User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Chapter 488: The Two of Us, Always, Review/@comment-7418318-20160606144515

Mest's actions do have one positive effect to them (from an out-of-universe perspective): Unpredictability.

Depending on just how hurt and enraged August is, he may or may not recognize that it was really Mest who attacked him and not Brandish. So he can consider Brandish either his ally, his enemy or someone who's neither.

Brandish, depending on how this betrayal hits her exactly, could also side with August against FT, try to calm down August, which could bring her into conflict with him or outright attack Mest. Or she could even start attacking Lucy and Natsu too because she's so out of it as to believe they were complicit.

Natsu is already about to beat up Mest, so there's another potential for conflict there if he fights back (he's also quite out of it, so he might just resist on instinct rather than thinking things through).

In short except for Natsu, Lucy and Happy everyone else can potentially be in a battle royale.

That makes it really unpredictable how the story will move on, which is always a good thing. ^^