The Schism: 3 of 4 Popes stand before you (pt 2 of 2)

They stared at the Fish Pope, the lowliest and most foolish of men. 

He leaned on his staff and sort of doddered at them. His eyes were half closed.

“...The nice people who sell cheese?” Pope Cabernati clarified. The non-sequitor shocked him right out of fury into confused hilarity. “They’re- they’re Swiss or something, harmless-”

“They are Swedish!” Fish Pope blustered. He raised his crooked index finger upwards in an attempt to convey the seriousness of the threat. “They have been sending me foul missives– evil words–”

“What, an advertising campaign?” Pope Block asked, voice high. “Do they have a new protein drink?” 

“No-”

“Discounts?” Cabernati mocked. “For high quality health conscious food products?”

“Ooo, coupons, very frightening!” Pope Block wiggled his fingers and imitated a ghost.

“A cease and desist!” Francisco shouted. His jowls flapped in outrage. “Do not mock His Holiness, the light of the-”

“I excommunicated you, the light you see is the flames of-

“For copyright infringement!”

They all went silent. “...Did you infringe on their copyright?” Pope Cabernati asked in honest curiosity. 

The Fish Pope blustered. “That’s not the point–”

Outrage started up again as they all shouted over one another. 

“It very much sounds like the point–” “Are they suing you– are they going to sue the Church?” “I have never heard such a–” “It was only a logo–” You used their logo?” “we don’t have a graphic designer, it was an opportunity for charity on their part–” “you washed up clown!”

“Washed up?” 

The cruel words hung unapologetically in the air. A hush weighed down their anger with shock. Pope Block gave him an impressed and scandalized side-eye for the blow. Pope Cabernati tilted his chin up in defiance and refused to back down. 

“Take that back,” said Pope Fish dangerously. He started to roll up his sleeves. They immediately fell down as they were far too large for that sort of thing. “Take that back or prepare to duel–”

“I shan’t,” Pope Cabernati said. He shrugged off his robe and let it fall to the floor. “Violence is the law of beasts and clearly the only one you respect.”

“We do a lot of terrible things, but copyright infringement is a new low for the Church,” Pope Block agreed. He started wrestling the rings off of his hands. “We are settling this here and now–”

“Oh, I’ll settle it,” Francisco blustered. “I’ll send your wrinkled asses directly to Satan–”

“On guard!” Cabernati gallantly threw himself at the fiend. His arthritic fingers crunched heroically into Francisco’s gut and hurt immediately upon impact with something hard. “Ouch!” He shrieked. “Is that a corset-”

“It’s a tummy stabilizer!” Francisco hollered. He kicked Cabernati in the shin with his pointed shoe. He got in two good kicks before Pope Block waded in and started trying to pull away his staff. They wrestled over it with grunts and gasped-out insults. 

Cabernati struggled away, gaze fixed on the candlestick. He made it past the other two at a high-paced shuffle and then let out an URK when someone grabbed his ceremonial vestments from behind and choked his neck. His eyes bulged. 

“Coward!” someone roared. He didn’t recognize the voice, but the knee clicking sounded like Pope Fish. “Fiend!” Something broke.

The pressure was abruptly released. Cabernati gasped for air, grasping at his face. “You could have killed me,” he said in outrage. He turned around and tried to kick at Pope Block. He missed and got only skirt. “You could have killed me!” 

“The world would be better off!” Block hollered. His left eye twitched rapidly and made him look possessed. He shook broken glass off of his vestments. “You are both godless fools, condemned to the furthest reaches of–” 

He stopped talking suddenly to grasp at his chest. He panted.

“...Are you quite alright?” asked Pope Cabernati. He forgot all about his murderous ambitions in his concern. He felt a thrill of fear and leaned over to peer at his compatriot.

Pope Block gave no answer. He hit the ground on his knees.

“My god, he is having a heart attack!” Pope Fish said in alarm. He began to wheeze. His face went purple. “He’s”- gasp- “not well-” He backed into a sofa and fell down onto it.

Pope Cabernati reeled, grabbing for something to brace against. He scrabbled through the contents of an end table and wound up clinging to the wood for dear life. “He’s dying,” he said, disbelieving, and then shouted. “Help!” His own chest hurt. The world spun around him. 

No one came. Surely they had heard? 

Belatedly, he wondered in outrage why no one had come when they had been fighting. Surely it had been a heroic din!

“I say!” he shouted, using his considerable willpower and preaching voice. “Come here!”

Pope Fish added his two cents, which were expressed in a long, high-pitched sort of whine.

The door opened. The three nice young men sent by Cardinal Flux came back in, accompanied by the Cardinal himself. 

“Send for a doctor,” Cabernati ordered, banging his hand on the table for emphasis. He stumbled and hit his hip, hard. Sparks flew across his vision.

“Whatever for?” Cardinal Flox asked idly. He steepled his fingers together. “I am about to become the Pope. How could we have known that three old coots would not fare well in a hot room for two days? You were always so vivacious.”

“...What?” Pope Fish gasped. And then, in outrage – “Coot? You’re older than I am.”

Cabernati remembered, belatedly, that Pope Block had said Flox was the head of the separatists. “Oh dear,” he said faintly. He fell down entirely, back braced by the end table. 

“Indeed.” Cardinal Flox gave him a sympathetic look. “It is, of course, regrettable that you were unable to come to a consensus and chose to choose a new successor to unify the church.” His slippers made a squeaky sound when he shuffled to the center of the room to gloat like the villain he was. “You have only yourselves to blame,” he said, the sanctimonious coot.

“Heretic,” Cabernati managed to gasp out. 

“Hardly!” Flux said. He huffed in outrage. “I do what I do on behalf of the one true faith–” He reached into his robes and pulled out that despicable, filthy book. “Behold,” he said, “the new Bible of the Tetramantic Church! With this instruction I shall unify the nations!”

“Ha!” Cabernati said to the other Popes, and immediately died of vindication.