The Superhero's Powers (The Superhero's Son Book 4) by Lucas Flint

looked normal aside from the fact that it had only three long, spindly fingers instead of five normal ones.
    Speaking of the 'weird, sticky smelly substance,' I am pretty sure that that was what the Pokacu had hit me with. It pinned me to the floor and was rapidly solidifying even as I lay there. I tried to sit up, but it was too thick for me to fight. I tried to remember what the Internet had told me about this stuff and then I remembered that it was what the aliens had used to capture people to hold as prisoner on their ships. It was also supposed to be poisonous to consume, or at least that was the dominant theory.
    But I didn't care about that right now, because I was too busy staring at the Pokacu in shock. I thought my eyes had to be playing tricks on me or that this was some kind of illusion, but the alien standing before us looked every bit as real as Mom and me.
    I looked over at Mom. She was backed up into the corner of her seat, like she was trying to make herself unnoticeable to the alien, but the Pokacu didn't even seem to notice her. It was looking at me, maybe because it thought I was the biggest threat or something, but I wasn't sure because it was impossible to know what it was thinking.
    “K-Kevin?” Mom said. Her voice was very low and very afraid. “What … what is that?”
    The Pokacu finally seemed to notice Mom was there, because it looked up at her. It took one step forward into the pod, but as soon as it did that, Mom screamed and threw her purse at it.
    The purse hit the Pokacu square in the face, but that didn't seem to hurt it so much as annoyed it. It aimed its cannon at Mom and fired more of that sticky blue substance.
    Mom tried to dodge it, but the substance struck Mom and stuck her to her seat. She tried to get up anyway, but the blue glue (which I remembered was what it was called) was solidifying even faster than mine was.
    “Mom!” I shouted. “No!”
    I heard movement in front of me and looked at the Pokacu again. It had bent over and picked up Mom's purse, which it was now examining as if it had never seen such a thing before. It opened the purse and examined its contents, but then made a weird grunting noise.
    Then the Pokacu tapped a button on its armor. A compartment opened in its chest plate, into which it tossed the purse, which clanged from somewhere inside the compartment before the Pokacu tapped the button again and closed the compartment.
    Huh. I didn't know that Pokacu liked purses.
    But then I shook my head. I had to focus on the situation at hand, not think about this alien's weird habits. I tried to get up, but the blue glue was as solid as steel now. Maybe if I had had my super strength, I would have been able to break it, but because I was just an ordinary teen now, all I could do was uselessly struggle against it, and I gave up on that soon enough.
    The Pokacu walked over to me, ignoring Mom, who looked like she was about to have a heart attack. The Pokacu stopped before me and pointed its organic hand cannon at my face, which I thought meant that it was going to shoot some of that blue glue into my face.
    Suddenly, however, the Pokacu spoke. Its voice sounded gargled and strained, as if it was not used to speaking in English or even just speaking at all. And that was the weirdest part; real English words came from its mouth, though its pronunciation was slightly off.
    “Are you a masked human?” said the Pokacu. Its voice sounded masculine, but I had no idea if Pokacu even had male and female sexes, but I decided to think of it as male anyway because that was easier than just thinking of it as an it all the time. “What powers do you have? And where did you get this Pokacu escape pod?”
    “Masked human?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
    The Pokacu looked like he was searching for the right words. “Super person. Super … superhero. Yes, I think that is the word you humans use to describe humans like you, who wear strange costumes and can do things like