Editing The Mona Lisa

{{Title|''The Mona Lisa''}}
{{Status|RealWorld}}
[[File:Evo MonaLisa Kubota.jpg|150px|thumb|The cover of ''The Mona Lisa'' by Jami Kubota]]
'''''The Mona Lisa''''' is the seventh and longest short story in ''[[Halo: Evolutions]]''. It follows the crew of the {{UNSCShip|Red Horse}} as they are sent to investigate the fate of the [[prison ship]] ''[[Mona Lisa]]'', which has mysteriously come to rest near the destroyed [[Installation 04]]. After boarding the ship, a team of [[UNSC Marine Corps|Marines]] stumbles upon a [[Flood|parasitic nightmare]], and begin a desperate struggle for survival against the parasite. ''The Mona Lisa'' was written by Tessa Kum and [[Wikipedia:Jeff VanderMeer|Jeff VanderMeer]].

Like three other ''Halo: Evolutions'' stories, ''The Mona Lisa'' has been adapted to a motion comic by [[Juan Richard Feliz|ONE]].<ref name="SDCC">[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bEMmNEHbr0 '''YouTube''': ''SDCC: Halo Universe Panel (Part 5)'']</ref>

==Plot Synopsis==
{{Spoiler/begin}}
Aboard the {{UNSCShip|Red Horse}} close to the wreckage of [[Alpha Halo]], a team of Marines and naval personnel led by [[Sergeant]] [[Zhao Heng Lopez]] recovers an escape pod from the ''[[Mona Lisa]]''. Inside the pod is a [[John Doe|critically injured man]] who says little but to express his relief at being safe before expiring. Sergeant Lopez is summoned to meet with the [[Commanding officer|CO]] of the ''Red Horse'', [[Commander]] [[Tobias Foucault]], and the new [[Artificial intelligence|AI]], [[Rebecca]]. Lopez is ordered to take her team and investigate the ''Mona Lisa'', although exactly what she is supposed to be looking for is left unclear. Lopez realizes that her team consists of everyone who has come into contact with the John Doe inside the escape pod. These include [[Ngoc Benti]], a corpsman, [[Clarence]], an extremely competent and quiet Marine, [[James MacCraw|MacCraw]], the loud and inexperienced rookie in their squad, and [[Burgundy]], a crack [[Pelican]] pilot.
[[File:MonaLisa_pod_inspection.png|thumb|The Marines inspecting the escape pod.]]
Lopez's squad boards the drifting ''Mona Lisa'' and quickly cleans up a small group of unarmed, unarmored [[Covenant]] [[Sangheili]]. Benti, chasing a Sangheili, runs almost directly into it. The alien, to Benti's surprise, puts its finger to its mouth in a "shush" gesture. Benti hesitates, and the Sangheili is gunned down by Clarence. After they finish killing the few Covenant in the area, one of the Marines, [[Rabbit]], goes missing. Lopez assigns a small group of Marines to stay behind and guard the Pelican while the rest look for their missing squadmate. The lost Marine is soon found dead with another unarmed Sangheili repeatedly stomping on her chest. While removing Rabbit's dog tags, Lopez notices [[Pod infector|unnatural growth]] on the body. At the same time, the Marines left to guard the Pelican; [[Cranker]], [[Simmons]], [[Maller]] and [[Sydney (Marine)|Sydney]], engage an unseen enemy, and are quickly overrun. Burgundy stays inside the Pelican and watches as their bodies disappear.

The remaining Marines make contact with Foucault, who orders them to initiate the [[Cole Protocol]], seeing as there are loose Covenant on the ship, and erase the ship's navigation data. Lopez divides up her remaining men into two groups, one led by herself to destroy the nav data in the bridge and the other led by Benti to destroy the backup in the engine room. As Benti's team leaves, Lopez realizes that another Marine, [[Ayad]], is also mysteriously missing.

Lopez and her squad make their way to the ship's minimal medical bay. There, they find a sealed safe room, and it opens to reveal the ship's supposed medical officer, John Smith. After encountering a strange growth within the ship, Lopez verbally interrogates Smith, who reluctantly reveals that experiments were being conducted on Covenant prisoners with an unknown infection, but then the infection jumped to the human prisoners aboard the ship.

