Red knew all too well how much everyone wanted to be a pokemon master; in his younger days, he too had been possessed by that drive. Looking back, he couldn't even remember why. It was probably simply that he never understood what being a master entailed; had he known, he would have contented himself with a lesser skill level, never trying to be the very best.

After all, there was only so much to do at the top. Filling his pokedex was a long and boring task which he had already completed. It had been three years since he had battled a human, and although he longed for another fight like his epic championship match with Blue, he knew that another battle between them wouldn't even make him switch pokemon. It had been an amazing fight, the kind which pushed him to his limits as a trainer; he had never shouted "thunderbolt" with so much enthusiasm before or since.

But he had fought plenty of great battles before. Maybe none of them pushed him to snatch victory with a strategy that would go down in legends, but plenty had got him down to his last pokemon and a couple of Bug Catchers had even defeated him. Now he had gone three years without being challenged by another human; the ones who dreamed of fighting him couldn't even beat the elite four. Without any human opponents left he had challenged and captured each of the legendary pokemon. But with them in his pokeballs, he had slipped back into a boring existence, an existence bereft of pokemon battles longer than a single attack.

Were he a better person, Red would have used his fame to tell the world not to make his mistake. Instead, he spent his days in boredom deep within Mount Silver, waiting for someone strong enough to challenge him; he would not wish his fate on anyone else were it not the only way for him to enjoy battling once again.

So when he appeared in public, he feigned an absolute happiness to give veracity to the lie; it was hard enough to find opponents when everyone wanted to be a master.