Ever since Red had come back from Alola with that glorious Exeggutor, Morty had been saving his quarters to buy a plane ticket. Of course when he brought it up to Eusine, he told Morty how much a plane ticket actually costs. Morty made a respectable amount from being a Gym Leader, but he needed to go to Alola NOW. Eusine agreed to pay for his plane ticket so long as Morty went to the islands on behalf of "Operation Suicune".
Morty stared out the tiny window, propping his head up with his hand. He always thought Exeggutor was cool and interesting, but the kind from Alola were something else... He'd never seen a neck like that on anything, and of course, he started to imagine it on everything. The thought of a Gengar like that haunted him every second of every day. He was ready to dedicate his life to researching Alola form pokemon if it meant he had a chance to find one of those babies.
Six months later and Morty still had nothing to show for himself. He had barely even spoken to anyone, and he was too busy to live off of anything other than spam and spaghetti. Sometimes people would catch glimpses of him running around at night and squabble to each other, "who is that guy?" "he's that guy from Johto who's been looking for an Alolan gengar. It's pretty sad, no one has the heart to tell him there's no such thing."