The Phoenix died before I was able to post the last bit, so here's the rest of Gunn's Misadventures in Sunnydale:

Gunn caught the handgun Wes threw and looked at him, exasperated. “Discreet? Do I even know how to use this thing?” He shrugged at Wes’s level look. “Yeah, okay, I do, but I like my ax.”

“Keep the gun.”

“Fine.”

****

Two hours of listening to Lorne practice The Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge in an empty bar with no bartender left Gunn feeling sick. Probably too many weird things going on around here that could get you killed for anyone with authority to come in and ask him to stop. Gunn had tried once and Lorne had offered him the mic. No way, man, not gonna happen.

A movement across the bar caught his eye. He looked up from scribbles he was making in the condensation on the table from the watered drink in front of him. “Alonna?” He could have sworn. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him sadly.

“Lonna? Honey?” He felt a hand on his shoulder as he started to get up.

“Hey, I have something for you.”

Gunn looked around, annoyance clear on his face. “What? Andrew? I gotta go.”

Andrew smirked at the girl in the shadows by the fire exit. “Pretty. Someone you know?”

“My dead sister.”

“Oh,” Andrew nodded his head wisely. “The First.”

“What?” Gunn slung Andrew’s hand away from him and slipped away from his blocking body, heading for the door in swift strides.

“It’s just the First Evil.” Andrew’s clear but slightly nasal voice carried over the song and Gunn whipped his head back around.

“The first?”

“The First Evil. If she’s dead, that’s the First Evil. It keeps doing that. It got me a couple of times, and, you know, I was evil. I should know.” Andrew looked smugly self-satisfied for a moment and then shook his head, looking down. “I was evil. But, I’m redeemed now. I’m helping.”

Gunn looked back at the girl just in time to see her grin, just like that last smile he saw on her face before she tried to vamp him, the one that wasn’t really her, and then turn to dust.

He turned back to the table and sat down heavily, running a hand over his face.

“Sorry.”

“What?” Gunn shrugged. “Not like it’s the first time evil ever tried to mess with me.”

“I have a message.”

Gunn didn’t respond, so Andrew pulled a chair out and sat on the edge. “You know, without the ax, and, you know, no special robes or anything, you remind me more of Blade.”

Gunn looked up, disbelieving.

“Blade? Not the movie guy. I’m not talking Mister cut with the big teeth and gums. I mean the real Blade.” Gunn sat, trying to take this in. “The comic book? He fights vampires because he hates them so much. Of course, he is one too, well, sort of.”

Realizing this isn’t helping, Andrew stops and thinks for a moment. “No, I got it. Bishop! Bishop, Issue 283 of the X-Men, where he comes back from an alternate timeline, having beaten Apocalypse, and he’s bald. He really kicks ass. The rest of the X-Men weren’t sure they liked him at first, you know, because he kicked ass and he was so much more violent than they were.” Andrew tilted his head reflectively. “Okay, and he’s kind of crazy too.” He looks up at Gunn hopefully. “Also, his sister was killed, Shard.” He looked at Gunn’s face and stopped.

Gunn turned pointedly away and looked at Lorne again. Verse 43, or maybe just the second verse for the 22nd time, who knows by now. There was no following this crazy song.

Andrew muttered and twitched.

“What?”

“I have a message. It’s important.”

“Fine.” Gunn looked at him expectantly. “What’s the message?”

“Oh, I didn’t read it. It’s here.” Andrew attempted to pass a folded piece of paper under the table but jammed his hand on the leg. “Ow. Here.” He slid it across the top, right through the water spill.

……Sunset…. Motel, room 233….. she….. dies.

“You couldn’t have just handed this to me?” Gunn tried to read the rest, but water, and probably Andrew’s sweaty palms, had made the pencil fade to indecipherability.

“I was trying not to call attention to it!” Andrew huffed. “An old high school friend gave it to me.” He smiled, perky. “You know, she used to live in L.A. I don’t know when she got back. She said it was from a friend who knew how to stop this thing.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “You know, the First.”

“Right. The first, stopping because of someone dying in a motel room? Sounds to me like that’s already happened.”

“Oh, yeah, it did, one of the potentials, and then she pretended to be her. I mean,” He paused at Gunn’s confused look. “I mean the First pretended to be the potential after she died. Eve. The potential.”

“Never mind. I’ll go show this to the guys and see what they have to say.”

*****

Wes rubbed tired eyes and looked up from the note. “And you got this from a hostage? Of Buffy’s? Who got it from an old high school friend?”

“Yeah, I know, not like it’s exactly reliable.”

