Altar of the Emeralds (Sonic X)

Altar of the Emeralds is a place on Angel Island that appeared in the anime series ''Sonic X. ''It is a large shrine that the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald are stored onto.

Appearance
During the Knuckles tribe reign, the altar was surrounded with a giant wall built upon large pillars. The inner sanctuary consists of seven pillars which at each end of a pillar is a Chaos Emerald floating above it. The central shrine hosts the Master Emerald inside, and acts like a fountain which water pours from. After the catastrophe that happened to the Knuckles Clan, the Altar of the Emeralds is now left broken, having a ruined exterior wall and central shrine, and several pillars are either missed or destroyed

Description
Although it is seem it just used to contain the eight emeralds, the shrine possess mysterious properties that allowes it to receive objects from other dimensions, possibly due to the close connection to the emeralds.

Early history
The Altar of the Emeralds was once part of Mystic Ruins on Sonic's homeworld, where the Chaos Emerald and the Master Emerald resided, and was once inhabited by the Chao.

During the reign of Pachacamac, the Knuckles Clan tried to steal the Emeralds from the altar to empower themselves. Tikal tried to make the guardian of the shrine, Chaos leave the altar with the Chao, but it declined. Similarly, Pachacamac refused to not take the Emeralds for his own gain, and thus injured Tikal and the Chao at the altar when they tried to stop the clan's raid of the altar. Fueled by anger, Chaos used the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Perfect Chaos and nearly erased the clan from existence. In exchange for saving the world however, Tikal sealed herself in the Master Emerald along with Chaos, to the beast's wrath in check. From that point on, the altar was left broken and stayed on what would become later, the Angel Island.

Chaos Saga
Six months after Angel Island was got brought to Earth by Chaos Control, Dr. Eggman attacked the altar and released Chaos, which also released Tikal, who would seek Sonic and Knuckles to contain Chaos again. Also at the same time, Knuckles made several trips to the Altar of the Emeralds to restore the Master Emerald after it was shattered.

Shadow and Homeworld Saga
A spitting-image of the Altar of the Emeralds was soon after discovered inside the Eclipse Cannon which was used to channel the power of the Chaos Emeralds into the Space Colony ARK. To stop the ARK from colliding with the earth, Sonic and co. put the Master Emerald into the artificial altar to nullify the Chaos Emeralds' power. Eventually, the original altar was warped back to Sonic's homeworld.

Metarex Saga
The Altar of the Emeralds appeared in a few scenes in the Metarex Saga too. During the episode "Galactic Gumshoes", when Chris' parents tried to send his belongings to Sonic's homeworld, they appeared besides the altar hinting of a special power it might posses. In "So Long Sonic", Knuckles brought back the Master Emerald shards to the altar, in hope that the shards could pile up to form the Master Emerald once again.