Roberto Da Costa wasn't stupid. He would just like to state that on the record. It was horrendous slander.

But he was impulsive. Like...spectacularly so. The kind that meant he saw danger or god knows what else, and instead of running, went yeah but it might be cool.

Roberto was into things that most people probably didn't expect a rich guy to be into. He was into nerdy stuff. What nerdy stuff, might you ask?

Ghost hunting stuff, supernatural stuff, things like that.

But especially cryptids.

...for some reason.

He just thought that they were super cool! They just were. Even if people gave him side eyes because of the fact that they thought he was kinda weird for being into it. But he ignored them because they were his jam and he found them interesting. So, screw everyone else. Even if he was a big CEO he could have his nerd hobbies.

Maybe he was a little nerdy about it, but as long as he was a good hero and a good CEO, no one really cared. And Roberto was just fine with that.

But then he heard things online.

While scrolling through cryptid forums, he seen posts, that were half whisper and half rumor, that there was a cryptid that might've found its way near a Krakoan portal in a forest. And Roberto, being...himself. Got curious.

Cue him at this exact moment.

Flashlight, snacks (what if the thing he found was hungry?), and a few other things that people said you needed for looking around for cryptids. He was currently stepping over vines and leaves and bugs. Yet his instincts screamed that he was an idiot for doing this.

Now, Roberto was probably the most inexperienced person to go looking for a cryptid. But also...c'mon. He was curious and this was the perfect way to start getting experience in cyrptid hunting. Plus, it couldn't be that hard right?

He was very wrong about that.

Apparently the forest hated him because it felt like it was constantly watching him. Wherever he walked he could feel his neck hairs standing up. And he kept feeling like he was being watched. Not a good vibe if you asked him. But he would not quit, because that meant admitting this was a bad idea and Roberto would rather die before admit he had a bad idea.

Despite that, he swallowed and kept going deeper into the forest, at one point turning on his flashlight because the trees got so thick that it blocked the moonlight. Lovely. The flashlight cut through shadows that that very clearly looked like things if you looked long enough.

But that was okay! It was cool. He was brave. He was powerful. He was—

WAS THAT A PAIR OF EYES??

He saw a pair of eyes, bright and unmistakable, staring at him from the mouth of a shallow cave

He nearly shat himself. If he was honest.

He was about to run, to run out of the forest and never go back and tell everyone that he'd seen the thing but it had ran away.

At least until the thing shifted, moving into the area illuminated by his flashlight.

And Roberto blinked.

Multiple times.

"...huh."

Because it was...a guy. It wasn't a towering beast or a mass of antlers and darkness. It was a guy. A very weird looking guy though he'd admit, something just felt...wrong about him. But honestly, Roberto would've assumed he was just a mutant with a visible mutation if he didn't know the high chance that it was a cryptid.

"Hey! Hi! Uh....are you a cryptid?" He asked, voice clearly terrified yet also very curious. Before he quickly tacked on, "I'm not trying to be rude or anything! You're just...not what I was expecting."

Roberto swallowed again, nerves buzzing and yet the curiosity and fear blended together to where he didn't know where one ended and where the other began.

Maybe not the best way to start out, but how did you start a conversation with a cryptid??