Fred smiled nervously. “Well, it could be. I mean, it’s not like there haven’t been other weird things happen. It wouldn’t hurt to check.” She looked around. The guys were scowling at her. “What? It wouldn’t! Okay, and yeah, I’m not getting too far with this one. The Garlybrxmtl was a waste. At least this one talks about Bringers of…” She trailed off and scowled at the book in her hand. “Something.”

Gunn twitched the note out of Wes’s hand. “I’ll check it out. Looks like I’m not going to be much use around here. At least I can try to find a hotel before sunset and see what’s up. There can’t be that many hotels in this town.”

At the seventh place, a fleabag motel, after having checked all the hotels, boarding houses and bed and breakfast places in town, and ending up so far at the edge of town it might as well have been in the country, he wondered why didn’t he think of calling around and asking if they had 200 plus rooms before he went looking. This place didn’t look promising either. It was a nasty U-shaped thing from the 70’s. He catalogued the strangeness, cracked pavement, weeds growing up into the parking lot, a lot of shadows. It took him a minute to realize that it was two story and the numbers began with 103 and ended with 293. Seriously, seriously weird.

He looked at the neon sign above and gave a short bark of laughter. “UNSET,” at some point it had lost the first letter. “Whatever.” He shook his head.

So, probably not happening at sunset then, which was a good thing since it was already 9:00.

His cellphone rang.

“Yeah.”

“Gunn? Weird stuff, since about 8:45. Bringers… crazy…” Fred, on the other end, but she broke up badly and he couldn’t catch it all.

“What? Say again.”

“Bringers! Some dead…saw….gouging…eye sockets.” She paused and the line crackled. “It was really icky.”

“What’s going on? Something to do with this First Evil thing?”

“We don’t know…translated… Slayer…die… cause…imbalance… an opposite force….”

“Listen, I can’t hear you and this place is seriously giving me the creeps. I’m just going to check things out and I’ll be right back. Stay where you are!” He started to hang up but stopped and brought the phone back up. “Wait? Where’s Wesley? Is he with you?” Only static responded. He thought about calling back, but decided to get this over with and then go see what was going on.

The room was easy to spot, up the rickety metal staircase to what was almost a catwalk in front of the rooms and about 1/3 of the way from the office. The light was out above the room, but checking the numbers on either side of the door convinced him that had to be the one. The no light thing gave him the creeps, though he realized there were more rooms unlit than lit. Sure, okay, that was better. The whole place could be a monster hangout. He pulled the gun out of the back of his waistband and headed for the stairs. Damn, he would have swore every third one creaked. There was some seriously weird shit here.

He got to the top of the stairs and eased his way down the catwalk. There were no sounds, not even the normal, and slightly freaky ones to an L.A. boy, of nature at night. Nothing. When he got to the door he stopped and looked around. There was no sound from inside, at least, nothing he could hear. He looked around and wondered how to play this.

“Be discreet, my ass.” The stupid gun stuck to his fingers, despite the slick weight of it. Forget discreet and he didn’t do guns. He stuffed it back in his pants and wiped his hands on his pant legs, then took a deep breath before touching the door.

Unlocked. He pushed and the door swung open. A roil of cheap air freshener and blood made him want to gag. “Whew.”

A blond, her back to the door, sat on the floor bent over, awkwardly cradling the body of another girl, while blood seeped into cheap brown carpet, dark into darker. His head jerked reflexively. Nothing special about bodies. Too bad he’d gotten there just a little too late.

He nodded bodyward. "Who’s the stiff?” The blond twitched, but didn’t look at him.

Okay, that might not have been sensitive. “Buffy?”

She looked up. Blood smeared her chin and open mouth.

He blinked, thinking of the gun. “Shit. Shoulda brought the ax.”

Kat, I enjoyed that! I hope you post more.

Winnow, thank you. Are you going to post some fic?

Deena! I really liked your expanded Gunn piece. I was looking at my inbox the other day and realized that I'd never responded more to your first fic. I'm sorry about that. The last few weeks have been a odd mix of busy and sick and not sleeping enough and trying to have more of a meatspace social life. I promise to do better next time I volunteer for something.

Oh, really, don't sweat it Perkins. If you can respond to it, I'd still like to have your comments. I understand busy and sick and tired, believe me! Meatspace life... NSM.

me either, as it turns out.

Winnow, thank you. Are you going to post some fic?

Actually this is my first foray into the world of fan fiction. I do love to write though, so I'm hoping to get inspired and try my hand eventually.

be careful Winnow, you're me, just a short couple of months ago.

Anyone remember this?

Can't say I remember it, ita, but it's certainly pretty.