Burgundy sees Cranker and Maller outside, badly wounded but apparently still alive, and opens the Pelican for them to get in. Up close, Burgundy realizes that the Marines are in fact [[Flood combat form|dead and deformed]], yet are still walking, and attempts to stop them from getting to her. She is overpowered and dragged away. Meanwhile, Benti's group makes its way into the bilges of the ship but is soon engaged by a group of the [[Flood]]. As the Marines make their escape, [[Orlav]] is wounded, expires and later wakes up to bite another Marine, [[Gersten]]. Lopez loses another man, [[Rakesh]], to the Flood, and eventually finds that Smith is actually an [[Office of Naval Intelligence|ONI]] operative. It’s revealed that the major had been using the ''Mona Lisa'' as a testing bed to weaponize the Flood, using human and Covenant prisoners alike. Killing [[Mahmoud]] with a concealed knife, Smith breaks free from Lopez and makes it back to the ''Red Horse'' in the Marines' Pelican. Benti finds a human survivor, a prisoner named [[Patrick Rimmer]], and a befriended Sangheili armed with a cricket bat Rimmer has dubbed "[[Henry]]".

Rimmer points out that one of Benti's party is infected. The infected Marine, Gersten, is promptly shot in the head by Clarence, reanimates and is shot again. During an engagement with an infected Sangheili, Lopez's group loses two more Marines, [[Raj Singh|Singh]] and [[Percy]], leaving only herself and MacCraw. On the bridge of the ''Mona Lisa'', Lopez makes contact with the ''Red Horse'' one last time, and she is informed that Smith had stolen their Pelican and Foucault will destroy the ''Mona Lisa'' to ensure that the Flood do not escape. Benti's team, now only consisting of herself, Clarence, Rimmer and "Henry", finally reaches the engine room and witnesses Burgundy being dragged to [[Proto-Gravemind|a huge growth]] on the engine. Realizing that the Flood are trying to "hot wire" the slipspace drive to work, Benti throws her last grenades at the Flood growth to destroy it, and begins to fall back to the escape pods.

As they race to meet up with Lopez and MacCraw, Benti is gravely injured by an infected Marine, but "Henry" picks her up and carries her the rest of the way to the pods. When Lopez sees "Henry" and Rimmer, Clarence shoots Rimmer in the head and the others deduce that he is an ONI agent. Clarence reveals that there were never meant to be any civilian or Covenant survivors from the ''Mona Lisa''. As the survivors standoff, MacCraw takes one of the two remaining escape pods and abandons them. The wounded Benti sacrifices herself to give Lopez and Henry a chance to survive and manages to grapple with Clarence ensuring the army of Flood overtake the both of them. Lopez and "Henry" hold off the Flood long enough to enter the airlock, but then realize that there is only enough room for one in the remaining escape pod. Lopez tries to shoot "Henry", but realizes she is out of ammunition. The two begin fighting for the last pod as the countdown timer to Foucault's attack reaches thirty seconds.
{{Spoiler/end}}

==Appearances==
{{Featurelist|secondcolumn=title-5|title-1=Characters|
;Artificial intelligence
*[[Chauncey]] {{Fm}}
*[[Rebecca]] {{1st}}

;Human
*[[Ayad]] {{1st}}
*[[Burgundy]] {{1st}}
*[[Clarence]] {{1st}}
*[[Cranker]] {{1st}}
*[[George Crispin]] {{Fm}}
*[[Gersten]] {{1st}}
*[[James MacCraw]] {{1st}}
*[[John-117]] {{Mo}}
*"[[John Doe]]" {{1st}}
*[[John Smith]] {{1st}}
*[[Mahmoud]] {{1st}}
*[[Maller]] {{1st}}
*[[Murray]] {{Fm}}
*[[Ngoc Benti]] {{1st}}
*[[Orlav]] {{1st}}
*[[Patrick Rimmer]] {{1st}}
*[[Raj Singh]] {{1st}}
*[[Percy]] {{1st}}
*[[Rabbit]] {{1st}}
*[[Rakesh]] {{1st}}
*[[Simmons]] {{1st}}
*[[Sydney (Marine)|Sydney]] {{1st}}
*[[Tobias Foucault]] {{1st}}
*[[Tsardikos]] {{1st}}
*[[Zhao Heng Lopez]] {{1st}}

