Chapter 3 "Must, Not Can, Must Do It":

Basically this whole chapter kicks in with us being in the POV of Spongebob as he's lost his optimist attitude since he still blames himself for Sandy's death and thus it's Patrick's role to do that and he tries but fails to cheer anyone up since he's not as good at it as Spongebob is. Then we'd see Pearl, Karen and Plankton leaving as Fred attempts to suggest that maybe soneone should watch them and gets shut down by Patrick who is still angry (albeit not as much as he was before Spongebob told him to cool down at the second trial) that Fred would try to even associate with him before Spongebob out of everyone shockingly agrees with Fred and decides to send Larry and Squidward to go and watch them three so they can't pull any crap and while Larry accepts, Squidward intitially refuses till Barnacle Boy tells him that he's gotta earn being alive at this point like he has done all his life by saving the day and that it wouldn't kill him to do so right now by watching that evil trio so they don't do anything...well...bad!. Squidward just rolls his eyes and accepts just so he can get Barnacle Boy out of his sight and leaves with Larry and afterwards Fred nears Barnacle Boy and tells him that he wishes he could be like that instead of being just plain old himself and BB tells him that he shouldn't feel like that at all. After all, besides this identity of his there is an old plain man. Fred then adds that it'd still be cool to be a hero like him and Patrick then sets in and offers to help him train to be one alongside Barnacle Boy who look at each other since Patrick dragged them into this and when Fred says "would you do that for me?. Even after all i almost caused on the last trial?" and Patrick says that while he hasn't forgiven him, he knows that if there is one way to prevent him from reaching to the villains at hand is to help him become a hero!. Afterwards, we see Fred and Patrick walking out together with Patrick telling Fred about BB's amazing adventures and what not while BB and Spongebob just sigh and follow them with Spongebob smiling for the first time in the whole chapter.

On the villains side (this is at night time of Day 1 when everyone else is sleeping), we have Plankton telling Karen that her target is still Spongebob albeit this time she'll have to be trickier and try to catch Spongebob alone or with someone else in the worst case scenario so she can kill him or them and leave without any suspects. This is when Karen comes in and says that she has a plan that will work better and not fal flat on their face and it involucrates some help from someone who she has been given the idea from. In comes Dirty Bubble who says that he has a plan and after whispering it to everyone they all laugh (barring Karen who just smiles as per usual) and then when Karen leaves to go to sleep so she can put the plan in movement. We see Dirty Bubble approaching Plankton and whispering to him and Karen that he has something else in mind and after they listen to him they discuss amongst them the cons and pros of it and accept the deal while saying that they'll keep Pearl out of it.

On Day 2 we see the start of Fred's heroic training with Barnacle Boy and Patrick as Spongebob just watches on from a distance, still sad and blaming himself about Sandy's death but not as badly as on Day 1. Movong onto the training itself, it is basically Patrick and Fred doing super hero poses at first before they start trying a made up fighting sequence from a movie only that more corny since neither of them is exactly agile at it and they have to be directed by Barnacle Boy so they don't screw up a lot. After the training is done, Fred thanks everyone albeit before leaving he starts talking about himself and how while he may be known as the "My leg" dude, it is because that was the only thing he had different from the rest. But now, now he doesn't care a out that anymore because thanks to Spongebob, Patrick and BB, he's finally gonna stop being plain and maybe even become a hero!. Then he attempts a high five but after reading the mood from Patrick and Soongebob that they aren't gonna high five him, he just high fives Barnacle Boy and leaves. Then we see Patrick and Spongebob asking the why he's helping him and Barnacle Boy says that while he might not be an young barnacle anymore, he still has the experience required to know that someone needs help and he shall prevent anyone from doing evil deeds if they can whether because of a different cause or themselves being the cause.

