MHB003: A Sandile Gusher of Change!

**A Sandile Gusher of Change!** (Japanese: **危機一髪？ 保護するメグロコ！！** *Close Call? Protect Meguroco!!*) is the third episode of the first season of Magical Heart Beginnings.

## Summary

*As our heroes continue toward Striaton City, Rose says something very surprising...which officially starts making Lillie feel confident on her new journey! Along the road, they stumble into a deep hole, and are rescued by a boy named Dan. He takes them to his family's resort hotel, where they discover that the hotel's famous hot sand spa has been destroyed by several similar holes.*

*Dan explains that a group of friendly Sandile often come to the resort to bask in the hot sand, but they've recently started behaving oddly, digging these huge holes and turning hostile toward the guests. To top it off, the leader of the Sandile suddenly appears, grabs Rose in its jaws, and runs away with her!*

*When Nina and friends chase after the Sandile, they discover several geysers beginning to erupt all around the area, trapping many wild Pokémon on a small island in the midst of boiling water. The heroes, along with Hilbert Black, Hilda White, Bella Cherry and Dan, figure out that the Sandile have been trying to save these Pokémon and the hotel's guests by scaring them away from the geysers. When the Sandile form a bridge by locking tails, Hilbert recklessly crosses over to help the frightened wild Pokémon to safety. Hilda surprisingly also pitches in by getting Hilbert back to solid ground in the nick of time, while Bella forces Event Horizon to retreat by herself!*

*Back at the resort, the geysers have flooded the sand bath, turning it into a hot spring. Our heroes can't help but enjoy a little rest and relaxation before resuming their journey through the Unova region, and Hilbert, Hilda and Bella decide to join the Magic Hearts as well! But in order to make sure the promise is a promise, Hilda has to do something.*

*The lead Sandile is also very intrigued with Nina, but needs a little more time to decide whether she's worthy or not. Time will tell whether he does...*

## Plot

*(Gary, we need help here! Cheerful and Foody did their part...)*

The Magic Hearts are travelling along with Rose as they begin their journey towards Striaton City and the first Unova Gym, however Lillie is not feeling her best and feels sick. Tensions rise after Mallow and Bianca argue about who is better at making others smile, which leads Nina to name call and violently hit everyone, when suddenly Rose yells at everyone to stop the fighting and start taking their roles very seriously. When several people walking nearby notice the commotion and Rose yelling, Nina quickly takes out her phone and pretends to have an argument over the phone. Lillie then becomes annoyed with what happened, but is confident on her journey.

At a nearby store, via virtual call, Nina apologizes to Professor Juniper, and the Professor is very relieved to hear that nobody got hurt. She, however, warns everyone to keep their eyes on the PokéPets due to the tendency to run off. Before Nina could end the call, Cina starts scratching her ear while glowing, much to Professor Juniper's dismay. Professor Juniper then reveals her PokéPilot and Dream Seed, but not her secret identity. The heroes are in shock anyway, asking why a Professor would have an alter ego. She hangs up out of embarrassment before an answer could be given out, since she doesn't want everyone to know that a grown adult has a fluffy Minccino-themed costume. The heroes are afraid that somebody may have overheard their conversation and freak out, but relax when they see nobody else is there since it's not a very busy day.

Later on, unfortunately, a search for the runaway PokéPets doesn't get very far as everyone falls into a pitfall trap that was in the road. They look up and see a young boy named Dan, who explains that trap was dug by a Sandile. At the same time, Event Horizon falls down a similar pitfall and encounters a Sandile wearing sunglasses. Dan has someone named Hilbert Black help the Magic Hearts out of the pitfall with a rope and a girl named Hilda White explains that Dan is helping his father run a spa resort hotel, although their spa isn't open currently due to the Sandile. Their special attraction feature is a natural hot sand pit, where guests are given a sand bath by covering them with a layer of sand. There is a flashback to explain that the Sandile wearing sunglasses appeared one day and made the rest of the (usually peaceful) Sandile act irrationally, incorporating them into its "gang" to cause havoc.