;Sangheili
*"[[Henry]]" {{1st}}
|title-2=Species|
*[[Flood]]
*[[Human]]
*[[Jiralhanae]] {{Mo}}
*[[Sangheili]]
|title-3=Organizations|
*[[Covenant]]
**[[Covenant fleet]]
**[[Covenant military]]
*[[Unified Earth Government]]
**[[United Nations Space Command]]
***[[UNSC Marine Corps]]
***[[UNSC Navy]]
****[[Naval Special Weapons]]
*****[[SPARTAN-II program]] {{Mo}}
****[[Office of Naval Intelligence]]
*****[[UNSC Prowler Corps]]
|title-4=Locations|
*[[Soell]] system
**[[Threshold]]
***[[Installation 04]]
*[[Sol system]] {{Mo}}
**[[Earth]] {{Mo}}
***[[United Republic of North America]]
****[[Mexico]]
*****[[Cozumel]] {{Fm}}
|title-5=Events|
*[[Human-Covenant War]]
**[[Skirmish on Mona Lisa]] {{1st}}
|title-6=Vehicles|
*[[Freighter]]
*{{Class|Halcyon|light cruiser}}
**{{UNSCShip|Pillar of Autumn}} {{c|Wreckage only}}
*[[Prison ship]] {{1st}}
**''[[Mona Lisa]]'' {{1st}}
*[[Prowler]]
**{{UNSCShip|Red Horse}} {{1st}}
*{{Class|CAS|assault carrier}}
|title-7=Weapons|
*[[Combat knife]]
*[[M6D magnum]]
*[[M9 fragmentation grenade]]
*[[M90 shotgun]]
*[[MA5B assault rifle]]
*[[MA5C assault rifle]]
|title-8=Equipment and Technology|
*[[Artificial intelligence]]
**[[Avatar]]
**[[Smart AI]]
*[[CH252 helmet]]
*[[Dog tag]]
*[[Emergency lighting]]
*[[Fusion drive]]
*[[M52B body armor]]
*[[MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor]]
**[[MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor/Mark VI]]{{Citation needed}}
*[[Retinal scanner]]
*[[VZG7 armored boots]]
*[[Weapon attachments]]
**[[Flashlight]]
**[[Telescopic sight]]
|title-9=Miscellaneous|
*[[War criminal]]
}}

==Motion comic==
{{#widget:YouTube|id=Vc_Pv-JMvsE |width=350|right}}
At eleven installments, ''The Mona Lisa'' is so far the longest running ''Halo'' motion comic. From January 28, 2012, the series was available for download on the Zune Video Marketplace before the marketplace shut down in 2013. Each episode could purchased for 80 points or a season pass can be purchased for 700 points. {{Ref/Site|URL= http://halo.xbox.com/blogs/Headlines/post/2012/01/25/The-Halo-Bulletin-12512.aspx|Site=Halo Waypoint|Page= The Halo Bulletin: 1.25.12
|D=28|M=01|Y=2012}}

Several elements present in the short story have been omitted from the motion comic adaptation, including a number of secondary characters (Ayad, Maller, Percy, Rakesh, Simmons and Sydney). A recurring motif in the story, with the characters making frequent references to ice cream, is not present either, being replaced by "shore leave". In addition, Rebecca only appears in her "warrior" avatar, while in the original story, she alternates between two avatars.

==Trivia==
*When writing the story, Tessa Kum and Jeff VanderMeer used ''Halopedia'' for some of the story's in-universe details, as they were not given access to the official ''[[Halo Story Bible]]''.{{Ref/Site|URL=http://silence-without.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-did-mention-giant-angry-testicle.html|Site=Silence Without|Page=I did mention the giant angry testicle, right?|D=01|M=12|Y=2024}}
*In the motion comic adaptation, [[Threshold]] is depicted as being blue, while all other appearances depict it as somewhere between purple and orange depending on its position relative to Soell. The animators may have confused the planet with [[Substance]], the blue gas giant which [[Installation 05]] orbits.
*The famous [[Wikipedia:Wilhelm Scream|Wilhelm Scream]] is heard in Part 9 of the motion comic adaptation, in the scene where Foucault is watching a recording of a Marine being attacked by the Flood.
*The story's naming after a famous classical painting is a tradition continued in the [[Halo Waypoint Chronicle]], ''[[Halo: Saturn Devouring His Son]]''.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:TML Motion Comic logo.jpeg|Logo used for ''The Mona Lisa'' motion comic.
File:TML - cover scene.png|thumb|A scene from the last episode of the motion comic adaptation, with Henry carrying Benti. Note the similarity to Jami Kubota's [[:File:Evo MonaLisa Kubota.jpg|fan-made cover]].
</gallery>

==Sources==
{{Ref/Sources}}

{{Evolutions}}
{{Navbox/Media/Film}}
[[Category:Canon]]
[[Category:Halo: Evolutions]]
[[Category:Motion comics]]