Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-14138255-20160214165601/@comment-26397825-20160219065337

We do sort of have a timeline for the events of when Cinder stole the Maiden powers; The Black Trailer.

The Black Trailer happened before the first episode of the show chronologically. In the flashback episode when we learnt of Emeralds semblance, Mercury's prosthetic legs and Cinder stole Amber's Maiden powers, they visited the White Fang twice. The first time Cinder didn't have the Maiden powers, and just after Adam turned them away Blake came into view. The second time she visited the White Fang she did have the Maiden powers and we were treated to the White Fang Leiutenant declaring that he would find Blake no matter what.

So, Cinder stole Amber's Maiden powers around the time Blake left the White Fang which chronologically happened before the very first episode. In the first episode, Cinder was shown fighting. She didn't make any glass in that fight and she had half of the Maiden Powers.

Cinder has fire dust infused in her clothing. We know this because in that very first fight we see her in, she very specifically gathers fire from the glowing decorations on her dress. Ruby also explains the dust usage to Ozpin, Glynda and Ironwood, and Ironwood states that dust infusion into clothing is an age old technique.

If you notice, every time Cinder makes glass she has to kick up dirt or dust or flooring; in the very first fight, she doesn't even turn the roof into glass, she just explodes it before Glynda uses the roof debris to make the rock-snakes. In the fight against Ruby in DDI, she summons it out of vials and her clothing glows red hot indicating the use of fire dust. In the fight against Amber, she kicks up dirt and her sleeves glows, indicating the use of fire dust. In the fight against Ozpin, she breaks the floor of the vault and super-heats it before launching it at him.

The glass from her fight against Pyrrha was actually made from the dust and debris of the tower hanging in the air; it molds into being from the air around her rather than just appearing from nothing. When her arrow passed around Pyrrha's shield she actually broke the arrow into smaller pieces of glass through super heating the pieces. Velocity insured they kept moving forward, allowing her to rebuild the arrow after a moment and it continued on to pierce Pyrrha's ankle.