Riley: The Partner Who Puts Riolu and Lucario in Your Hands

A stranger follows you, heals your team, then leaves, handing you an Egg. Riley fills just a few minutes of Sinnoh's story and a much bigger place in players' teams: it's through him, and him alone, that Riolu and Lucario make their way into Diamond and Pearl. The rest of his portrait comes down to one word—aura—and one Pokémon, his own.

Contents

• The Iron Island Partner
• A Team Built Entirely Around Attack
• "Bernard" in the French Dub, a Training Mentor in the Manga
• An Echo of Sir Aaron
• Riley at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Iron Island Partner

Sinnoh hands five of its most grueling areas over to Trainers who accompany the hero for one stretch of the journey, and Riley is the one for Iron Island, the islet you can only reach by boat. You can meet him before or after earning the Gym badge in Canalave City, and, like Buck at Stark Mountain, he accompanies the player through a single area, patching up the team after every battle.

The escort isn't just for show: he lends a hand against two Team Galactic Grunts before letting the player move on. Once the way is clear, he asks for nothing—he hands over an Egg and exits the main story.

This Egg holds a Riolu, and there's no second one: in these versions, the entire evolutionary line of Lucario hinges on this single gift. A character just passing through thus becomes the only gateway to a species the game doesn't hand out anywhere else.

🔥 That Egg turned out well: see the section dedicated to Lucario.

A Team Built Entirely Around Attack

Once the story wraps up, Riley settles in around the battle facilities. You can pick him as your partner for Multi Battles at the Battle Tower in Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, then in HeartGold and SoulSilver. His lineup isn't fixed there: he draws from a pool, with a clear preference for high Attack stats.

That pool has a quirk worth pointing out: it includes every single so-called pseudo-legendary Pokémon from the first four generations. In HeartGold and SoulSilver, the game takes the opportunity to rework his Lucario's moveset.

Platinum gives him a second address, the Battleground in the Survival Area, where he battles the player alongside the Gym Leaders. The team he fields there applies his doctrine to the letter: Absol, Ursaring, Metagross, Salamence and Lucario—five heavy hitters and not a single wall. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl bring him back at the Battle Tower, in Master Class Double Battles, paired with fellow Trainer Marley.

"Bernard" in the French Dub, a Training Mentor in the Manga

The anime brings him to Iron Island under a different name in the French dub, "Bernard", for two episodes of the Diamond & Pearl series. There he joins Ash and his friends around a machine brought in by Commander Mars, which scans the entire island in search of something.

The device has a brutal side effect: the island's Steel-type Pokémon suffer and go out of control. Riley and his Lucario then draw on aura to defuse the crisis, and keep Team Galactic's bombs from reducing the place to rubble.

The manga starts with a brief cameo at the very end of the Emerald arc, on the road to Hoenn's Battle Frontier. He returns much later, tasked by Byron with training Diamond, whose battle skills lag behind those of his companions.

The training lasts three days on Iron Island and boils down to a loop: running a course through the abandoned mine again and again, under attack from wild Pokémon. Riley comes across as a formidable Trainer without a trace of arrogance, and the manga also credits him with mastery of aura: after his student leaves, he recovers a Team Galactic drone whose evil aura he senses, traces it back to its source and goes on to face Sird during the battle at Spear Pillar.

An Echo of Sir Aaron

The resemblance to Sir Aaron is too strong to be a coincidence: same Lucario, same silhouette, same gift for aura. The detail that seals the comparison is tiny and deliberate—the symbol on Riley's necklace is the one the Aura Guardian wears on his gloves.

A second lookalike has appeared since, over in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, in the person of a man named Rye. Once again a Lucario, a very similar look, and a hat just like Riley's that goes on sale at the Clothier once his mission is complete. Still, no official link has ever been established between the two men.

His career outside the main games is low-key but real. The Trading Card Game gave him his first card in September 2022, in the Sword & Shield—Lost Origin expansion, and the mobile game recruited him in February 2024, in his canonical outfit and as a sync pair with Lucario—his profile there stresses his ability to read other people's emotions through their aura.

Riley at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Where do you meet Riley?
  On Iron Island, which you reach by boat. You can meet him before or after earning the Canalave City Gym badge, and he then travels with the player, healing their team after every battle.
• Why is Riley essential in Diamond and Pearl?
  Because he gives you a Riolu Egg after the battle against the two Team Galactic Grunts. It's the only way to get Riolu, and therefore Lucario, in these versions.
• Which Pokémon does Riley use?
  His Lucario goes everywhere with him. At the Battleground in Platinum, he fields Absol, Ursaring, Metagross, Salamence and Lucario: a team made up entirely of Pokémon with very high Attack.
• Does Riley appear in the anime?
  Yes, for two episodes of the Diamond & Pearl series, under the name Bernard in the French dub. He helps Ash shut down a Team Galactic machine set up on Iron Island.
• Is Riley Sir Aaron?
  No, they're two separate characters. They share a Lucario, a similar look and the power of aura, and the symbol on Riley's necklace echoes the one on the Aura Guardian's gloves, but nothing makes them the same person.

In short

Riley fits into a handful of scenes, and yet few secondary characters weigh as heavily on a playthrough: without him, Sinnoh has neither Riolu nor Lucario. The rest of his profile spins the same idea three ways—a team that bets everything on raw power, an aura ability that the anime and the manga both recognize, and a silhouette that keeps pointing back to other Lucario Trainers. A bit part, with the footprint of a major character.