The episode begins In Media Res (or perhaps In Media Red, considering how bloody the inside of the bus is about to be).
"Will this crap happen every time we take public transportation?"
The hijacker catches sight of Johnny and blanches - then flushes with rage.
"POONISHAIR! Mah nomme eez Indigo Montague. Hyoo keeled mah brothair... per-pare to go to l'Omaha!"
"Omaha? OMAHA?! OMAHA!!!"
A look of oh merde flashes across the Frenchman's face as he is barely able to move before finding himself on the wrong side of an fist-of-fury attack by one Johnny W. Punisher. Our "hero" repeatedly slams the terrorist's face into the fare dispenser, a couple more times than is probably neccesary, stopping only briefly to quip how much he hates token Frenchmen. Johnny throws the terrorist out the bus windshield, where he lands impaled on a conveniently near Miniature Golf Course's model of the Eiffel Tower (Hole 7, Par 3). The children playing there are barely given time to be traumatized, before the whole thing goes up in a fireball of explosives.
Johnny pauses to light his cigar on the flaming wreckage as the bus passes by, and takes his seat at back of the bus:
"Morte La France."
"That was a brave thing you did, Johnny", says the already slowly chickified Baronessy.
"I just don't like Omaha."
"Why not?"
"It's... not important."
Suddenly, the whole screen goes blurry and... Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!".
The scene refocuses on a younger, yet still inexplicably thirty year-old Johnny walking by a sign labeled Neo-Omaha High School. He appears surprisingly happy and well-adjusted, chatting with friends, and quite unlike the Designated Hero we know and ... "love", so you know that black limousine that's just pulled into the frame is going to screw everything up.
As the car slows down to match Johnny's boyish stride, one of its windows rolls down and a man in his forties, with a shock of black Troll Doll-like hair much like Johnny's, sticks his head out.
"Uh, Johnny. Hey."
Johnny beams. "Oh. Hey, Papa! Are you here to see me in the football game?"
Mr. Punisher laughs weakly. "Huh, go Neonates! Right." He shakes his head. "No, son. In fact, you might be a bit late to the game tonight, because I'm going to need you to take a ride in this, uh, cool car. With me. And these other ominous men - OW! dammit! - whom I am with of my own free will."
"Wow! A real limo! Does it have a soft-serve ice cream machine, like M.C. Hammer's limo?"
Mr. Punisher tries for a hearty smile, but lands somewhere in agonized frown territory. "Just wait and see, Sport. Now say goodbye to your friends, and please enjoin them not to call the police."
Young Johnny bids his friends an affectionate farewell, lingering over the pleasantries with one particular red-haired girl, a beauty with one eye green and the other blue. Then he hops into the car...which he is rather surprised to find is much larger inside than out.
There is not, in fact, an ice-cream machine inside the car. There's not much of car inside the car at all, really. The interior resembles nothing so much as an abandoned warehouse filled ominous equipment and strange men in turbans, clerical collars, and rabbinical garments. Johnny's father is chained to a chair in the middle of the concrete floor. In an instant, Johnny falls into the hands of the marauders, and he soon finds himself chained to another chair opposite the first.
"Now, Johnny, listen closely," Mr. Punisher strains. "These representatives of various Organized Religions are now going to strip the skin from my body and detach my limbs, joint by joint. And you are going to watch every second of it, after which you will be released to wreak havoc upon a slumbering world."
"But-"
"Buts are for backs, Champ." As the acolytes move in with the hacksaws, the elder Punisher straightens in his seat and manages something like a grin. "Now, just a few things to remember: take care of your mom, watch your grades, adhere to a superhuman exercise and training regime so you can better carry out your atheist crusade, and if a Vagina Dentata ever attacks Neo-Omaha, you might want to use that robot I have stashed in the garage that you have to cut yourself to fuel. Oh, and all of this is not, by any means, an implanted memory designed to shape you into the perfect weapon. Perish the thought."
"O-okay, Dad." Young Johnny gulps. "I love you."
"And I - " is all Mr. Punisher gets out before his lips are sheared off. The rest comes out something like " - lurrrrgh oooyooAGGH!"
(After six full minutes of on-screen torture): Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
"Why'd you kill him?"
Johnny starts. Baronessy is staring at him.
"What?"
"That heavily accented hijacker said you offed his brother. Why did you kill him?"
