Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140912002450/@comment-10390252-20140913190238

I've thought about this too. I suspect that Cinder knows that there will be some CCTV footage of her actions no matter how careful she is. So, she can't afford to do anything that might have suspicion directed at the general. So, Emerald's warning gives her time to set up a non-lethal but still believable-looking scenario where she knocks down Ironwood and escapes without hurting him.

This is why she hesitated before facing Ruby. She had to quickly rethink her tactics for facing someone other than Ironwood.