Nina then thrusts the challenge of solving this mystery upon herself. She decides that the best thing to do is to replicate what was going on the first time the Sandile first started rampaging, so the heroes except Cheren (who doesn't want to get into any sand) all have a sand bath. Meanwhile, Event Horizon is watching the heroes when the Sandile that wears sunglasses turns up, and has been apparently following her since she fell into his trap. Iris reminds Nina that they were originally looking for the PokéPets, causing Nina to rise from her bath. All her stress is relieved when they see a blonde girl named Bella Cherry holding the runaways in her arms, but is struggling to hold all of them, prompting the heroes to quickly get dressed and go help her. She insists she's fine, but the heroes help her anyways.

The Sandile wearing sunglasses then burrows towards Nina and friends. He leaps out of the sand and gets ready in battle formation. Dan reveals that he is the Sandile's leader. He then launches an attack and grabs Axi in his mouth. Tep readies a Ember attack but is then stopped by Iris as her Axew would take the damage. The entire team (excluding Dan) then wrestles the Sandile in an attempt to get Axi back. The Sandile only relinquishes his grip on Axi when one of Tep's ears tickles the inside of Sandile's nose. Everybody then stumbles back. Sandile takes the opportunity to lash out and manages to grab Rose. The Sandile begins to run away with the Dream Pixie until Event Horizon picks up the Sandile using her dark magic.

Event Horizon starts to get away with the Pokémon and the Dream Pixie dangling in front of her. In an attempt to get away, she throws a smoke grenade at our heroes and starts to float off. It appears that Rose is going to finally get found out by the public and ruin the secret identities of the heroes, until a cry for help from the Pixie shocks Bella. It is made apparent that the Sandile's leader had called upon a mass attack upon Event Horizon. Dan and the Magic Hearts catch up just in time to see the attack unfold. All of the Sandile use Dig at once while Bella suddenly unleashes an attack at the same time and Event Horizon flees, the Sandile's leader now free.

The Sandile's leader takes his captor to a certain spot and lets her go, the Pokémon unaware that the heroes and and Dan are watching from afar. It turns out that the Sandile have rounded up several Pokémon. The Sandile's leader says something and a geyser erupts in the background. The Sandile then herd the gathered Pokémon away from were they are at, leaving Rose behind. Quickly, there is a sudden increase in the amount of erupting geysers. Dan makes a comment about how this has never happened before. Dan makes a hypothesis that the Sandile's leader predicted that this event would occur and tried to scare away all of the people and Pokémon so they were safe. The leader Sandile sternly tells them not to come here again or they may get hurt, but the heroes refuse to listen to him since plenty of people come here without issue.

Nina then goes to talk to Rose and the Sandile spot her. Then, a sequence of massive geysers go off. The Sandile go to confront Nina but as they do the piece of ground that the herded Pokémon were on becomes surrounded by boiling hot water. Under the heat, the rock they are standing on begins to crumble. Nina attempts to have Hilbert rescue the helpless Pokémon, but he can't reach them. Then the Sandile leader bites some rock and places his body in a vertical position, and allows another Sandile to climb upon him and bite his tail. This process is repeated with many Sandile. The Sandile then swing themselves down to form a bridge for the stranded Pokémon to climb over to safety. All of the Pokémon are too scared to cross the bridge though, so Hilbert runs over the bridge to give them a pep talk, with Feathers and a surprised Rose backing him up.

Just before all of the Pokémon get across, the rock underneath where the end Sandile is standing falls away. Hilbert then has to grab the end Sandile to stop him from falling into the water. Suddenly, another large geyser goes off and threatens to fall on top of Hilbert. Rose leaps up and gives him, Hilda and Bella a PokéPilot, allowing them to transform and Hilbert to deflect the falling water. However, being left with only one arm to hold on, Hilbert suddenly loses his grip on the Sandile, but before it is too late since there's no time to use the Eau Èlèmen, Hilda grabs Hilbert's wrist and saves him, clinging to the Sandile. The Sandile bridge then returns to its vertical state, pulling the Trainers with them, and collapses. Later, for a reward, our heroes are the first to try out the spa hotel's new hot spring, which was created when the sand pit was filled in by the new thermal springs released from the geysers.