"I don't...remember." Johnny shakes his head. "It's not strange. I've killed a lot of people."
"Some of them French people, I guess."
"You know, it's funny, but I could have sworn I've never been to France. I always had too much trouble getting past the airport metal detectors."
"I never did," says Baronessy wistfully as she gazes out the back window at the now flaming Eiffel tower.
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
A happy couple walk hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées which now inexplicably has the Eiffel tower at the end of it. We zoom out from their ring-wearing hands to see the expressions of utter delight on their faces.
"Oh Roy, you've made me the happiest girl in the world. Even after a week, it seems so crazy that I am Mrs. Roy Benbar."
"I know, Baronessy, and you've made me the happiest man."
"Remember though, honey... we're here as agents on patrol. If we're not vigilant, we'll never be able to catch that monument-stealing mass-murderer, Kira-men Sanfransisco."
"Oh, nothing will happen to us, dear. We're young and recently in love."
"I suppose you're right."
"That reminds me though... I did want to talk to you about that... Look darling, you and I both know that you were one of the best agents of our shadowy secret organization, but now that you're my wife, so maybe you should just Stay in the Kitchen."
"Wait... What?"
"Screw you, Roy!"
Suddenly, Roy Benbar grasps his chest and falls to the ground screaming. A sinister laugh is heard as rockets upon the legs Arc de Triomphe fire lifting it from the ground. Baronessy turns to a nearby street vendor.
"What just happened?!"
"I just saw some guy write his name in a notebook, then took off for the monument. He left on a motorbike flying a green, yellow, and red flag. He also mentioned that he plays croquet."
Baronessy lets loose with a classic Big "NO!" as...
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
"Whoah there! Everything all right?"
"What?" Baronessy refocused on Johnny's face.
"You were shouting 'no' for about a minute and a half."
"I, uh...huh." Baronessy Benbar looked at her hands. Her ringless hands. "I was just thinking about how hard it will be to get that Frenchman's blood out of my outfit."
Johnny snickered. "I wouldn't worry. Not much material to wash."
"My jumpsuit's orthopaedic, thank you for your prurience. God." Baronessy glanced at her partner. "Johnny?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you play croquet?"
"No."
"Ride a motorbike?"
"Hell no. It's Milwaukee steel for this man."
"Yeah. Ever been to São Tomé and PrÃncipe?"
"No. But I've been close. Gabon's right next door. Pretty nice place for sub-Saharan Africa, Gabon. At least...it was a pretty nice place..."
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
A fast-cut montage of Johnny mowing down soldiers on a Libreville boulevard and beating people to death with their own arms.
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
Johnny reclines his seat and smiles. "Aw, yeah..."
The scene then cuts to the penthouse suite of a Duolithic office building, darkened from the loss of power. The only sound is the hum of a portable orphan-tear-powered generator in the corner, and the only source of light comes from a desk-mounted surveillance monitor displaying Johnny and Baronessy's progress.
Behind the desk, sitting in a plush leather chair, is a someone who looks quite more badass than someone with no skin and four cybernetic limbs really deserves to, wearing a strange combination of a priest's collar and martial-arts robes, topping it all off with a Trope Co brand pair of Scary Shiny Glasses balanced strangely upon a metal grill faceplate.
A beam of light passes over the nameplate on the desk: Kendo I. Punisher.
Kendo pauses to randomly swirl a glass of brandy mysterious brown liquid.
"I remember it like it was just yesterday"
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
We're shown a replay of the six minutes of debilitating torture shown earlier in the show, successfully bringing the episode up to required length, and driving away another third of the audience.
Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot! Diddly-doot!
"Of course, there's no reason why I can't use one problem to fight another."
Kendo slams his robotic claw down on a nearby "Break Glass In Case of Johnny W. Punisher" button.
Miles away, underneath an elementary school playground, hundred foot-wide metallic doors swing open, dropping dozens of unfortunate four-squarers to an unfortunate end. A giant-eyed icosahedron, much like the one on the US dollar bill would look like if it had been designed by H.R. Giger the day after his girlfriend dumped him, levitates from beneath the surface. Excited at the prospect of making new friends, it shoots its red Greeting Lasers from each of his faces, incinerating everything in a 500 meter radius.
Kendo smiles.
"Go my pet... it's time for you to meet those meddling kids."
