everything the SunnyD crew was taught. Also, any universe where Dawn is with Andrew is deeply flawed. So, I'm going to join those who figure they turned evil somehow.

Well, as I've noted elsewhere, in *this* particular universe, they believed that the entire Fang Gang was involved in the plan to destroy the Scoobies.

I also agree that it's plausible that they all became evil.

Intriguing. Were Xander, Anya, Dawn and Andrew the only survivors from Sunnydale or did Giles and Willow make it since they weren't in the Hellmouth at the end? Obviously Xander and Co are pissed off at Angel and Spike since they're still kicking around and all their friends are dead but I'm surprised that they took out Wesley, Fred and Gunn without hesitation. The countdown on the bomb was a good touch and did they evacuate Cordy before things went 'BOOM!'?

Yes, those four were the *only* survivors.

And I've outlined the facts they knew in another response, noted below, which led them to believe that everyone involved was in on the deal.

And by this time, in canon, Cordy was just a piece of meat, slowly decaying in her hospital bed, without any possible means of restoring her soul or healing her.

Great story, I loved the bomb! Nice to see Xander and the others become pro-active against the big bads instead of waiting for them to show up. I presume that all the others didn't make it out of Sunnydale and the survivors have gotten the impression that Angel and his team deliberately let the others die. Weather they did or not is probably going to be up to the readers to choose.

As I've pointed out in two previous reviews - and which I'm glad to reiterate again - here are the facts as the surviving Scoobies saw them:

1.) Willow helped the Fang Gang re-soul Angelus to turn him back into Angel. How can the Scoobies be sure Angelus didn't come out to play again, after Willow left, the same way he did previously?

2.) Angel has allegedly taken over control of the EVIL law firm which has been trying to corrupt him for several years now, but said EVIL law firm still continues most of its previous activities, despite now having alleged Good Guys in charge of the firm.

3.) Angel offers Buffy a shiny magical item, which he says will help stop the First Evil (who also just happens to be a major competitor/opponent of said EVIL law firm which Angel now controls).

4.) Shiny magical item only starts working *after* the two currently most powerful Slayers and all of the brand-new Slayers Willow Activated are killed, and *then* stops the First Evil, leaving Angel's EVIL law firm the only survivor of what would have been a very nasty three-way fight, if said EVIL law firm still continued to act the way they had been doing, even though alleged Good Guys were in charge.

5.) All of the alleged Good Guys are now highly-placed executives in the aforesaid EVIL law firm, which is still acting just as it did before they took over.

6.) The only survivor of the Hellmouth disaster which killed all of your family/friends, is a vampire who you had very tentatively trusted, who had been previously (supposedly) been controlled by the First Evil, and who had also tried to rape your now dead sister/friend, and said vampire is now another highly-placed executive in the EVIL law firm.

7.) Would these facts convince you that the alleged Good Guys in charge are really Good Guys? Especially, if you find out that remnants of the Old Watchers Council are trying to attack the EVIL law firm and imprison its new CEO?

When EVERYONE ELSE you cared about dies in a situation like the one outlined above, how can you NOT believe that you were set up?

And in a situation like that, you have to take the bastards responsible out of the game, by any means available.

I was hoping it would go at 117 and it did. Major kudos there. Very nice revenge piece.

Thanks. With an uber-geek like Andrew building the bomb, and Xander to agree and encourage him, how could they NOT use the Evil Overlord list to take out an EVIL law firm? ;-)

::snicker:: Too bad the Security guards hadn't read that list, or thought of it as anything more than "just" entertainment. I do think this was a fitting revenge.

Thanks.

I'm not saying that the surviving Scoobies couldn't have handled the situation in a different manner, which wouldn't have as much bloodshed. I'm just pointing out that they believed that they had more than sufficient justification for what they were doing.

Gotta agree. From what I saw here, the only explaination (especially for killing Fred, etc) is that Xander, Dawn, etc have turned evil. Either that, or someone just wrote up a wish fulfillment story, which kinda disturbs me.

As I noted in a previous response to a review, the way the surviving Scoobies saw the situation is:

1.) Willow helped the Fang Gang re-soul Angelus to turn him back into Angel. How can the Scoobies be sure Angelus didn't come out to play again, after Willow left, the same way he did previously?

2.) Angel has allegedly taken over control of the EVIL law firm which has been trying to corrupt him for several years now, but said EVIL law firm *still* continues most of its previous activities, despite now having alleged Good Guys in charge of the firm.

3.) Angel offers Buffy a shiny magical item, which he says will help stop the First Evil (who also just happens to be a major competitor/opponent of said EVIL law firm which Angel now controls).

4.) Shiny magical item only starts working *after* the two currently most powerful Slayers and all of the brand-new Slayers Willow Activated are killed, and *then* stops the First Evil, leaving Angel's EVIL law firm the only survivor of what would have been a very nasty three-way fight, if said EVIL law firm still continued to act the way they had been doing, even though alleged Good Guys were in charge.

5.) All of the alleged Good Guys are now highly-placed executives in the aforesaid EVIL law firm, which is still acting just as it did before they took over.

6.) The only survivor of the Hellmouth disaster which killed all of your family/friends, is a vampire who you had very tentatively trusted, who had been previously (supposedly) been controlled by the First Evil, and who had also tried to rape your now dead sister/friend, and said vampire is now another highly-placed executive in the EVIL law firm.

7.) Would these facts convince you that the alleged Good Guys in charge are really Good Guys? Especially, if you find out that remnants of the Old Watchers Council are trying to attack the EVIL law firm and imprison its new CEO?

8.) All of the facts the Scoobies had available to them are outlined above. You do the math, and tell me what *your* reaction would be. And if you say, you'd show up and ask what happened, then I will concede that you are a much more trusting person than I am.

Xander, Dawn, Anya and Andrew were looking for vengeance and payback, not to become Big Bads. In that same situation, if I had the resources available, that building would be a large, smoking crater, and I would have no regrets, whatsoever.