The lead Sandile, intrigued with Nina, watches from afar, wanting to observe her further to see if she may be a worthy Trainer. He slowly begins to follow her, but keeps his distance for now as the episode ends.

## Major Events

* Professor Juniper is revealed to have a PokéPilot and a Dream Seed, but her alias name is not revealed yet.
* Hilbert, Hilda and Bella are introduced, encounter Event Horizon for the first time, and transform for the first time.
* Bella performs Cherry Blossom Strike for the first time, but does not do it as Cherry Heart.
* A wild Sandile begins following Nina.

## Debuts

### Humans

* Hilbert Black
* Hilda White
* Bella Cherry

## Characters

### Heroes

* Nina Aarden
* Cheren Harkabune
* Bianca Tulip
* Elio Sunne
* Selene Moonne
* Mallow Floris
* Lana Davis
* Lillie Aether
* Pollen Yellow
* Iris Scalehart
* Hilbert Black
* Hilda White
* Bella Cherry

### Pokémon

* Axew (Iris's; Axi)
* Snivy (Cheren's; Leif) (Bianca's; Ivy; PokéPet)
* Tepig (Bianca's; Wilbur) (Nina's; Tep; PokéPet)
* Oshawott (Nina's; Zach (Cheren's; Kazmar; PokéPet)
* Bounsweet (Mallow's; Aki)
* Rowlet (Selene's; Feathers)
* Litten (Elio's; Whiskers)
* Popplio (Lana's; Poppy)
* Minccino (Professor Juniper's; Cina)
* Sandile (sunglasses; debut)
* Sandile (multiple; debut)
* Pidove (multiple)
* Patrat (multiple)
* Deerling (multiple)

### Secondary Characters

* Professor Juniper
* Dan
* Dan's father
* Customers

## Scripts

* Japanese
* English
	+ 4Kids
	+ Viz
	+ Nick
* Italian
* German
* French
* Korean
* Chinese
* Spanish

## Trivia

* It is unknown why Event Horizon didn't just use her levitation abilities to float out of the pit trap, though she was walking normally instead of floating when she fell in.
* It is clear that Professor Juniper has a green Dream Seed, but the mark when it is active wouldn't be revealed until episode 6.

### Errors

* At one point in the episode, one of the sunglasses Sandile's teeth is colored the same as his body.
* When Sandile is holding Rose, just before he turns around, the Dream Pixie's tail is white instead of pink.
* At one point, the sound of a Poké Ball can be heard, even though nobody was seen sending out a Pokémon.
* When Hilbert is falling and says there's no time left to use the Eau Èlèmen, he mistakenly says "Water Element" instead of "Eau Èlèmen."

### Dub Edits

* Even though the heroes are wearing towels in the sand, the English dub edits the sand higher up to cover more skin.

### Easter Eggs

* The Sandile looking intrigued with Nina from afar resembles Meloetta looking intrigued with Ash's group from afar in the anime. This would be seen again when the Mythical Pokémon itself makes its debut.
* When Nina pretends to have an argument over the phone when Rose yells at the group, it is similar to Tim having to pretend to talk on the phone while talking to Pikachu in *Pokémon Detective Pikachu.*

### Differences between the anime and manga

* In the manga, a transformation sequence is shown for Hilbert, Hilda, and Bella, while in the anime the transformation happens instantly due to there not being enough time to show the sequence (and to convey the desperation of the situation, even though the sequence doesn't exist anyways.)

## In other languages

* Chinese:
* French: Une Frénésie de Mascaiman (A Mascaiman Frenzy)
* German:
* Italian: Pasticciare con Sandile ... e te ne Pentirai (Mess With Sandile... and You'll Regret It)
* Korean:
* Spanish: Sandile Con Gafas de Sol: ¿Toda una Pandilla? (Sandile Wearing Sunglasses: A Whole Gang?)