Sorry if this comes across as me being aggressive, but there's just a couple of points I'm curious about.
I get Natsu countering Melt (though even then it would probs do some damage to him), but how is he going to counter August's other spells? As far as I can remember, Melt is August's only heat based attack.
That would only happen once though, if August throws out Melt and realizes that Natsu is incredibly heat/fire resistant/can eat fire, why would he keep using fire magic? Especially since he's got plenty of other spells that (while not on the level of Melt) are impressive in their own right.
Why are they crappy? O_o
Keep in mind that August solo'd Jellal, Cobra, Racer, Midnight and Hoteye with their own magic. Not to mention that his Meteor effortlessly blitzed Gildarts and Cana. And while not 100% canon, August should at least have a couple of Heavenly Body magic spells (not Sema though) since Jellal said that no matter what they tried they couldn't gain any ground. Again though, that last bit is just my speculation.
Also keep in mind that since August retains the magic he copies (him using Meteor is basically proof of this) he could theoretically be:
- Slowing Natsu's perceptions (this is really brutal since he could just go Meteor at the same time and blitz Natsu into oblivion)
- Reading his thoughts
- Putting him into illusions (again, pretty brutal since he could just put him in an illusion and spam nukes)
- Bending his fire magic away via Reflector (though he doesn't need to)
- Liquidating the ground Natsu's standing on
I just don't see how Natsu deals with any of this.
The problem here is that August is amazingly skilled in CQC too, and unlike Natsu he can also use his magic whenever he wants. I'm not trying to say that Natsu isn't strong (he's top-tier in DF, one of the strongest Ishgarians in FDKM, and is apparently > DF Natsu in base (seems legit)), but he's going against a character that is absurdly broken.
Aye, no worries
Thing is, the entirety of your line of logic abides by the concept that August is capable of keeping the magics he copied in the past, something that is very unlikely to be as it causes several plot holes:
- For example, if he really did permanently copy Erik's magic as you claimed, he would've never been hit or taken by surprise by Gildarts, as he would've heard him. As it was shown, Erik's magic is active at all times, yet the only time we see August use it is right when he copies him. Furthermore, Gildarts found out about August's trick but August only showed surprise when Gildarts told him out loud. If he could read Gildarts's thoughts, he would've heard that he realized it earlier, not when Gildarts said it. He would've also heard Cana arriving, Gildarts coming in to destroy the cathedral, etc.
- Same with Sawyer's spell. August could've easily destroyed Gildarts in terms of speed, yet he moves like a normal human
- Same with Macbeth's magic or the majority of other spells. Heck, he could've spammed ungodly attacks against Gildarts many times rather than relying ONLY on countering Gildarts's magic and using a few simple spells he knows outside of his copying magic
- The "meteor" he used doesn't appear to be heavenly body magic, as it does look relatively different to how Meteor works (we have Jellal's recent meteor for reference, August's lacks a lot of the visual details of meteor) and most importantly lies the fact that it's easily visible despite Natsu claiming that meteor is too quick to be percieved by normal human senses. Not even Acno was able to see Jellal, while Gildarts is able to see August before he hits the two of them. With that, it appears to just be a very quick charge attack
- This also applies to the simpler magics he's used, being the barrier he used to protect Ajeel, the bullet he used to shoot Mira (though arguably he could've copied that from Irene) and the magic blasts he's thrown out of his staff. He appears to know some basics to avoid relying only on his magic all the time, but that's why I adressed them as "crappy", because you can't compare some bullet/blast magic to the more intricate spells we've seen
- If August had the capability of keeping any magic he learned, we would've definetely seen that. He'd be on a completely different league in the story and most definetely wouldn't have been knocked out by Gildarts had he had such a power. He could've easily heard his every attack, destroyed him in terms of speed, pulled him into countless illusions and nuked the hell out of him, all things he was clearly limited in doing
- Oh and one last thing, the "melt" attack was called a "heat" attack or even "blaze" attack in other translations. Not to mention, when August recalls when Gildarts is talking about copied magic, he shows us a panel of him using that heat spell, meaning that he copied it right there from Natsu
So if we take in consideration the fact that there's rather weak proof towards August being able to keep the magic, with a lot of evidence against it, it means that against Natsu, he could only keep copying Natsu's magic or using one of his crappy knock-off spells, which might not be able to do much, as we saw with Gildarts. So unless he goes full Ars Magia, which is prohibited in this tournament, I don't see him beating the plot beast that is Natsu without being able to copy some proper magic from someone else, which is impossible given this tournament's rules. All magic he copies from Natsu is useless, so all he has going for him is some basic types of magic, which is why I'd have to give Natsu the victory
