Alicia certainly wasn't wrong in presuming that it was rather obvious how tense and not okay she was about this. Higgs didn't have to have a lifetime of experience in assessing the enemy (not that she was one), to be able to tell that she didn't find the situation particularly comfortable. Not that there was much he could do much with this information, because they still had to do this. Whether she thought so or not. Nonetheless, Higgs was almost surprised when she did actually step closer to take a swing at him. What he was a lot more surprised about was the absolutely pathetic attempt at it.
It took next to no effort on Higgs' part to overpower her. In fact, he hadn't even intended to do so, but the instincts kicked in before he could really help it, and in three moves, Higgs had managed to block her hit, hook his foot behind her ankle and send them both tumbling to the ground. If he had had eyes for anything but her, he would have noticed that some of the other hitwizards and hitwitches testing the recruits had looked over. It wasn't really a common practice for a recruit to take a hitwitch down in one move. Not that Higgs could take much pride in the move, since Alicia was definitely distracted and it irked him. "You need to relax," he told her before getting back up.
Higgs held a hand out to Alicia to pull her back up. She really did need to relax, because Higgs was sure that if she hadn't, he could do some real damage, without ever meaning to.