Rainbow Trail Zombie

Trails glamorous rainbows that protect zombies behind her when she's feeling the beat.

## In-game statistics

### Absorbs

1200 (day 14 to 17)
2000 (day 18 onward) damage

### Weakness

   (cannot be crushed)
  (when hiding)
 (rushes before she can destroy him)
 (Plant Food effect instantly kills her and zombies protected by her)
 (prioritizes zombie)

### First seen

Neon Nightmare - Night 14

Glitter Zombie inspires zombies everywhere to boogie their brains out, whether it's just one moment or maybe forever, or at least until the lights come on and they're kicking everybody out.

**Rainbow Trail Zombie** is the third veteran zombie encountered in Neon Nightmare in *Plants vs. Zombies 2*. She is a much stronger version of Glitter Zombie since having a big buff in health as well as moving and eating speed. When the pop jam plays, she will emit a 1x9 rainbow trail behind herself, protecting all zombies in that area from incoming damage until she is killed or for the duration of the jam. The rainbow also negates negative effects from plants such as Kernel-pult's butter, Stallia's perfume, and Iceberg Lettuce's freezing effect. She will also kill any plants instantly when the pop jam is playing and when she encounters them, except Spikeweed, Spikerock, Cactus, and Celery Stalker when hiding. However, the rainbow trail cannot protect Zombot Dark Dragon, the zombie herself and her vanilla. She also moves much faster than her vanilla.

## Origins

She may be a reference to the 1980 movie *Xanadu Xanadu*, which features roller skating muses with rainbow trails.

 File:Snapshot 20140315 9.JPG
She may also be based on the "Roller Zombie" from *Plants vs. Zombies: Official Guide to Protecting Your Brains*.

## Encounters

Neon Nightmare: Nights 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30 and 32.

## Strategies

Because of having a big buff in health, speed and eat DPS, as well as her ability to protect most zombies behind her and the ability to instant-kill plants by rolling over them during the pop jam, this zombie can become really, really problematic if you do not have the right defenses, even harder to deal with than the normal Glitter Zombie. Normally, she is not hard to deal with and does not cause much of a problem as she rarely gets far enough into your lawn to quickly cause serious issues to your defense, due to the speed decrease by 50% for every zombie in this jam. However, do not underestimate her as she can be a problem if she appears early in undefended lanes or is left alive for long enough as all zombies behind her are invincible to almost all attacks, leaving the other zombies to quickly overwhelm defenses when she is destroyed. The main problem is that she can assist a Hair Metal Gargantuar behind her into your further defenses, which makes the Hair Metal Gargantuar invincible until she dies. Also, take caution if groups of Breakdancer Zombies appear in her lane, especially if pop and rap jams suddenly shift back and forth in a quick session such as some later levels in Greatest Hits, allowing her to crush the plants without moving towards them.

* Multi-directional plants such as Snapdragon or Lightning Reed can take out multiple Glitter Zombies at a time, making it easier to reduce the amount of zombies protected by the rainbow.
* Dandelion and Dusk Lobber can quickly destroy groups of Rainbow Trail Zombies at a time as they can cover multiple lanes at a time and can splash damage.
* Slowing plants or immobilizing plants such as Apple Mortar, Winter Melon and Stunion respectively, allow the player to slow down this zombie to an extent where other zombies can walk in front of her, removing their protection from damage. However, keep in mind that from Neon Nightmare - Night 18, she starts to become immune to chilling, freezing effects.
* Shrinking Violet and Enforce-mint are a good choice as they can reduce the area of protection by Glitter Zombies, but remember that from Neon Nightmare - Night 18, she starts to become immune to shrinking effects.
* Jack O' Lanterns are an excellent choice as they can destroy both the Glitter Zombie and the zombies in her rainbow at the same time. However, from Neon Nightmare - Night 22, it is not recommended to use fire-damage plants like Fire Peashooter and Pepper-pult, or explosive plants such as Cherry Bomb to deal with her, because she will resist 20% damage of these kinds of plants.
* Guacodile is also useful as he will rush before the Glitter Zombie has the chance to target him. In addition, his rush attack can also damage the zombies at the same time when he defeats her.
* Bowling Bulbs and Grapeshots can also assist you in weakening some of the protected zombies after they destroy the Glitter Zombie herself, especially with the scattering grapes from Grapeshot.
* Ghost Pepper, Spikeweed, Spikerock, Cactus, and Celery Stalker (while hiding) cannot be killed by getting run over, making them effective at surviving to be able to continue to defeat other zombies. This is not recommended when Arcade Zombies or Hair Metal Gargantuars are nearby.
* Explode-o-nuts can destroy a group of Glitter Zombies when they get crushed, which means several of them can wipe out an area of zombies.
* Chard Guard and Primal Peashooter can be very effective at stalling and knocking Glitter Zombies back, exposing the zombies she was protecting. But there is a downside: both plants can knock other Zombies back into her rainbow trail, thus one should be careful when using them.
* Be careful, to not use Hypno-shroom to deal with her when the pop jam is playing, because that's a bad idea since the hypnotized zombie will be instantly killed. Hypnotizing a zombie to a Gargantuar will instead be tossed by her.
* Toadstool and Chomper can be used to eat her, exposing any zombies behind her to plant attacks. However, they will then be vulnerable to zombies, so take caution in using them.

## Trivia

* She, her original counterpart and Parasol Zombie are the only female zombies to wear visible makeup.
* When the pop jam is playing, she is the sixth zombie that can instantly destroy Infi-nut's force field, the others being Mecha-Football Zombie, Zombot Tomorrow-tron, Turquoise Skull Zombie, Glitter Zombie when pop jam plays, MC Zom-B when the rap jam plays and Zombot War Wagon.
* She can instantly kill any hypnotized zombie while the pop jam is playing. However, Gargantuars and other Glitters will get kicked back instead.
	+ If she successfully kicks a hypnotized Gargantuar into the player's house, the hypnotized Gargantuar will eat the player's brains, like any hypnotized zombie that has been knocked into the player's house.
* Similar to the original counterpart, her rainbow cannot protect Neon Bucketheads and Punk Zombies from getting their buckets and heads, respectively, taken away by Magnet-shroom; cannot protect zombies from Sun Bean's Plant Food effect, and from getting hypnotized by Hypno-shroom.
	+ If Chili Bean is used on a zombie protected by the rainbow, the zombie will get glitched. It will not be killed by the plant, but others can still damage it, and that zombie can't do anything. If the zombie gets out of the rainbow, it will die instantly.
* If one of her or her vanilla is in another's rainbow, she will not turn pink or become protected by hers. Zombot Dark Dragon also cannot be protected by rainbows, presumably for balancing purposes.
* There is a glitch on some devices on where the glitter trail may not fade out, but will be a solid view.

## See also

* Glitter Zombie
* Arbiter-X