"I bet this wasn't your initial plan, right?"
Despite the storm of rage swirling inside him, John didn't instantly jump into action.
He knew Mark's true objective: it wasn't just about crushing his new club, or even wounding his friends. Mark wanted to force John's hand to expose what he gained from the pocket trial.
He wanted to expose John's unique powers, the alien towers, and the high-tech cannons in front of the entire academy and the world. He wanted to expose the things that didn't belong to the human world, marking John as a target for every Paragon and their affiliated forces.
As he realised this, and armed with the bitter experience of handling that cyborg teacher in the infirmary basement, John decided to buy time.
He needed to let Nikolas think about a proper way to counter the trap, find a way to flip the tables. This was easily done by just sending someone to check on Cissel, save her and then all the chips in Mark's hands would be burnt down.
