Welcome to Animania

Summary: A town where all your favorite anime characters lead a normal school life. Requests are taken, if you want your favorite character to appear in this story. Follow the happenings at this town narrated through the eyes of the one, the only, Ash Ketchum.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the plot and Jay Ketchum.

Chapter One

Café's and Club Houses

But I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mind

The brightly lit café was bustling with noise and activity as Ash Ketchum made his way through between tables and chairs full of high school students. He smiled at the ones he knew and frowned at the ones he didn't. School would be back on in a week and everyone was enjoying the few days of freedom. Everyone except him. He was working.

He sighed as he finally reached Table 7. Ash set the tray down at the table and smiled at the customer. He was surprised to see that only one person had ordered so much food.

He looked at the boy with the straw hat, "Anything else?" he asked cheerfully.

"That's all for now." The guy gave him a huge smile with one hand holding on to the straw hat firmly.

Ash walked around the table and looked around to check if any new customers had entered and needed to place an order. His eyes searched the large café as he looked for new faces.

He wasn't usually the type to take a part time job, but this was his mother's café and they were short on servers this evening. The good thing about this was that he made some good money from the tips. The bad thing was that half his school hung out at the café and some kids would never miss an opportunity to take advantage of him in his vulnerable waiter state.

One of those kids was currently seated at a far off table and was beckoning him to come take his order. Ash groaned internally as he walked towards the table.

"What do you want Oak?" Ash asked monotonously. This happened almost every time Ash decided to help out at the café. It's as if Gary had some radar that predicted Ash's working hours.

"That's how you talk to your customers, Ashy Boy?" Gary snickered at him and the gang of lame-ass losers that always surrounded him, laughed at Ash.

Ash gritted his teeth at the sound of the much hated pet name.

When Ash made no effort to retort, Gary continued, "My order's not here yet."

"I'll see what I can do." Ash muttered and quickly walked towards the kitchens before Gary made another jab at him.

The inside of the kitchen was filled with even more chaos. His mom ordered around Cilan and Brock as they produced one good dish after another. Servers entered and exited as they tried to deliver on time. People bumped into each other on their way through the kitchen. Shouts and swearing was heard often until his mother silenced everyone and things were quite for a few minutes until someone dropped something and the cycle started again.

Ash bumped into Misty on his way in, "Did you take Gary's order?"

"No, he entered and smiled at me, I showed him the finger and told him to suck it." She replied with a satisfied smirk on her face.

Ash couldn't help but burst into a laugh, "Damn, I missed it."

"I was tempted to throw in a punch or two." Misty grinned.

"Oh, how I know that feeling." Ash muttered.

"Oye! You two! Quit your love talk and serve the food!" Brock shouted at them from across the kitchen.

Brock stopped working at his dish and looked up at the two red-faced teens and smiled smugly as he watched them deny the existence of any emotions other than that of pure friendship. Cilan chuckled next to him as Ash and Misty claimed they were nothing more than friends for the nth time. Brock had lost count. He sighed and was about to pursue his merciless teasing when he was interrupted by the kitchen door opening once more.

Ash stepped aside as to make way for 13 year old Natsume Hyuuga.

"Sorry I'm late." Natsume announced in a bored tone.

Ash glared at the younger teen and a pair of crimson colored eyes stared back at him with a hint of annoyance.

"Why are you late exactly?" Ash asked with gritted teeth, while Misty took this opportunity to slip out and continue doing the work she was getting paid for.

Natsume looked up at Ash with his infamous death glare fixed on his face hoping to scare the older teen away. Ash cringed a little and the younger boy grinned inwardly.

But to his surprise, Ash stood his ground by swallowing the fear and raised his eyebrows in a somewhat annoyed manner, "I asked you something, didn't I?"

Natsume sighed, the glare usually worked on everyone, except dumb and naive girls with pigtails, "I was late because it's none of your business." He said coolly.

Ash's anger reached its peak and he dumped the apron on Natsume's head, "Get to work." He turned around to leave the kitchen as he was freed from the shackles of manual labour which involved watching other people eat delicious meals(a mighty painful task for our hero), when he remembered something, "Oh and Hyuuga, go handle Gary."

"Loser." He heard Natsume say.

"Pervert." Ash replied and left the kitchen before Natsume could take drastic actions against him. Ash slipped out of the kitchen through the back door and made his way up the stairs that led to his home. For mom's convenience they had decided to take the house over the café, as it made supervision on the café as well as Ash very easy.

He entered his home to find Jay sprawled out on the couch, watching TV. Ash ignored his greeting and continued walking towards his room. He heard Jay switch off the TV and follow him. Ash groaned internally, why can't he leave me alone?

"You free already?" Jay asked him cheerfully as he stood near the entrance of his room.

"Yup." Ash replied in an annoyed tone and shut the door.

