Chapter One-The Invitation From No One

Espa Roba was sitting on his front balcony, watching the world go by. He really enjoyed this time of day, when his brothers were gone. Well at least three of them. His baby brother, Little Espa was down for his late nap. Jon, Christien and Andy were in school. Espa himself, had dropped out of school at fifteen, when their parents walked out on him and the younger Robas, so there was no need to worry about truancy. He was free to walk around Domino City. Not today, though. Today, he'd stayed home, and cleaned house, and took care of the younger Espa, who was suffering from a slight ear infection. He watched their neighbor's cat scurry up a tree, when a stray dog barked, giving chase. He laughed out loud. "Poor Mac." Just then, he was alerted to the sounds of Little Espa waking up in his crib. He stood up with a sigh to check on him. "I'm coming,E…"He muttered as he walked inside.

Little E was a mess of spit up and baby boogers. "Boder…" He cried softly when Espa walked in. He was wiping fiercely at the snot, trying to get it off, but only succeeded in getting it on his little hands.

If he hadn't looked so miserable, Espa would've laughed at his baby brother. Instead, he picked him up gently, and started changing him around, talking to him quietly. "Guess what,E? The rest of the gang gets out of school in an hour, then we're going to go out for dinner." He wiped his nose with a wipe, and put him into a clean diaper, and snap up jeans. He paced with the baby, laying his head on his shoulder. "You feelin' any better, Baby?" He asked him.

"uh uh." Little E clung to Espa with his little fists clenching Espa's shirt.

Espa sighed and looked around. "Let's go get your medicine. It's about time for another dose anyway." He carried the youngest Roba into the kitchen. "Now, where did I put that bottle of Children's Tylenol?" He looked around, bouncing the fussing E a little to settle him down. "Ah! Found it." He set E in his high chair, and handed him a bowl of dry cereal to gnaw on, while he prepared the proper measurement of the red liquid expertly. He administered the medicine to E, who took it easily enough. "Good job,E!" Espa smiled proudly. The baby smiled at his older brother, and ate his cereal.

At that moment, the doorbell rang, causing the elder Espa to jump. "Be right back, E. Don't move." He went to the door ,and answered it curious as to who would be visiting at this time of day. "Yes?"

The tall man with shades answered smiled a little at the boy with blue hair. "Are you Espa Roba?"

"I am. Who wants to know?" Espa asked, immediately on the defensive. Too many people had gone to lengths to shame his family ever since Joey Wheeler exposed him at Kaiba's Battle City tournament.

"That is not important." The man spoke simply. "I have only been instructed to give you this." He held out a thick, padded envelope. "You're supposed to sign for it." He added, holding out a pad with a pen.

Espa stared at the plain envelope with no address. "Who sent it?" He asked the man , as he proceeded to sign the pad of paper.

"Can't tell you that." The man said, as he turned away. "Have a nice day."

Espa sighed in exasperation. Just what he needed. Mystery packages. "Well, I'm not opening it." He said to himself, as he set the envelope on the mail table. He walked back into the kitchen, and started to clean it up, and prepare his brothers' snacks for after school.

"Hey,Espa! Guess what?! I made the soccer team this year!" Jonathan Roba exclaimed the minute he and his two younger brothers walked into the house. "It'll be great! Weevil Underwood's little sister is on the team over in Jaxson." He beamed proudly.

"Wow! Good work, Jon!" Espa smiled at his brother, who was next to oldest after him. Then he turned his attention to Christien. "How was your math test?"

"Boring. What else?" Christien muttered, before going into the kitchen for his snack.

"Don't mind him, Big Brother. He had a bad day in school today." Jon advised Espa, before joining Christien at the table in the kitchen.

Espa sighed, scooping up Andy. "And how was your day?"

"Weally Good." The toothless Andy responded with a smug grin. "We finger painted."

Espa laughed, and carried the five-year-old into the kitchen for his usual juice and cracker snack. "It's good to have you guys home again. It gets lonely after a while."

"How's Little Espa?" Jonathan asked him.

"He's doing a little better. His ear is still bothering him though." Espa replied, while he poured more juice into Andy's special cup that had a lid. The little boy had grown out of sippy cups last summer, but Andy liked them. "I've got a surprise for you guys tonight." He waited for them to look over at him, before he continued. "We're going out to eat."

"Hooray!" All three chorused, as they got up and tried to give Espa a group hug, which ended with all four of them on the floor, and Baby Espa giggling from his high chair.

"Ow.." Espa moaned softly, as he pulled himself from the Roba dog pile. "I'm going to get changed. Jonathan, can you please clean Little E up? Chris, you're in charge of his diaper bag."

"What I can do, Espa?" Andrew asked, not wanting to be left out of anything.

His older brother smiled. "You've got appliance duty. That's a very important job, so we don't pay too much. Make sure anything we're not using is turned off, okay?" When Andy nodded, Espa ruffled his hair, and headed to his bedroom. On his way there, he spied the plain envelope again. His curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up, walking into his room.

Espa sat on the bed, and stared at the envelope. "Who could've sent it?" He muttered to himself. Finally, it wasn't enough just to stare at the closed envelope. He opened it. Inside the envelope, there was tiny business card sized piece of paper. "What in the…" Espa pulled it out, and looked down at the writing.

Thunderbourouh Amusement Park presents:

Duelist Day

September 20th starting at 9am.

Espa gawked. "Thunderbourouh? I've never heard of it. However, dueling again would certainly be more entertaining than staying around here. My brothers would love it." He again wondered who had sent the invitation. He shook his head, and set the slip of paper under his duelist disk, and started changing. He wondered if anyone else had gotten these anonymous invitations. He guessed he would find out next weekend. For now, he had more pressing matters to tend to.

"Come on, Big Brother! We're all ready!" Christien's voice wafted in from the living room.

"I'm coming." He tied his blue, white striped shoes, and walked out his bedroom. "Alright, you guys. You know the drill. Stay together, and let me lead." He took the baby into his arms, and the five Robas left their small apartment sized house.

"Espa, are you feeling okay?" Jonathan was stabbing at a piece of chicken on his Denny's plate. "You've been awfully quiet since we got here."

Espa smiled, shaking his head. "Yeah. I was just thinking about next weekend." Really, what he'd been doing was trying call his ESP into working. He wanted to know who had sent that invitation.

"What's next weekend?" Christien wanted to know.

"Well, I got a very interesting invitation in the mail today for a place called Thunderbourough Amusement Park. It's Duelist Day next Saturday. Seems as though I'm invited."

"Aw…how come we can't go?" Andy asked, pouting. "We helped you all those times."

Espa laughed. "Of course you're coming, Andy! We're a team. We work together."

"Can we really, Espa?" Jonathan's eyes were shining with joy.

"Of course! Now come on you guys. Eat up. We can discuss rides later." He laughed, as he handed Baby Espa another cracker to nibble on. He was secretly worrying about the anonymous host of the day. He hoped he wasn't walking his precious brothers into a trap of some kind.