Moving on towards the villains side we see them being vigilated by Larry and Squidward with the latter just touching his instrument and Larry being the one with his focus on the evil trio (DB isn't there) as he's bored, Squidward asks the question of the century: Why does she want to kill Spongebob when her grief could make her target anyone and Pearl just answering that it is logical she'd go after the person who failed to protect her dad from Bubble Bass despite being the star employee. Larry then says "ok, we understand it, you are in a lot of grief right now. But haven't you considered to let it go and move forward?. You can't just dwell over it forever!". This is when Pearl answers: "And what about Spongebob?. He's literally been blaming himself for Sandy's death ever since the second trial even despite not having a legit reason since i pretty much caused Sandy to accidentally kill Gary and yet you let it slide!". This is when Dr Gill, who was walking around and heard Larry and Pearl talking comes in and says "Fair enough, you have a reason for your grief but we try to get you to get over it while Spongebob gets a free pass for blaming himself unjustifiedly for Sandy's death." Gill then sighs and says "You see, the reason we can't worry over Spongebob is because of you!. It's because you and your grief got two people killed and before you say that you're justified, you're not!. It is never justified to kill even if due to grief's effects!". Dirty Bubble then joins the party and says "Not wanting to defend Pearl but what do you know?. After all, you're just a snail doctor who failed at protecting the snail. Heck, i'm surprised you haven't lashed out at Pearl for using a snail as a defense weapon and getting him killed". This gets a glare from Gill towards DB before he just says "Hey, at least i'm not someone whom has lived this far without doing anything of notice" which almost prompts DB to attack him before he contains himself and tells him "Be careful Doctor, you never know what may come your way. After all, this is a game where you have to get dirty to survive" before leaving as Gill shouts at him "Dirty and smart you nasty bubble!". Afterwards, Gill leaves while Pearl is just sitting on the rolm where she, Plankton and Karen are together and it seems like there are cracks showing in her current state albeit it still stands firm.

Day 3 is where things take a nasty turn since the motive this time is basically a periodical blackout motive. At first when questioned about it by Dirty Bubble, MonoRay does say it won't be that much of a trouble...till night time since being without light every 3 hours for a period of 5 hours it is kinda dangeorus in a place where that could give someone the perfect time to kill and all...you know?. This makes everyone look at each other paranoiacly before Barnacle Boy stretches his neck and shouts to stop everyone and tell them to not be afraid from the dark since justice's light shall come to keep them all safe!. And when Squidward says "And what if that light can't keep us safe?", BB answers that then that light will help them point out who the culprit is so they get to live another day!. Afterwards, Barnacle Boy leaves while everyone is a bit more calm while still paranoiac from each other since his talk didn't exactly go as smooth as he'd have wanted it.

Moving on with Day 4: Nothing of remarkableness happens barring Patrick and Spongebob seemingly getting closer and closer to burning the hatchet wkth Fred as Barnacle Boy watches on proudly from a distance knowing that his second goal of making those three make amends through his hero training is working. That is...till Night time.

We move on towards the villain side with DB, Karen and Plankton finishing their plan off without noticing that Pearl was listening on. However they do notice her listening on afterwards and manage to catch her and basically tell her right down the middle that even if she wanted to leave them, it would not be worth it since after the crap she pulled last time and that she is still struck with grief, it'd not be long for her to try to kill someone again and this time without anyone backing her up, it was not so secure that she'd make it out alice and after this Pearl just hangs her head in defeat and accepts her role as a mere pawn in DB, Karen and Plankton's plan. However as she starts to go home and gets there, she basically...snaps because she has realized now that she can kill anyone thanks to Squidward and THAT added to Plankton using her as a mere tool has made her basically decide to kill Plankton and use him as a way to get Spongebob executed for failing to protect his dad so she'd be killing two birds with one stone and after this she cackles!.

Meanwhile, on another side we see Dr Gill preparing something and just telling himself "This is for the greater good Gill, no matter how wrong it is since you are a doctor, it will be worth it to do it." before going to sleep, being unaware of DB listening to him and then leaving to tell Plankton of what Gill had been holding and Plankton says "well then, this throws a wrench into our plans but not something we cannot use Pearl to put a stop to, am i right?".

Day 5: Ho boi, here we have from the get go Barnacle Boy bleeding from his head in the same way as Mr Krabs (and even on the kitchen where the first murder happened) did albeit he's still alive and he gets saved by Dr Gill. By the way, it is Spongebob, Fred and Dr Gill who discover him. This basically hits Spongebob and Patrick hard since they realize that they had almost lost another person and Fred to get angry since he almost lost his master of heroicness due to someone else and he demands answers so far as to go into the lion's den known as the villain's room to try and get answers out of them and not getting a single one because of his pack of intimidation skills, heck Plankton even scares him by threatening to kill him which has a reverse effect to say the least since Fred says one thing between stutters and that is that he better watch out because on the occasion he dies, he'll be the prome suspect because Larry and Squidward know about that threat alongside him.

