Female Titan (Anime)

"It's impossible. She has the ability to harden her skin."

- Captain Levi dismisses taking down the Female Titan

The Female Titan (女型の巨人) is the Titan form of Annie Leonhart. It possesses the ability to attract mindless Titans to its position over great distances and in large numbers, though her Titan is unusable while she is comatose.

Titan attraction
Like the Coordinate and the Beast Titan, the Female Titan is able to exercise some influence over mindless Titans through a scream-based ability. The Female Titan possesses the ability to attract mindless Titans over long distances. It has been theorized that this ability was used by Annie Leonhart to gather all the Titans to the Walls during the fall of Wall Maria.

The downside of the attraction ability is that once the Titans following the Female arrive at her location, they will attack the Female Titan and eat its body. Under normal circumstances, this could lead to disaster for the Female Titan, but on some occasions, this phenomenon can be used to her advantage. With omni-directional mobility gear, the user can escape from the Female Titan as other Titans consume its body, and the steam emitted from the continuously inflicted wounds can serve as a cover for the user if she does not desire to be seen.

Hardening
The Female Titan possesses the ability to harden her skin to diamond-like strength, able to shatter blades of ultrahard steel upon contact. Besides its defensive properties, Annie's hardening gives her melee attacks significantly stronger power, with a single well-placed blow being capable of dismembering or even decapitating an enemy Titan.

In addition to its defensive and offensive potential, the Female Titan's hardening can be used to encapsulate the operator in a crystal-like structure, which Annie Leonhart uses to evade capture from the Scout Regiment. This self-encapsulation can in some cases spread the hardened flesh onto nearby individuals, fusing them with the Female Titan's body.

The 57th Exterior Scouting Mission arc
During the 57th Exterior Scouting Mission of the Scout Regiment, the Female Titan makes its first appearance as it leads a group of Titans to capture Eren, wiping out the majority of the scouts on the right side of the Scouts' formation. Advancing further inside the formation, the Female Titan encounters Armin. Although it corners Armin, recognizing his face under the hood it decides to spare his life and continues its search for Eren.

Armin, Jean, and Reiner join together and deduce that it aims to capture Eren, realizing that it may have acted upon false information as part of Erwin's plan. The three are able to deduce that it is more likely for Eren to be within the center column; the safest location in the formation.

They coordinate a plan together in an attempt to distract the Female Titan and buy the other soldiers some time to regroup. Before they are able to attack it, it is able to outmaneuver them, at which point it manages to incapacitate Armin. Although Jean engages it in combat, its resilience and awareness of a Titan's weakness allows it to gain the advantage as it is constantly covering the nape of its Titan form's neck. Before it is able to kill Jean, a bloodied Armin attempts to distract it by referring to Eren by the nickname of "suicidal bastard" while falsely claiming his death. This causes the Female Titan to hesitate, allowing Jean to escape just as Reiner attempts to attack it. The Female Titan manages to catch Reiner in mid-air, briefly toying with him before seemingly crushing him. Much to Jean and Armin's surprise, Reiner breaks free by slicing off its fingers, and manages to come to Armin's aid leaving the Female Titan as it sits motionless. Just as the trio attempts to flee, the Female begins to head in the direction of the Scout Regiment's center column formation, in which Armin deduced that it may have learned of Eren's position in the formation. Annie continues to head in the direction of Eren's location, coming across various soldiers of the Scout Regiment, killing them in various brutal ways. Though the formation heads into the forest of giant trees, Annie follows suit and eventually catches up to Eren and the Special Operations Squad as they are attempting to flee on horseback.

Annie is eventually lured into a trap in which her movements are halted by artillery fire armed with harpoons. This causes Annie to temporarily halt her pursuit as Erwin and members of the Scout Regiment attempt to damage her hands in various ways with the intention of pulling her out of her Titan form. Constant provocations by Levi causes her to let out a roar which causes multiple Titans to converge on her position. Much to Erwin's surprise, the roar was intended to provoke the Titans to devour her Titan form, thus causing Annie to escape undetected via the use of her omni-directional mobility gear.

Just as Erwin orders all personnel to retreat, Annie later dons a Scout Regiment cloak as a form of disguise, signaling with a green flare so as to lure Eren and the Special Operations Squad towards her direction. As Annie meets up with the group, she is mistaken for Levi though not for long, as Gunther Schultz questions her identity. Annie makes quick work of Gunther, killing him using her blades by slicing out the back of his neck.

As Eren and the Special Operations Squad continue to flee, Annie transforms into the Female Titan for a second time, thus continuing her pursuit to capture Eren. Although Eren initially wishes to engage her in his Titan form, the Special Operations Squad manage to convince him to put his faith in them as they begin to engage Annie in combat. Although seemingly gaining the advantage to the point of injuring her and cornering her against a tree, the Special Operations Squad are suddenly outsmarted by Annie as she displays her ability of selective regeneration and her ability to generate a crystalline substance to protect her nape. Annie systematically kills Eld Gin, Petra Rall, and Oruo Bozad, causing Eren to turn back and finally engage her in his Titan form. The two engage in a brutal fight using hand-to-hand combat techniques, in which Annie succeeds in incapacitating Eren by decapitating his Titan. Tired and exhausted from the battle, Eren is captured by Annie by keeping him inside the mouth of her Female Titan form. Although Annie begins to flee, Mikasa gives chase while continuously attacking her in a fit of rage after having witnessed Eren's capture by the Female Titan. Mikasa is then joined by Levi, with the two working together to wound Annie as she continues to flee. Although Annie attempts to fight back, she begins to get overwhelmed by the barrage of attacks inflicted by Levi, allowing him to incapacitate her while gaining the chance to slice her Titan form's mouth and rescue Eren from within. As Mikasa and Levi decide to retreat with the unconscious Eren, Levi witnesses Annie's Female Titan form as it sits motionless while crying.

Assault on Stohess arc
After the Events of the 57th Exterior Mission, the Female Titan makes its return in Stohess District in order to escape from a group of Scout members who try to capture its human form intact, but she transforms using her ring in order to escape and capture Eren. When he shifts into his Titan form to fight it, the Female Titan takes flight towards the Wall. It is pursued by Eren's Titan as well as Mikasa and several Scout Regiment squads.

The chase continues until the Female reaches a flat land with no buildings. Having nowhere to hook their omni-directional mobility gear anchors, the Scout Regiment squads and Mikasa are forced to take a long detour, while Eren gives chase alone. Annie uses this opportunity for one last ditch attempt at capturing Eren, But Eren's Titan turns dark and fiery. With only one arm and leg, it comes charging at the Female Titan and grips its hand on its face causing its eyes to burst out. The Female Titan lets out a long roar and escapes from the Titan's grip by kicking it away. It attempts to make a run for it and tries to climb Wall Sina by hardening its fingers. Eren's Titan tries to stop it from climbing over the wall, but fails and tears off its leg in the process. By the time the Female Titan is almost to the top, Mikasa appears and slices its fingers off, causing it to fall to the ground. Eren then starts to rip the Female Titan apart. It bites the nape off, revealing the person inside.

In response, the Female Titan begins to crystallize its human form, and Eren's Titan and the Female Titan begin to merge together until Levi comes and cuts Eren out of his Titan form.