Tails was the first to notice Sonic's absence. He became insane for a brief moment, and then decided to bring the new mystery to the attention of the others. Upon hearing the news, everyone gasped with shock, except Knuckles, who wasn't quite so distressed. Tails quickly came to the conclusion that one of the Nintendo characters had captured Sonic. Explaining this to everyone else, he picked a fight with Mario.
"Mario!"
"Yeah?"
"Where's Sonic?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Sonic's not with us."
"Well he's not here."
"How can I be sure of that?"
"Why you little..."
At that, Tails and Mario viciously attacked each other. So viciously, in fact, that they hit Tails's transporter, tearing wide the seams between the Nintendo and Sega universes. Chaos erupted. Tails and Mario began arguing.
"Look what you did to my transporter!"
"Look what you did to my hat!"
Indeed, Mario's hat was caught by a gust of wind from Station Square and carried away.
While they were arguing, Knuckles took what he thought was the only suitable course of action: he grabbed Luigi and ran into Station Square, then climbed to the top of a building and let Luigi dangle freely, suspended only by Knuckles' spiked fists running through his overall straps. Knuckles then followed his actions with words. "If you don't give back Sonic right now, Luigi falls!"
"How can we give back something we DON"T HAVE?"
So the chaos turned into a hostage situation as Sonic and Samus were on SR388.