Jay sighed as Ash slammed the door in his face. Another attempt at making civil conversation with his only son failed. He went back to the living room and resumed his position on the couch. Jay admitted that he was not a good father and leaving Delia and Ash, when he was only two months old to pursue his dreams of becoming a writer was selfish and foolish.

But it had been 8 years since his return and Ash still hadn't forgiven him. He never talked, even when Jay tried his best to interact. Hell, he didn't even call him dad for crying out loud.

Jay still remembered that day clearly.

A month after his return, Delia had scolded Ash for calling him Jay and not dad or father. And Ash had replied with his face devoid of any emotion but his brown eyes showing a hint of sadness and pain, "I'll call him Dad when he starts acting like one."

Hearing those words from your 8 year old son is not something you can easily forget. Ever since then he' worked hard to gain Ash's trust and respect. But no matter what he did, it wasn't enough for Ash. But Jay wasn't one to give up that easily, Ash was after all his son. Jay smiled as he remembered the day Ash was born and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Ash was annoyed. He cursed Jay for ruining his mood and tossed and turned till he found a comfortable position on the bed. His annoyance increased ten-fold as he stared at the photo frame on his bed side table. How many times had he tried to get rid of that photo but somehow his mom always managed to get it back and put it on his bedside table so that it would be the first thing he sees when he wakes up and the last before falling asleep. He stared at the five little boys in that photo. They looked so happy. He remembered that summer. He was six years old and at that time, to him, his life couldn't be any better…

"It's too hot." Taichi complained.

"You were the one who wanted to come here in the first place, so don't crib now Taichi." Tyson said as he continued working on his huge sand castle.

"I know, but I didn't think the beach would be so hot." Taichi groaned.

"It's May. What were you expecting, snowfall?" Yamato said sarcastically.

Taichi glared at the blonde.

"Please don't fight." Kai said in a small voice and his plea was unheard as Taichi and Yamato started their usual bickering and didn't stop until Tyson happily announced that the sand castle was done.

"What do you think Ash? Big enough for you?" Tyson grinned proudly as four pair of eyes stared at the enormous sand castle with awe.

Ash grinned and exclaimed happily, "It's awesome."

"Way to go Tys, it's huge!" Taichi said.

"State the obvious." Yamato muttered while Ash circled the castle, chanting, "It's awesome! It's awesome! It's awesome!"

Kai kneeled down to examine the entrance to the fort and said, "Ash could probably crawl inside, since he's the shortest."

Ash stopped his chanting and glared at Kai, "I'm not short." He stated angrily.

Kai sighed as he tried to explain, "Of course you're not short. What I meant was-"

"That you're the shortest out of the five of us." Yamato finished for him.

"That's not true! I'm almost as tall as Taichi." Ash claimed.

"Almost." Taichi teased him.

Ash opened his mouth to retort when suddenly it struck him, his expression changed from that of anger to excitement.

"We should have a club house!" He shouted happily.

The four boys stared at him.

"A club house?" Taichi scratched his head.

"Um, Ash, the sand castle isn't exactly club house material." Tyson said.

"What? Of course not! I wasn't talking about the sand castle, I'm not that stupid." Ash said grumpily.

The other four started snickering at him.

"Nope, definitely not." Tyson laughed and Taichi grinned.

"You're the smartest person I know." Yamato smirked.

"Hn." Kai grunted.

Ash's face fell, "Fine. Make fun of me as much as you want. I won't tell you about my super cool idea then." He stuck his tongue out at them. The snickers turned into amused laughter and Ash just glared at them.

"We're sorry Ash!" Taichi and Tyson said together.

"You're smart and tall." Yamato grinned at him.

"Now please do tell us your super cool idea." Kai smiled at him (which he didn't do very often), so Ash forgot about the teasing and smiled back at him.

"I know the perfect place for our club house."

Ash woke up to the sound of knocking on his door, "Come in." he said in a sleepy voice.

Jay's head poked in, "Dinner's ready."

"Okay. Just give me a minute."

"Sure!" Jay smiled at him and closed the door as he left. Ash glanced at the photo again. He was standing in the middle, grinning like mad. On his left was a smiling Tyson, dragging a shocked Kai in the photo. On his right was Taichi making the victory sign with one hand and the other one wrapped around a smiling Yamato's neck. At that moment, Ash had thought that they'd stay friends forever.

But, boy, was he wrong.

XXX

List of Characters appearing in this chapter: Pokemon - Ash Ketchum, Misty Waterflower, Gary Oak, Brock, Cilan, Delia Ketchum. Digimon – Taichi Yagami, Yamato Ishida. Beyblade – Tyson Granger, Kai Hiwatari. Gakuen Alice – Natsume Hyuuga. One Piece – Luffy (Straw Hat Guy). Original Character: Jay Ketchum.

A/N: Let me know what you thought of the chapter, and also pm me if you want any of your favourite characters to make an appearance in this story. Please mention how you want them to be portrayed as well! ^_^ R&R!