Character Summary[]
Tess Ward is the protagonist of Combatant and the first captain of the revived Wrath, which was founded by her ancestor, Val Ward. She fights in the first and second skirmishes as well as the War of Four.
Personality[]
She is cold and observant, a bit more awkward than those of her age are generally expected to be, angry, and emotionally intelligent only for a short time (before it is discovered that that emotional intelligence is actually just emotional numbness).
During Arbiter, she is pro-war, and generally takes a more violent, cynical stance toward her job than many of her teammates. Though she progresses a bit more toward compassion over the course of the series, that attempt at sympathy eventually draws her into cynicism, especially when approaching the end of the series.
As a captain, she expects a lot from her team and often has issues understanding the perspectives of others, but her skill in combat and her perceptive outlook are her saving graces.
She is a very skilled fighter.
Appearance[]
Tess is short, slight, pale, and wiry, with lilac hair and wings that are almost too big for her body. Her eyes are nearly black, but turn silver due to her Olden heritage when she feels cornered or panicked. She is of Russian descent, on her human side. She dresses very androgynously, mostly due to her extreme practicality.
Abilities[]
- As a Combatant, Tess has heightened abilities in combat, including:
- Speed - she is fast, partly due to her caliber and partly due to her small stature.
- Strength - she is unnaturally strong thanks to her caliber.
- Reflexes - she has great reflexes.
- Endurance - her endurance didn't start out that great, but she got better with practice.
- Military training
- Krav Maga, or a like martial art
- Sword training
- Basic soldiering in preparation for war
- Multilingual
- Like everyone at Evergrove Academy, she is conversational in the mishmash dialect of Otherworld, which gives her basic skills at the five languages it consists of (though she likely couldn't hold a proper conversation in any of them except her native language).
- Observation - Tess is very observant, as is her entire family, though her observations are of facts about people and do not include moral judgments. She is not very good at identifying the difference between good or bad people. She is very perceptive when it comes to facts, being able to identify favorite colors, family histories, and routes to work with ease. This is the same for her brother, but Tess uses it more. It is a learned talent. She and Faye are opposites in term of observation type, but not degree of observation skill.
- Leadership skills - as captain of Wrath, she learns how to keep the others under relative control by being stern, silent, and respectable. Later on, her anger gets the best of her, which hinders her leadership skills greatly (as does the loss of her first lieutenant).
- Intelligence - like the rest of her team, she is moderately smart, though nowhere near Cam or Kira.
Trivia[]
- Tess has a habit of raising one eyebrow when she is skeptical.
- Tess's death does not occur in-series, but it is hinted at near the end.
- Her son was born when she was twenty, but he is biologically fourteen years old in Champion due to his father's time manipulation.
- She attended Lowe High School in her hometown.
- She heralds from Sulking Goose, Evallia.
- Her teacher counterpart is Slater.
- She prefers math and science over other subjects, but sometimes writes very bad poetry. Her main hobby is combat practice.
- She listens to heavy metal sometimes, or alternative music.
- She is religious only when it serves her.
- She is most comfortable on a battlefield.
- Tess can fly, and her wings are almost purely silver.