Fandom High School

Today the room was a massive grid. Each square was about half a meter on each side and they seemed to stretch on almost forever. "Today, and most days for the rest of the semester, we'll be running during the lecture. So everyone keep up with me and feel free to ask questions if you have the breath to." With that Max set off at a decent pace, not hard enough to really push himself, he needed enough breath to lecture, after all, but hard enough that it wasn't a walk in the park.

"One of the keys to regular infantry combat is cohesion on the field. Since the battle is larger than any single person, it is important for you to have absolute faith that the rest of your team is where they are supposed to be. You must be able to focus on your assigned area and trust your teammates to watch the rest of them."

"Formations are how we do this. A formation describes not only where people stand, but also the areas which they are assigned to cover. A good formation ensures adequate coverage in all directions without becoming too confusing. Formations vary in size. Some are designed for groups of four, some for groups of four hundred. Two of the most common forms of formation are the line and the column. The line is a slow-moving but extremely powerful formation for fighting. It brings the maximum number of fighters to bear on the enemy by having the entire formation in one long side-by-side line, and having everyone side-by-side assures that they can provide cover for each other. The column is basically the opposite: it is poor for combat, but excellent for maneuvering. Each member of the formation stands behind another in one long column. This means that the formation can move through tight spaces and can turn rather quickly, but it also means that only the front few people can fight at once."

"You'll also notice that, for the most part, both of these formations are forward-facing. If someone gets around to the side or behind one of them then they're in trouble. This is why we have even slower formations like the square, sometimes called a block. In the square you have a number of line formations set up back to back so that they can watch out for each other, but you can imagine how hard it is to move efficiently like that."

"We'll be doing an exercise today involving formations. Form a line, each of you side-by-side, in the order you signed in arrived to class in." Max didn't stop running, apparently he expected them to do it on the move. "Come on, I don't have all day."

Once the line was roughly formed, Max continued. "You should stand close enough together that you can touch the shoulders of the people on either side of you. And you need to maintain that spacing no matter what. If I order you to stop, you all need to stop at once. If I order you to turn, you need to figure out how to rotate your entire line."

He smiled a bit sadistically. "Let's see how fast you can manage to learn that, shall we?"