"You know... you did say you wanted to be my partner in crime, right?" I look at Ciel with a conniving smile, and he backs up, a bit wary of what I'll say next. "So I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"What exactly?" 

"You said you've managed to escape some tricky situations before due to your charm, I need you to do that again. You need to join Alphonse's troops on their expedition." Ciel raises his black eyebrow at me.

"Haha! Me? Join Al's troops on their to battle? Have you lost your mind?!"

"Why? Do you not know how to use a sword?" I look at him puzzled because I was pretty sure all of the princes were trained in swordsmanship, although Ezra is a bit frail and weak so he tries to avoid picking up a sword. 

"I can use a sword, but that's not the issue here." I tilt my head sideways in confusion. "How do you think I'll be able to join the troops? There's no way Al would let me, and why should I join them at all in the first place? I thought we agreed that this is a suicide mission and I'm not interested in dying."

"You won't die, no one will. Because this will no longer be an ambush, it will be a kidnapping."

"What do you mean?"

"Just trust me. I'll take care of everything, don't worry about Alphonse or the battle, and just go tell Ar–I mean, his Majesty that you're interested in joining the expedition and I'll take care of the rest." 

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope." He drops his head in defeat. 

 "Fine. But if I end up dying, know that I'll come back as a spirit to haunt you."

"And we don't want that now do we," I said, trying to reassure him. "Now go tell his Majesty that you'll be joining the expedition, I'll send this letter and start my preparations." 

"Ok. Good luck!"

"Yeah." 

"What, so you're not gonna wish me good luck too?!"

"As long as I'm here, you won't be needing it."

"That's some confidence you have for being as tiny as a chicken hatchling."

"Look carefully brother, I may a hatchling, but I'm not a chicken. I am a phoenix waiting to catch on fire."

"Haha! I sure hope so that's the case, for both our sakes." He says, smiling widely, and runs off with a spin.

"Ok then, it's a gamble but let's hope my plan works, sigh..." I got up and gave Rina, my maid, the letter to deliver to Ezra with a few modifications in the content, and a separate letter addressed to the King of the Fredricka Kingdom. The instructions written in it were simple. I wrote to Ezra that in return for his help in my mission, I will get the King to establish a trade route for the exclusive use of the Alchemy Tower with a meeting to establish a partnership for further business ventures. And for that, Ezra would have to do two things for me, help create a confidential exchange of information between me and the King and find me a way to mass induce a sleep spell. For the King, he had a few conditions in his letter, in exchange for the information on Alphonse's troops and his route of the expedition, he will provide the Alchemy Tower the privileges I promised to Ezra, and a promise to not harm any of the imperial knights, including Alphonse and Ciel. Of course for safe measure, I specifically wrote in the letter that the King could use no more than 5 of his knights for the ambush. I wrote in detail how I plan for the ambush to occur, a plan that will ensure the safety of his knights and the Empire's, and that will allow his knights to safely take Alphonse hostage without any repercussions. Now here's the gamble, whether or not the King will follow the details of the plan as I wrote, I'm not sure. I heard the King is quite honorable and stays true to his word, and hasn't betrayed anyone, but I don't want to be the first. Let's see how it goes.

Rina confirms that Ezra got my letter and I expect that I should get the King's response from Ezra in a few days. I had sent a carrier pigeon to the King a week ago that I wanted to whistleblow on Alphonse's expedition, so he is somewhat aware of my plan already, and had agreed to cooperate with me. This will just be the next step of the plan. 

Ezra, unsurprisingly, agreed to my demands right away, he'd been wanting to establish a relationship with the Fredricka Kingdom. And the King of Fredricka expressed his enthusiasm about it as well in his response letter. With all the involving parties on board, my plan began to come into motion. Alphonse was furious that Ciel was joining the expedition with him, but he couldn't protest against it since the Emperor himself ordered him to do so. And although Armand doesn't usually interfere with the princes' domains and their work, I'm guessing Ciel used his Charm on him to make it happen this time around. 

A couple of weeks passed, Alphonse would be heading off for the expedition with the knights after a few days. Ciel sharpened up his sword-fighting until then and Ezra worked on my request for the sleep spell. He came up with some smoke bombs that emitted a sleeping gas after being activated by a remote trigger. I made him create a crateful of the smoke bombs and sent them to be planted at the site of the ambush ahead of time. And then, we had to wait. 

Comes the day of the ambush and Alphonse's knights are traveling through the forest land on a dirt path. Ciel, who was nervous as they were climbing up the steep terrain, kept fiddling with the hilt of his sword in anticipation. By Mia's instructions, a few minutes trek away, there will be a red ribbon tied to a branch, which is the signal that the ambush will occur at the next bend of the trail. Upon reaching the tree with the red ribbon, Ciel was instructed to count to 15 seconds before pressing the button on the pendant of the necklace Mia gave him, what it was for, he did not know, and perhaps, he appreciated not knowing. And as promised, a short distance away, Ciel caught a glimpse of the flowing red ribbon. He braved himself for what was to come, and began to count as they trekked past the tree. 

'1....2....3...." he counted in his head, '4..... 5.....' he gripped at the hilt of his sword, '6....7.....8....' then he grasped at the chain of his necklace, '9...10...11....' he fumbled around to grab hold of the pendant, '12...13....14...' his finger was on the button, '15!' he pressed the trigger and braced himself. At the 15th second, a series of explosions surrounded the knights from all directions, each emitting a thick pale pink smoke, which rapidly spread around the area, blurring everyone's senses. Although many of them instinctively went on guard and covered their faces, the smoke was thick enough to gradually make everyone fall to the ground, one by one. Ciel remembered cursing Mia before falling into a deep slumber himself. 

The Fredricka men who sat waiting in the trees, above the chaos, waited patiently till all the imperial knights fell unconscious, and got to work. Two of the men went to pick up Alphonse and two more picked up Ciel, while the remaining Fredricka knight set up the ransom notice by hanging it on a tree. Like a bounty poster, the pictures of the two princes were drawn side to side, with the ransom details written underneath. And like a gust of the wind, the Fredricka men disappeared within the trees, with the two princes held up on their shoulders.