Red Cap Brothers

Red Cap Brothers is the family ship between Terry Bogard, Ness and Red from the Fatal Fury, EarthBound and Pokémon fandoms.

Canon
The three of them do not interact in the game itself, since Terry was a DLC addition and neither the trailer or Terry's Classic Mode features either Ness or Red, though the end of it does show Terry being placed close to them on the Smash banner. They all wear red caps. They're also fully voiced, calling their attacks in English (though Terry's are just random English words strung together). Should they fight each other, Ness and Terry would fight Red's Pokémon while he commands them from the background, with him joining the other SNK fighters should they fight in the King of Fighters stadium.

Fanon
Red Cap Brothers is a popular joke in the Smash community due to the meme that Ness evolues from Red to Terry even though they look nothing alike, simply because all three of them wear red hats. In specifics, Ness would evolve into Red when he reaches Level 16, while Red would evolve into Terry once he reaches Level 36, much like how it works with actual Pokémon. This eventually evolved into thinking that Terry is either the father or the older brother to the younger boys. The fact that neither Ness' nor Red's fathers ever appear in person has some speculate that Terry really is their father, making Red and Ness half-brothers. Though this is at odds with the game making a reference that Solid Snake is Ness' dad (both the "Ness' Dad" Spirit fight and Ness' Classic Mode portrait cast Snake as Ness' unseen father), which in turn had some people say that Snake is the father of all three of them. Some speculate that Terry somehow survived Galeem's attack (unlike veteran fighters, DLC fighters are playable in the World of Light mode right away) and set out to rescue Red and Ness while travelling through the World of Light. They were all unexpected additions to the roster, though for different reasons: Nobody in the West had heard of EarthBound before Smash (due to the game's terrible marketing). If Red was expected to be added, many thought that he himself would be playable instead of commanding his Pokémon. Terry was unexpected due to SNK games being more of a niche market in Europe and America, though being huge in Latin America (which led to his inclusion due to Sakurai wanting to appeal to Latin American players).

Some also include Mario due to also being placed near them on the banner and also wearing a red cap, while also having blue trousers in common with all of them. Some include Diddy Kong due to him also wearing a red cap and one of his taunts being very similar to Terry's, though others like to have him as their shared "pet". The rare combination of "Terry + Red + Ness + Mario + Diddy Kong" is sometimes referred to as "Red Hat Gang".

However, some joke that Ness dislikes Terry because he claims that Terry "plagiarized" the word "OK" from him. Should Red and Ness imitate Terry's hat throw, some joke that Ness would keep his hat floating with his powers. Some also joked that they all bought their hats in the same shop or went shopping together.

So far, while there are a number of fanfictions featuring all three characters, none of them focus on the headcanons of their brotherly/familial relationship between them.

Fandom
TUMBLR

TWITTER

Trivia

 * Terry is the only one of the three to not be from an RPG coming from a fighting game
 * His also the only one to have blonde hair of the group
 * His also the only one without a backpack
 * Ness is the only one to have red clothings other then a red cap
 * However he and a Red include yellow in there outfits Red with a yellow backpack and Ness with a yellow shirt
 * They were made playable in separate games, coincidentally with one game between each release: Ness was unlockable in the first game, Red was unlockable in Brawl and Terry was a DLC fighter for Ultimate.

Variations

 * NesTer for the ship between Ness and Terry.
 * Terred for the ship between Terry and Red.