Careful what you say. Sohryu Asuka Langley would have been wise to do just that. But she didn't. "My Unit 02 would make mincemeat out of that reject from Jurassic Park." (the said reject being Godzilla). As you can guess, Godzilla did show up. Thus begins the Asuka Versus Trilogy (part of the OFF Series)

I am myself a fanfic writer. I have my own NGE fanfic series. Those who read it know that at the end of each chapters, I have small extras. Usually those are very short parodies of events occurring in the chapter it goes with. In one of those parodies, ended this way (I'm not putting the entire thing, the goal here is not to promote my work) :
 

        "An Angel..."
        I shook my head.
        "No. Godzilla. He's back!"

        Godzilla VS Evangelion
        Soon in a theater near you
 

So, when I saw that fic, "Asuka VS Godzilla" I thought "This has to be a joke!" But, hey, I like humor fics and parodies, so I took a look at it. I was surprised. It wasn't a joke. That fic was a serious one (as in, not a parody, don't go read it thinking it's _overly_ serious). It had a good plot. It was GOOD!

The Asuka Versus Trilogy centers around Asuka (as you surely have guessed). It deals with her; challenges she has to face, her thoughts, her feelings, her desires, her relations with the others around her and how it grows. It's pretty much in character. Asuka doesn't suddenly go all mushy over Shinji. Yes, she recognize that she has *some* feelings for him, but she doesn't know why and she certainly won't act on them ("It was the male's job to court the female." she tells herself).

In "Asuka VS Godzilla", Asuka finds herself faced against the Japanese giant reptile. She opened her mouth one too many times and finally "paid" for it. This one is a balanced blend of drama, action and humor, in a way I find similar to the TV series from episode 8 to 12. It also reveals that she doesn't hate Shinji. In fact, she may just like him...

In "Asuka VS A-ko", NERV has been hired by B-ko Daitokuji to hand support in her feud against A-ko, so Asuka was chosen to do the job (and also investigate reports of alien presence in Graviton City). Asuka finds herself having to choose between doing her job and doing what is right. And she wants to do it as fast as possible... to go back home (not to mention that B-ko gets on her nerves at first sight). This chapter is the most humorous of all the trilogy. Unfortunately, I believe this chapter can only be fully appreciated if you've seen at least the first A-ko tape.

Finally, in "Asuka VS herself", Asuka falls victim to an accident in the testing of a new battery prototype and slips into a coma. The only way for her to escape it is to literally face herself and finally admit out loud a truth she feared to recognize. Out of the three chapters, this is the most introspective chapter. While it's definitely less humorous then it's predecessor, it's still very interesting and addictive; I want to see the fourth chapter of Austin Covello's OFF Series!

Overall, an extremely well written series that I truly like. It's actually part of my top 5 NGE fanfic series. It's well balanced: not dark, but not overly WAFFy either. So far, the relations are more limited to romantic tension. Asuka likes Shinji, but Shinji is oblivious to her feelings and actually doesn't know how he feels about her. Rei... is Rei, although, with a bit more life in her (without being too out of character), which is good. I prefer a good "Rei joke" to seeing her say "..." for most of the fic.

This reviewer highly recommends this fanfic series.

Until Instrumentality is needed again,