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 Adept and was considered to be one of if not the best assassin in the world. He makes his debut in the fifth book; Mortal Coil, tasked with assassinating Davina Marr at the behest of his employer, The Torment. Tesseract was an Adept who had 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 as without it, he would die, due to a rotting disease known as liquefactive necrosis. His mask would inject a special fluid into his face to keep it at bay. This fluid also grants 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 Adept 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 claimed to have once stabbed a man who had just 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 had a great fondness for. He expresses sadness at the fact that she will now be all alone when he dies and admits that 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

Bone-breaking

Tesseract is an adept mage and a practitioner of the discipline known as Bone-breaking. 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 parts of a persons bone 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 Skulduggery. Although immune to most conventional and magical means of harm Skulduggery 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 Skulduggery to house his consciousness causing it to dissipate permanently. It is for this reason that Kenspeckle believes that Tesseract may be the only man in the world assured of killing the detective if he so wished.

Despite its power, Bone-breaking is not unstoppable. Tesseracts victims can simply avoid his ability by running away and refraining from letting Tesseract get close. On top of this, the point of contact for this ability to work must be with the tips of his fingers and even then, certain types of clothing can prevent this ability from being used. Evidenced when Tesseract was shown to be unable to affect Valkyrie through her armoured clothing gifted to her by Ghastly.

Physical Abilities

While he is not described as possessing superhuman strength, he was shown to be an enormous man. An hulking, intimidating figure of considerable muscle mass Tesseract was shown to posses enough strength to overwhelm almost any opponent he couldn't kill with his ability without much difficulty. He was 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 injured or what happens to him, whilst thinking of the most efficient way of completing his objective.

He has displayed high levels of proficiency in both armed and unarmed combat during his murder of Davina Marr. He was able to contend with and suprise Ghastly whilst also countering all other attempts to capture him despite being heavily outnumbered during this time. 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