Tesseract

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"One man? One man did all this?"

— Kenspeckle on Tesseract defeating four people at once, Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil

Tesseract

Character Information
Taken Name	Tesseract
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Birth	Unknown
Age	Unknown
Death	December 31, 2010
Magic	Adept, Bone breaking
Titles	Assassin
Location	Deceased

Tesseract was a powerful Russian assassin who appears in the fifth book. His main objective during Mortal Coil was to assassinate Davina Marr. Tesseract was an Adept who has the special ability to break anyone's or anything's bones with the slightest touch of his finger. Tesseract was always seen wearing a metal mask, he has several and the designs do vary. Without it, he would die due to a rotting disease, liquefactive necrosis, that plagues him as his mask injects a fluid into his face to keep it at bay. This also granted him great resistance to most toxins.

Biography

Mortal Coil

In the fifth book, he is paid by the Torment to murder Marr. He tracks her down at a construction site and is just about to kill her when Skulduggery and Valkyrie rescue Marr.

Tesseract attends an auction in Roarhaven. He kills six sorcerers: Hieronymus Deadfall, Lightning Dave, Brobding the giant, two unnamed mages, and Hokum Pete, then threatens to kill Scapegrace unless he gives information on where Skulduggery lives.

After disarming traps for three hours, he sees Skulduggery accompanied by others and Davina Marr go to Skulduggery's house. He defeats Tanith, Valkyrie (almost killing her on two occasions), Skulduggery and Erskine, and then he finally manages to kill Marr. Tesseract is then attacked by Ghastly, and the gang escape from him with the help of Fletcher.

When Tesseract returns, he is tranquillized and then buried alive for killing citizens of Roarhaven. He manages to escape as the tranquillizer had little effect on him and digs his way out and tries to get revenge. However, he is possessed by the Remnant that previously possessed Kenspeckle Grouse, Finbar Wrong and Anton Shudder.

Later on, he is seen as one of the many people possessed by remnants but it is torn out of him much like all the others. (This is the same Remnant that later possesses Tanith Low.) At the end of the book, he is seen killing the Torment but is soon intercepted by Skulduggery who is in turn intercepted by Lord Vile who mortally wounds Tesseract. He asks Skulduggery to help him to see the sunrise and dies trying to smile.

The Dying Of The Light

Tesseract appears as a ghost in the Necropolis during the second test.

Personality

Although much is unknown about Tesseract's personality, it is shown at the end of Mortal Coil that he had no regrets in life and he did what he did because it was life. He appears as a stoic and powerful mage with a mysterious background, but in his dying stages, he states that he will miss his cat, and his dying wish was to see and feel the sun on his face without the mask which keeps him alive. It is evident from this that Tesseract isn't a completely heartless killer, as he values sentimental things. However, he was not above a little foul play as he once stabbed a target which had suffered a heart attack in order to claim the bounty. He appears to be a deep thinker and acknowledges the fact that he makes mistakes. He also has a cat named "Cat" that he seems to have a great fondness for, saying he will miss her when he is dead. He liked to be on first person terms with people whom he would probably end up killing.

Powers and abilities

Magic

Bonebreaking

Tesseract is an adept mage and a practitioner of the discipline known as Bonebreaking. Described by Kenspeckle Grouse as a highly unusual but extremely effective discipline this ability is both rare and extremely deadly, allowing Tesseract to break a targets bones with the gentlest of touches. His control over this ability ranges from fracturing specific bones to splintering an entire skeleton with a light tap. Death caused by this ability is usually instant as fractured bones pierce tissue and puncture vital organs.

Tesseracts abilities, according to Kenspeckle Grouse, allow him to pose a unique and dangerous threat to Skullduggery. Skullduggery, although immune to most conventional and magical means of harm can in fact be killed if enough of his body is destroyed. Seeing as how Tesseract can fragment and entire skeleton there would be nothing left of Skullduggery to house his conciousness causing it to dissipate. Truly killing him in the process. It is for this reason that Kenspeckle voices his opinion that Tesseract may be the only man in the world assured of killing Skullduggery if he so wished.

Despite its power Bonebreaking is not unstoppable as Tesseracts victims can simply avoid his ability by running away. He must make contact with the tips of his fingers to use his ability. Any other form of physical contact will not allow him to activate his ability. It has also been shown that certain types of clothing can prevent this ability from being used as Tesseract was unable to affect Valkyrie through her armored clothes gifted to her by Ghastly.

Physical Abilities

While he is not described as possessing superhuman strength, he is an enormous man with a large amount of muscle mass, granting him enough strength to overwhelm almost any opponent without. He's shown to possess a high tolerance for pain, fear and stress, as demonstrated by his refusal to be cowed by being buried alive and his stoic attempts at completing his goals at any one time, no matter how he is injured or what happens to him, whilst thinking of the most efficient way of completing his objective.

He has displayed high levels of profiency in both armed and unarmed combat during his murder of Davina Marr, countering or defeating all attempts to capture him despite being heavily outnumbered. This is made even more impressive by the fact that his opponents were using magic against him but Tesseract was able to defeat them with nothing more than his fight smarts and unarmed combat skills. He has been shown to be incredibly stealthy, sneaking up on both Tanith Low and Davina Marr without making a sound, feats made more impressive by the fact that both were in fortified locations at the time.

Murders

Appearances