Now it is during night time of Day 5 where everything gets out of control, first off we have the villains taking advantage of night time to firstly grab everything they need for the murder. Then they proceed to search for Barnacle Boy since they know killing him would let the killer almost guaranteed an escape for the killer since everyone would assume it was DB instead of Pearl who'd kill him. However, a light shines on out of nowhere and this makes everyone retreat and while some of them escape, not all of them do. Then we get to Daytime of Day 6 and this happens.

We see Spongebob walking out of his house and noticing a path of blood which he follows till he ends up in front of Pearl's lifeless (and stabbed through the stomach) body. This prompts him to just say "gosh darn it".

The trial itself has at first the trio of villains (albeit only we the reader know this and not anyone else since for everyone else DB is not associated with them) as the main suspects before Plankton gets confirmed as not a possible blackened since how would he have gotten a knife in the middle of the dark and thst even if he bad a way, he'd not be able to stab Pearl at that height. However, this is ehen the case gets trickier since the suspicion falls onto Karen since she could see within the darkness thanks to her internal light and grab something because she was stronger than Plankton and was tall enough to stab Pearl where she was stabbed. That said, Karen gets confirmed as not a possible blackened. This is when it comes the attempt to take out BB which makes people wonder if Dirty Bubble could have been the one to do the deed since he had been in the kitchen and could have picked the knife then and there albeit that line of thought gets quickly taken down since DB's body is transparent and the knife could have been seen on them. Now eith those three out of the way, the blame falls on Spongebob since due to working on the kitchen to cook food for people would have gotten a perfect chance to grab a knife to then kill Pearl during night time. However this gets taken down by Spongebob first angrily saying that he'd NEVER go against Sandy's wishes, this showing that he still was affected by Sandy's death, and that he doesn't have that many places to hide the knife properly seeing how he only wears a pair of pants to go to work and the pockets ain't deep enough to hide a knife. This then puts the trial at a stalemate until Spongebob remembers there were two other people with him at the placewhere he found BB, Fred and Dr Gill. They both instantly say that they couldn't have done it whether because of trying to change or because their job prohibited them from doing so. This leads into a mass panic debste which ends when Spongebob notices something: Dr Gill had enough clothes ro hide the knife and take it away from the kitchen without anyone noticing thanks to his doctor jacket!. And when Dr Gill tries to defend himself, Fred answers back by saying that his pants don't have pockets and he has no shirt or t shirt so that means he couldn't have grabbed the knife. After a futile attempt of resistance with him claiming about how can he explain the lights and DB saying that he saw Gill hiding something in his house that was a knife!, Spongebob takes down Dr Gill who just says "why didn't you let me do my job" and the trial comes into a conclussion.

After the trial, we see how it gets explained that Dr Gill tried to win the trial not because he was evil but because he had to put a stop to Plankton's group of people no matter the cost since they were too dangerous to be left to live after what they pulled last time and that while it WOULD have been bad to have to sacrifice the others alongside them. It is a doctor's duty to ensure the greater good and what are 9 people, no offense, to the rest of Bikini Bottom being without Plankton and co.?. Nothing. And as per why he killed Pearl, he intended to kill Plankton but saw Pearl and decided to put her of her grief by reuniting her with his dad on Heaven since no one at her age shluld have to go through what she went. Afterwards, we just see everyone saying their goodbyes to the Doctor barring Plankton and Karen with the Doctor saying "I hope i can see you all again in Heaven or wherever i end after what i did!" and then being dragged to his execution.

After the Doctor's execution, we see Plankton and Karen congratulating each other and DB (once they are alone in the Chum Bucket) for managing to keep it a secret that they were allied and that this turned out great for them since they got rid of the Doctor alltogether even if at the cost of their main physical weapon and Karen then tells Plankton to not worry that she has an idea of what to do next.

Then we see Spongebob just reflecting on how there's 9 of them left and looking at the sky and telling her "I promise you Sandy, me and Patrick will try to end this killing game!." and then entering his house to conclude the chapter.

Chapter 3, "Must, Not Can, Must Do It": End

Survivors Remaining: 9

Cast: Spongebob (protag), Patrick (support), Plankton (antagonist), Karen, Squidward, Larry, Fred, Dirty Bubble, Barnacle Boy